It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post. That’s because we haven’t traveled much. The last two and a half years we devoted ourselves to caring for our parents. My mother and father and Bill’s mom. It was more than a full-time job. Bill is retired and I had to stop working. Being far from home became a non-option.
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| Back Row: Diane Ducey Murphy, Mike "Jerry" Ducey Front Row: Cecille Ducey, Marguerite Murphy, Bill Murphy |
We are not the first to sacrifice everything to the care of their aging parents and we won’t be the last. The only thing that makes our story unique is the fact that it is ours. This is not about self-pity. It's just what it is. It is also, I hope, an homage to all who walked this path before us and those who will follow in our footsteps. Because they are not alone and their struggle is not understood well enough. The truth is, Bill and I feel lucky to have been able to be there for our parents, but it was not an easy thing. It never is.
We managed every aspect of their lives. We hired, fired, and scheduled the aides and paid them, we paid the household bills, we took them to all their doctors appointments, we knew the name of and reason for every drug they took by heart, we knew every symptom they exhibited, we became experts on their insurance coverage, we spent uncountable hours in emergency rooms, hospital rooms, and nursing home rooms, and as many hours on the phone fighting tooth and nail to get them the care they deserved, but would never get without our intervention.
Even when we managed to spend a few days upstate in the RV at our favorite campground in Saugerties, NY, we were on 24-hour call to handle things. From the smallest issue to the most dire.
It was relentless and often overwhelming, but we wouldn’t have had it any other way. They were our parents. That’s what love is. As hard as it was, neither of us could have done anything else. Additionally, we were lucky enough to be able to keep all three at home in the last years if their lives. A true blessing.
I’ll spare you the details of two and half years worth of ailments and close calls, and give you the Reader’s Digest version of the last year.
My Dad was diagnosed with terminal leukemia in mid October of 2017. He passed on January 16, 2018 - on Bill’s mom’s birthday. He was 85. My mom was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer in early August of 2018. She passed on September 10, 2018. She was 82. On October 1st, my Dad’s birthday, my first without him, Bill’s mom had a bad fall breaking her femur at the knee. She was 99 years old. She passed on October 5, 2018. To say it was a difficult year is an understatement, but we were holding our own. Until the new year rolled around and it all finally hit me.
At the stroke of midnight, January 1, 2019, Bill and I began the first year of our lives without our parents. I didn’t cry much when my Dad died, or when my Mom died eight months later, or when Bill’s mom died four weeks after that. I think because I was numb.
We both held it together quite well through my Dad’s fist birthday without him, my Mom’s first birthday without her, Bill’s first birthday without his mom, and our first Thanksgiving and Christmas without all three. But on New Year’s Eve night, when the hour struck midnight, I cried a year’s worth of tears.
It made no sense. I couldn’t wait for the year to end. Prior to New Year's Eve, I was all “Good riddance 2018!” and “Hello 2019!” I didn't know it until the moment arrived, but turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong. Saying goodbye to the worst year of my life was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Because it also meant saying goodbye to the last year our parents lived. And it broke my heart into a million pieces.
-Diane
