Life, Money, and the Largest Wound...Part IV

My dream the night before my mother's funeral had come true.  At the funeral, as I tried to extend my arms long enough to wrap around my 3 children to console them, it hit me that the dream was coming true.  They cried their little eyes out...but I could not cry for Mama.  She had been so ready to go...so tired...so much tragedy at the end of her life that her will to live had been sucked out of her.  She was in a better place now...away from the hell her life had been the last 10 years.  I was happy for her and felt the joy of her spirit being in heaven now.

My father took her death hard.  He was so lost without her.  We talked alot at night about how much he missed her.  For many months, he would awaken and believe she was there....either on her bed next to him or in her rocking chair in the room...talking to him...and several times I walked in to hear him conversing with someone.  When I asked him who he was talking to, he would say "Marylee", my mother.  He has been on morphine since his accident and though I tried to chalk it up to the medications, at times he would be talking to her and having a conversation I could hear from the next room and it genuinely seemed like he was talking to someone.

I told him the first week of her death that things would change.  I would be there to take care of him, but I could not sugar-coat life like my mother could.  It would be tougher on both of us, but we would be alright.
I even joked about us having a 'bachelor pad'....not noticing that my sister and brother were both listening carefully...worrying about how this would play out in the end.

I have been a bachelor for over 10 years and have had many girlfriends come and go.  Everyone knows my nickname 'Don Juan' and though they think it's funny, I don't like it much....for my kids....or my reputation.
Within a month or two of her death, I met a woman who I cared about.  It was my first online experience with meeting someone and she seemed to genuinely care about me.  She brought clothes and started staying at the house with us.  Daddy liked her and thought she was pretty and it was nice to have a woman in the house to help ease the pain of our loss.  I was taking care of him, but after a few weeks of no sleep and continually running home to help him, I realized we needed some help.  I contacted the new guardian of the estate, my mother's brother, to see if we could get some home-hospice to give us a hand as he was now legally in control of the estate.
We got a really nice lady to come help during the day, which made it easier for me to work longer hours at work.  At first, my father told me he didn't like her and was ready to fire her like all the many field-hands we had gone through since his accident.  I told him he needed to give her a few weeks, and if he still felt that way then, we would try someone new.  She ended up winning him over to my delight and things went smoothly for a few months.  The girlfriend stayed with me and this new home-hospice nurse got along well with her.  We both were beginning to heal from my mother's passing.  Things seemed to be working out for us.

I was in real estate since my return and one of the things we had needed to do was sell the large lakehouse as my father was unable to go and enjoy it any longer and the family had grown tired of it.  I had begun marketing the property and continually drove to the lake to check on things.  We had an offer or two, but it was an expensive property and there was no need to hurry and lose money.  My first indication of the days ahead came when I drove down to check on the property and noticed a different real estate company's sign in the yard.  At first I thought it was a joke, then a mistake, then I drove home as soon as possible to find out what the heck was going on.  I found out that my uncle, the executor of the estate, had decided to take the listing of the property from me and hire an agent from the lake who worked at a much smaller real estate firm.  I was not even allowed to get a referral, a standard thing in the business of real estate.  I was not even given a reason why from my uncle....which concerned me greatly.   The property even sold with a couple of months from a family that had seen it in one of my firms advertisements months earlier.   It would be a sign of things to come...

About this time, the girlfriend ended up needing to go back to her home as she had begun to have bouts of depression and mental anxiety due to the fact she could not afford to get her medicine in the last year.  Though she had told me about this in the beginning, her depression was getting worse and I knew she needed help.  I got her enrolled in a free medicine program that would get her pills shipped to her home and took her home.  It was a sad time for me.  I really cared about her and though things did not work out, I still talk to her from time to time to see if she is doing well.  She was very beautiful and loving while she was with me, but we just weren't meant to be.  We both knew that...

A month or two passed and I had been staying up with my father at night trying to take care of him.  His colostomy was acting up and I was going without sleep alot and trying to work during the day full time.  I decided maybe we needed night time help as well.  I called my uncle and we got a home-hospice company to start sending people over for the night shift.  For the first time in many months, I was able to get a full night's sleep with no interruptions.  I also could still be there to help if any emergencies occurred.  Even though we had help now, my father would still call for me to do things as he had become dependent on me to do things for him.

A few months later, my father got ill and had to be hospitalized.  He was having heart problems and kidney problems and got to the point where he had to be sustained with an oxygen machine.  Because he had not put anything in his life will about sustaining his life with a machine, my siblings and I had to make the decision to pull the plug.  We all actually said goodbye and had all the grandchildren come in and tearfully say their goodbyes as well.  I remember my youngest telling me she couldn't tell her Papa goodbye and cried her eyes out tellling me she would not go.  I told her that it was ok and that her Papa had always loved her so much....and always would...and that he was going to heaven to dance with her Nana soon.  He would have his hand and both his legs and Nana would be smiling and waiting on him.  It made her feel better.

The plug was pulled and somehow, once again, he defied the odds and slowly recovered over a period of several weeks.  The doctors once again said he was a miracle man.....something we all already knew.  
However, when he came home the first week he was not himself.  He was very angry at times and even cussed Smokey out several times for no reason....telling him he was not his buddy anymore and to get the hell off his property and never come back.  Smokey was hurt and shocked, since he had been a loyal fieldhand and friend of the family for years now.  I pulled Smokey to the side and told him to just keep coming back and to not take what he had said to heart.  He did, but for several days my father continued to be mean and spiteful and act like a totally different person.  He acted like a mad animal enraged with rabies.  I remember how upset it all made me witnessing his change.  I wrote an email to an ex-girlfriend who had asked how he was doing.  In it I told her that as his oldest, most loyal child it was hard for me to idly sit by and watch him go into dimentia, which he appeared to be doing.  Somehow, a friend of the family got a copy of the email from her desk at work and took it to my Uncle, the executor of the estate.  He took the email and had a meeting with my brother and sister, who, with years of jealousy and the worry that somehow I may get something in the inheritance they would not, determined that I had to go.  They actually served me with legal papers to leave the home and my father.  My father was enraged by the audacity of it all.  He wanted and needed me there.  The problem was that after my mother's death, they had convinced my father that because he needed someone to pay his bills and keep up with his fortune, my Uncle should be given Power of Attorney over the estate.  My father now had no power over any of his property or money.  My uncle was now legally the decider of everything in his life and everything he owned.  My father asked me to fight them in court and I did go with his brother, who told them just how much I had done for my father, and I told them how I had vowed to my mother on her deathbed to take care of him,  but basically the Executor of the Estate can make someone leave for no reason whatsoever if he chooses....and that was that.   I was forced to move out.

Since then my uncle has done many things to exile me from the rest of the family....especially my father.  I think somewhere in my life he became very jealous of my relationship with my mother, the money of the family,  and the fact that he has never married or dated much and I've had many girlfriends he could only dream about having.....I really don't know of his motive....just that my mother is turning over in her grave with anger over it all.
I have gone from being my father's fierce protector to an exile who has to watch from a distance helplessly as his health goes downhill.  It is a sad ending indeed, to a great battle we both fought together....one that brought us closer than I ever imagined.   He never told us he loved us growing up on the farm...he was never a very affectionate man...he was a man's man.....but after his accident,  I will cherish the memory of telling each other 'I love you' every day and night and even kissing him on his forehead as I left to rest.  We became great friends through it all and got closer than I ever imagined being with him.

Here's to you, McCloud 'Mack' Robinson.....the survivor of the Largest Wound in history and the Largest Wound ever covered with skin grafts....you have been an inspiration to thousands with your courage and ability to survive come what may......I will always be proud to have been your son and you will always be my 'Daddy'...I love you  now more than ever...and it has nothing to do with your money.  

Life, Money, and the Largest Wound...Part III

Moving back to my small hometown was a huge adjustment. I had been living larger than life in Savannah with plenty of money and time to myself. It had become a place of refuge for me and I knew that leaving and moving back would be hard.

The place I grew up is a rural farming community. It's full of fields, farmers, and friendly folk who love to hunt and fish. I hunted when I was younger, but gave it up at the age of 15 after killing a doe one day when the older hunters were having a doe-day and everyone was supposed to kill a doe for population control purposes. She was a small deer and the guilt of taking her life overwhelmed me and made me sick with anger at the heartlessness of the men I once looked up to. I changed that day...I never went hunting again with my father and brother and the rest of the men of the community. It was about this time that I was beginning to shine in sports anyway and I decided to concentrate on being a great athlete and trained year round.

The farm looked the same as always when I arrived. Dry fields and lots of woods...a tractor in an old barn in the back that, ironically enough, my father and brother and myself had built out of railroad ties. The railroad ties have a lifetime expectancy of 500 years and will be here when my children's children have children and longer.
My father looked pale and had aged alot since I last saw him. My mother looked so haggard and tired...I knew that I had come when she needed me most. She was so happy to see me...it was like the cavalry had arrived.
I certainly didn't feel like the cavalry, but knew that I was young and strong and could handle just about any physical effort that would be needed. My father still weighed over 350lbs. and had to be manually moved from the bed to his air chair whenever he wanted to get up. The hardest part was his colostomy, which, on occasion, would fill up and overspill if his stomach got upset. I realized very quickly the job I was facing and longed to jump back in my car and haul ass back to Savannah, but I knew I couldn't...they were my parents...they had raised me, fed me, and taught me everything I knew about life. How could I NOT be there for them when they needed me most? My brother lived in a huge home not far from them, but he had re-married and had a new wife who kept him busy with a honey-do list. My sister was a psychologist married to a psychologist and didn't get along too well with my mother, so she stayed in her mansion and visited briefly when she did visit. My mother claimed I was the only one who gave a damn...though I knew my siblings did love them. I always felt a little bad for them because my mother made me into some kind of super-hero who did everything right and could do no wrong in her eyes...which was wayyyyy off base, believe me.
The move back changed my life completely. The culture shock of moving back to a town that didn't have the same modern conveniences of larger town was the first thing that hit me. I would miss always having somewhere to go and a new restaurant to try. I would miss always having a party to go to if I felt like it. I would miss my friends on Riverstreet and hanging out watching the ships roll in.
The sky did seem to be larger and the stars much brighter in the country and Blue loved being in the great outdoors. It was much quieter as well.
Life slowed down to a snail's pace and I took a deep breath of the fresh country air and thanked God that I could be there for my parents in their time of need. It was a good feeling.

My mother had begun to have fainting spells and when she finally went to the doctor for testing, she came back quiet and would refuse to talk about it. It made me worry about what she wouldn't tell us. It made me know that something bad was wrong. I knew it in my heart...
Taking care of one person is tough, but two people who are overweight and having to be moved manually is a tough job indeed. I would also have to get up in the middle of the night to help get medicine for my father if he was in pain or help clean up another colostomy mess...the worst thing you can have to do at 3 in the morning.
I went into Real Estate and started selling properies. It was something I enjoyed, though the money was not as lucrative as I was used to. I also had the freedom to come and go as I pleased and could help Smokey, our fieldhand, get crops planted in the manner that my father wanted. My father had always been a 'hardass' about his crops and how they should be done. We went through about 7 or 8 fieldhands after the accident because of this. Smokey was, and still is, the only one that has lasted.

My children have always loved the farm and enjoyed being able to spend more time with their grandparents. They would run through the fields barefoot...something I loved when I was a child...and I loved being able to share my childhood stories on the farm with them. They would never get tired of the funny stories and the adventures I had as a child. They would get me to tell some of the stories over and over again.

I had gone from being a playboy in Savannah with tons of money to the life of a farmhand once again.  It was like a bad dream that I had to live.  But I had always had a tenacity for the tough things in life.  I could handle just about anything.  I enjoyed being able to sit and just talk with my parents.  My mother talked non-stop and loved having someone to complain to....she knew I cared as well.  She told me many times she was so tired....she had seen the man she loved cut in half...she was prisoner to taking care of him....she had lost 2 grandchildren, with the last one dying on a 4 wheeler on the farm and her having to walk across the field with his brother to pull it off of his dead 8 year old body.  She talked about Ryan alot....she never got over his death....he was such a beautiful child and so full of life...we called him Ryan the Lion.  She had simply had too much heartache to bear in the last 10 years....she told me she was tired of this life and ready for God to take her.  The lupus always had made her tired before, but now she was never rested and felt more tired than most people could ever imagine.   I was proud to be there for her once again...and knew this would be for the last time.

We found out in 2007 that she had a brain tumor.  She knew for many months even before the testing that something was terribly wrong....and so did I.  The doctors said they needed to operate as soon as possible.
I knew the night before she left for the operation that she would not be coming home.  I remember calling my ex-wife and demanding she bring the kids over to see their Nana.  She thought my mother would be ok, but I told her I knew otherwise...I had a dream the night before and in the dream my kids were crying uncontrollably and I could not get my arms around all three.  They came that night and we took pictures of them and their Nana.  I fought back the tears and tried to be strong.  I knew she would not be coming back...

She had an aneurism during the operation.  She went into a coma and the doctors said there was no hope of reviving her.  Her living will stated that she would be cut loose from the machine keeping her alive.  I was at the farm taking care of my father...something she had made me promise I would do before she left for the operation, when my sister called to tell me I needed to drive to Columbia, SC to be there when she was unplugged.  They would wait till I got there.  I remember sitting in the car for what seemed like forever....feeling like the grim reaper knowing that my mother would die when I got there.  I walked as slowly as possible to the room...filled with her 5 sisters, her brother, and all the grandchildren...everyone crying and sad beyond compare.

Everyone gathered around the bed when they pulled the plug.  One by one everyone said goodbye.  She gasped for air for several minutes and then a glowing smile came over her face out of nowhere like she had seen someone she knew and loved...and then she passed away.  In my heart, I know she saw Ryan waiting for her with his hand out...or at least that's exactly what it looked like.   Everyone cried and sobbed....but for some reason I could not.   I knew she was finally getting her rest.....and her body would not be tired anymore....and she was with loved ones who had gone before her.  I was truly happy for her...

Stay tuned...this will be in more parts than III, part IV coming soon...

Life, Money, and the Largest Wound...Part II

Savannah, Ga. is a beautiful place to live. They call it the Garden of Good and Evil. It is full of beautiful gardens, old mansions, good old southern hospitality, and lots of alchoholic beverages. It also has one of the highest murder rates and lowest number of crimes solved. It's the place pirates called home when British law was in the Carolinas and Spanish law was in Florida. You can have a drink downtown and go watch a Voodoo ritual in a nearby graveyard. It is a town where there is always a party and you're always welcome there...and it's a custom for you to have to take a 'to-go cup' when you leave. It's a place of excitement, beauty, danger, and mystery. It was just the place I needed to recover from all the madness of the money and life's failures...

For a time in my life, I seemed to have it all with money and a beautiful wife with 3 beautiful children...but underneath I was fighting many demons. My corporation was much more than I anticipated and the pressures were just too great. My marriage had fallen apart over the money and I had made many wrong choices that I greatly regretted. I felt so much guilt over the break-up of my marriage and splitting away from my children. They were too young to understand and that seemed to make me feel even worse. I knew it was all my doing and that I could have been more selfless and stayed in a love-less marriage. The worst part was that it had not been love-less...I truly loved my wife and wanted a life with her. She had just become more and more distant and never wanted any 'us' time. I needed her more than she could know and just didn't know how to make her see that. She had become obsessed with the money...the one thing I despised more than anything.
I spent way too much time alone trying to sort things out in my new, bright red jet boat...the fastest, most beautiful boat on the lake. My family had purchased a very nice 2 story lakehouse and I spent many afternoons there trying to drink sanity back into my head. I had many friends...some were true friends...others were leeches looking to just hang out at a nice place and ride in the fast boat. I was simply running away from life and living life way too fast. I knew eventually I would burn out...and I did. I was doing too many jobs at the corporation and never knew if I was going or coming. I didn't sleep well and stayed tired all the time. On top of all of this, my marriage had hit the rocks, I started seeing a beautiful employee and my wife had started seeing a friend of mine that was actually a groomsman in my wedding...yes, a groomsman in my wedding. This particular slam became my breaking point. I quit on life and decided the humiliation was simply too much for me to stay in the same town. Alot of our old friends continued to hang out with her and my new replacement and I became taboo. It was a tough time in my life that took years to recover from.
I shut down the corporation and sold the equipment and myself to a company in Savannah. They gave me a high salary, unlimited expense account, and a free penthouse to live in. I moved there with my 6 month old dog named Blue. He was an Alaskan white Husky mixed with a Timberwolf and looked like a white wolf with blue eyes. He was my best friend in the world and we loved our new world in Savannah. We would go to Riverstreet every afternoon and go for a walk. The friendly people there would even let me take him into bars to get a drink. We didn't know anyone in town, yet, so we became a daily fixture at Riverstreet. We got to know all the basketweavers, artists, and musicians on a first name basis and they always loved seeing us. They all called me 'Doc' and called Blue 'Ghost dog' as the city had alot of tourists going on ghost tours all the time and one little girl had cried one night when she saw the 'ghost dog'. It was an eye-opening, self-discovering, and healing time in my life. I was finally happy...being away from the madness of the money and knowing that no one knew who I was or whose son I was. People loved me for who I was and it made me feel better about who I was.
My children were happier too. They loved coming to Savannah every other weekend with my girlfriend from back home and knew that we would go do fun things and exciting things every time they came down. They particularly loved Riverstreet. They felt like stars because all the people working there got to know them by name and we could bring Blue with us as well. I remember how excited my youngest daughter was when she learned how to make a flower out of reeds. We were regulars on the circuit and the magicians would always pick us out of the crowd to be a part of their shows because we knew their acts by heart. My kids felt like they belonged there and knew that their Dad was happy there...though at times I felt extreme guilt that they were having to travel 2.5 hours just to see me. I also felt bad that I couldn't be there during the week and had to miss ball games and beauty pageants because of work. I still remember the tears that would fall every time they left...I loved them and missed them so much!!!
I dealt with it as best I could, though, and tried to look at the bright side of things always. Being a good parent, at times, means you reflect on what you are doing and wonder if it's the right thing for them. No parent ever knows that what they're doing is really right...for themselves or their chilren's best interest...life is just a mystery and the answers to life are never easy to find.

As the years went by and my kids got older, so did my parents. My father had been doing ok and was getting around in his air-chair and living a functional life. My mother was hit with the heavy burden of caring for him though. She did everything for him and never did anything for herself.
She began to hate the prison of life with him. He could never be alone for long and could only sit up for about 2 hours at a time. This left her with a small amount of time for herself. Though she had all the money to shop with she could need, she didn't have the time to shop or go and do and travel like many people dream of doing when they have plenty of money.

She called me in 2006 and told me she really didn't know how much longer she could take it. My father was demanding and didn't think about all he asked her to do on a daily basis. On top of that, she was not feeling well. She confided in me that she had spells where she didn't know what was going on and was confused. She also said she had fainted a few times and did not know why this was happening. She had always had cystemic Lupus and also high blood pressure...and since my father's accident, she had gained back around 100lbs. that she had always proudly kept off for 30 years since her last child. She hated it, but was stuck laying in a bed next to my fathers eating and feeding him and taking care of him the best way she knew how...with her cooking.
She told me she needed me....something that always grabbed my attention and was something I always took seriously. She knew I would always be there when she needed me and I would not let her down. I was the athlete in the family and she proudly went to every basketball game, football game and track event to yell at the top of her lungs. I was her pride and joy and she was the first to let you know this. She loved my brother and sister too, but always loved me a little too much. I think it's because I brought her flowers all the time when I was a little boy growing up on our farm. I loved my mother and was never ashamed of it either. If she needed me, she knew all she needed to do was let me know...and this time she was in bad health. On top of that, she said my siblings were talking about putting my father in a nursing home...and that was all I needed to hear.

I decided that it was time to go home. The Prodigal Son would return. I let my employers know I had to go and reluctantly said goodbye to my friends in Savannah. I took a job making significantly less money and moved in with my folks back at the farm to help take care of them both. Blue would at least now have hundreds of acres to run on and I could also spend more time with my kids and they could also spend more time with their grandparents as well. It appeared to be a good plan...

It seemed like such a happy ending. The trouble with happy endings is that they are never an ending...just a time in life...and time changes everything. Things would change for sure...and the road would never be as easy as I would think it would be. It never is, though, is it?..

Stay tuned for part 3, folks...