Crippled with Guilt

It Ain't Easy to Hide When You're Crippled with Guilt Inside!

I wrote this entry right before I met my husband and three years prior to the death of my mother, who at the time was bedridden with breathing problems, Parkinson’s Disease, arthritis and not to mention, worsening dementia. This was also the beginning of the end of my father as I knew him. A few weeks earlier, he basically “checked out.” He got his affairs in order—handed me important keys, papers and told me where to find other important documents. He turned off his hearing aid and we have barely had a normal conversation ever since then.

My father stands on the fourth step that leads up to a medical clinic on Junction Blvd. A boulevard of broken dreams.  Set in the heart of Corona, Junction Blvd. is the main strip of an impoverished Hispanic neighborhood in Queens, near Shea Stadium. It is a town immortalized by Paul Simon in Me and Julio Down by the School Yard as well as the Lemon Ice King of Corona. It is now a bleak block that is chock full of shops—mostly stores that hock inexpensive goods. Along with the obligatory Mickey D’s, Dunkin Donuts and Duane Reade, Junction Blvd.  is filled with seemingly endless amounts of check cashing places and signs like compra ahora, pague despues (Buy now. Pay later). In fact, one of these signs flashes in a window in a store that hocks a variety of household items along with Cingular phone packages.  There are infinite amounts of cheap clothing stores—featuring low cut halters, short minis as well as dresses with bold prints and plunging necklines in their windows.

In the middle of the block, a short stout Hispanic woman with long, jet black hair positions herself in front of a giant Igloo cooler. She clutches a toddler in one hand and a bottle of Poland Springs in the other. “Agua, agua,” she cries out, desperately hawking her water. A bottle that goes for un dolar. One dollar. So insignificant to me—a nice, Jewish middle class teacher. But probably a big deal to this seemingly poor immigrant woman.

My dad and I are in the heart of Corona in desperate search of a notary public to authorize a form from the Banco Popular. It is a paper that my dad needs in order to continue receiving his Medicaid. The closest branch is here. There is a notary atop the clinic’s stairs. We have to climb. We need to sit. We need to wait.  One more step. One step at a time. 

Two emotional cripples. That is what my aunt always called my parents. Ever since I can remember, my folks lay in bed the way Charlie’s grandparents did in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That was normal to me. Occasionally, they would arise just like Grandpa Joe when he got up to help Charlie find the golden ticket at Wonka’s candy land.  

But there was never any rainbow at the end of my parents' daily journey. My mom would go to work as a high school aide. My dad hasn’t worked in over thirty years. But he would get up. Go downstairs. Stop at the donut shop for our muffins and crullers, buy the New York Times and be fully immersed in the day’s news by the time I woke up.  My dad and I used to talk about everything from the pitfalls of Reaganomics to the perpetual crisis in the Middle East as well as my own struggles to make friends, get a boyfriend and fit in at work.

Ooh, child. Things are gonna get easier. Only now I am not a child. I am a forty year old woman still unmarried, still trying to fit in and make sense of the world.

Why the hell do we have to be here in Corona today? Why do I have to schlep with you to this poor, God-forsaken neighborhood?  Why do I have to scour Junction Blvd. in this blistering heat, roaming up and down like a lost puppy in search of a notary? Why dad? Why do you need this bank statement from Medicaid? Why can’t you be like everyone else’s father who works and retires with a nifty pension or the pop who has amassed enough wealth to live comfortably in those golden years? Why can’t you run your errands like you used to?

At least, my best friend—my Greek best friend who may know as much Yiddish as both Jackie Mason and Alan King is here to keep us company. She drove us here and waits with my dad as I zip up and down Junction on a mission like Wylie Coyote trying to capture the Road Runner.

The first bank I drag my father to will not notarize his form.

“I am sorry. His passport expired,” says the uncompassionate clerk with the tight bun, tight skirt and even tighter ass.

“Yeah but he has his Medicaid card. He’s got his social security card. Who do you think that is on his passport photo—the man on the moon?” I angrily retort.

“I am sorry. Those are the rules. You must have recent I.D. and his expired.”

Lo siento to you to, bitch.  Do you have any idea of all the aggravation I have been through this week trying to secure documentation for Medicaid? Do you care that the day before I traveled with my dad to Manhattan to the URO so they could help him reinstate his funds from Germany? An Auschwitz survivor who lost eighty members of his family during the war whose life always sucked. For the last thirty years, he basically stayed at home and was unable to work crippled by depression and in some instances, manic depression.  Does anyone care that my father can lose his Medicaid?

What’s the matter with me? Why am I obsessing abut closing out this Banco Popular account? Am I just so selfish wanting to close out an account whose funds I could then take and escape to Bermuda or the Bahamas?  No. Got to close out the account and get the paperwork to Medicaid so my father can continue receiving home-care. This stupid account puts him over the legal limit of funds the city permits people who receive services.

 My father, the emotional cripple now clings to his cane and stairway railing is just a shadow of the man I once knew.  He is no longer the man who read the Times cover to cover, voraciously viewed CNN and MSNBC and despite being housebound would engage in conversations for hours. The man who faced so much adversity in his life. The man who said he never gave up hope was giving up. 

“I can’t make it up the stairs. I am too tired,” he says with weakened breath.

             Instead of grasping his hand and saying, “Dad, it is okay.” I find myself taking hold of his arm and urging him, “Come on.  You can do it.”

But instead of my father ascending victoriously atop the stairs like Rocky Balboa, he lets go of the railing and falls down the stairs, hitting his head on the hard floor. His hearing aid begins buzzing. He sits momentarily motionless.

 Is he doing this on purpose? Like the way he lies in bed all the time staring at the ceiling when I damn well know he can get up, put on the television, grab the newspaper and begin a conversation like he used to. Like how he refuses to take medication for his depression and instead chooses to remain in his pajamas and sleep for most of the day and most of his life.  Why is my father who used to know everything about politics and the plight of New York City’s homeless population now having not only his body but also his mind grow weaker and feeble?

 I am frozen with fear.  I am crippled with guilt. What if my father is seriously injured or worse? How would I ever live with the fact that in my panicked attempt to settle bank business, I could have killed my father? Thankfully there is no blood just a bump on his head. The clinic’s doctor flies down the stairs trying to help. Asking in broken English, “Are you okay?”

 I am not surprised that there is no response.  My father’s hearing aid is now in my hands like all of his business. He sits up staring blankly ahead like he has done for the past couple of years, cut off from the world. Disengaged and disinterested. He recently disavowed having anything to do with Don, a close family friend who was like a son. A man who never judged him. A man who was the only visitor to his home besides me.  In his paranoid state, he has decided that Don tried to steal money for him when in reality; Don has assisted us with financial matters and took care of all of my father’s bills.

 Okay. This accident doesn’t seem to be so bad. . But what if he has some internal injury? Ooh, child… Please tell me everything is going to be all right. Not only is my dad going to be okay but I can finally get the happy ever after that I have so desperately wanted for all of these years. Why can’t somebody please love me?

The ambulance finally arrives.  After several hours in the ER’s trauma room, he is deemed fit to go home. Go home to what? My mother whose frail body is now ridden with arthritis, Parkinson’s disease and chronic lung disease. My mother who, too is battling dementia and memory loss. My mother who lies on the bed getting changed and diapered by the home health aide like she was a baby. Two emotional cripples now have their bodies crippled with various physical ailments. They have round the clock home-care.  Thankfully, two of the kindest and caring health aides assist them with all of their needs. In and out of emergency rooms. Is a nursing home around the corner? To quote the Rolling Stones, “What a drag it is getting old.”

All of this uncertainty. What kind of life is this for my parents?

What kind of life is this for me?