Five Cups of Tea

I turn 29 in 22 hours (Dubai Time). I usually don’t advertise my birthday beyond a small group of friends but this year I’ve brought it up in nearly every conversation, I’ve mentioned it to nearly everyone on the entertainment staff or in the circus tent. I’ve filled the next few days with plans, people, and things to do for it.

Because it hit me like a brick not too long ago that I was absolutely dreading this weekend, dreading my birthday. As in a casual mention of it from a family member last week set off an avalanche of emotions I was not expecting or prepared for at all. I was hit by a wave of general rage against… basically everything in front of me and realized that something is wrong.

And it quickly hit me exactly what was going on. Last year my father flew into Dubai to spend my birthday with me and to finally see what I actually do for a living out here in the desert. It was the last trip he’ll ever take in his lifetime. My travel buddy, my fellow history nerd, my dad, will not ever get on a plane again. If he does, it will only be to move him to the facility where he will spend the end of his life.

My birthday last year, and the three days surrounding it, was the last long stretch of time I will ever have my dad with me again. Because nowadays it’s his disease that I’m sitting next to or talking with on the phone. Not him. Not my witty, storytelling, sarcastic, brilliant, bad joke-cracking father who’s been my rock for most of my life.

He was diagnosed with Dementia in April, he was hospitalized as I was boarding a plane coming home. In the 6 months following, he declined more rapidly than we ever could have imagined. We nearly lost him in August. The diagnosis was changed to Rapid-Progressive Dementia and he’s since been put on 24-hour care. His brain has atrophied in the frontal and temporal lobes, his short term memory is all but gone. He enters “looping” behaviors to cope, taking out the trash 5 times an hour, turning on the dryer several times a night, or bringing me 5 cups of tea in 15 minutes.

I’m his Power of Attorney. His financial affairs and much of the remainder of his life is in my hands. My sister helps and we have a support team of financial advisors and estate attorneys behind us but it doesn’t detract from the paralytic pressure and terror I often face when sitting at his desk or staring down my to-do list of bills to pay and institutions to call. Or just facing the reality that my father, my once protector and caregiver, has become my charge. I can no longer trust him. With even the simplest of tasks.

The day he was diagnosed, he turned to me sitting next to him at the doctor’s office and made me swear to him that I would not give up my life to take care of him. And I would, we both knew I would. I did give it up for 6 months to make sure I could keep my job, this job that has become so much of my life. Because he told me point blank that he would kill me himself if I gave up my contract in Dubai just to be there for him.

So I handle our family’s financials and his progress through emails and apps. I manage his bills and check in with my sister and his caregiver as often as I can without feeling like a helicopter parent. And without compromising my time here. Because this job, this experience, these people, are so important to me and to my future. This is the kind of life I want to be living right now.

And I need to still listen to the wisdom of my father and actually live it.

So I’ve filled these heavy looming days as much as I can with things that I love. My favorite cafe on the water, salsa dancing, paddle boarding at my favorite beach here, wine on a terrace overlooking the sunset, and, of course, the people I’ve come to call family from all over the world. The people who keep a smile on my face and keep me moving through the darker realities of losing a parent long distance. The handful of them who know are making sure the reality that my father won’t remember my birthday doesn’t hit me too hard too fast. And reminding me that they will be there when it does.

And I remember those 5 cups of tea, one in a small bowl when he ran out of glasses and mugs. I was sitting at his kitchen-table-turned-desk, my last time making sure I’ve crossed all T and dotted all i’s before I leave the country. Did he know what I was working on? Did he remember exactly what had transpired the last 6 months as I stepped in to take over his life? I don’t know. I never know exactly what is sticking and what is not. My usually talkative father has become more taciturn in an attempt to hide that he can’t follow complex conversations anymore.

But I do know, as he continued to bring me mugs, glasses, and a bowl of my favorite tea, he was showing me how much he loved me, in the best way he still knew how.

xoxo