A Dachmo update: A Non-Music blog with Music
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Track:Somewhere Over The Rainbow
I believe that it was around this date two years ago that I first signed onto Mog. Shortly there after I made the 45 minute commute from my 19 years spent struggling in NYC back to the home I grew up in on Long Island. I left behind a dwindling group of friends whose ranks had fallen off due to marriage, high rents, low wages, alcohol, drugs and the disillusionment that comes with "making it in New York". While it's a great time living with three or four of your buddies in a cramped alphabet city apartment during your twenties, once you get into your thirties the sudden realization that all that money you've been paying in rent could've been spent on a mortgage, just not in the town you're living in where 4th flr walk-up studio apts go for $500k. ( I figure that during the 16 years after college I shelled out just about $200,000 in rent alone)
That realization finally overtook me shortly after my 37th birthday when I went on holiday with my parents down to Myrtle Beach South Carolina.
I had spent many summers as a teenager with my family in a house they bought right on the beach, a house that back in the mid eighties cost them all of $14,000. One of the reasons my father wasn't in his office on the 84th floor of WTC Tower Two on Septemebr 11th was because earlier in the month he went to closing on the sale of our family getaway. On Monday September 10th they signed the papers over to a new family with kids as young as we were when we first moved in. He made a nice profit on the sale as you can imagine and on Tuesday he got up early with my Uncle and started out for a game of golf that was never to finish. He watched close friends and business partners lose their lives, a colleague and his own 24 year old assistant were doing catch up on an account of his so that they could get to know a client he was about to leave to them when he was to officially retire 10 months down the line. As he sat in the clubhouse watching the building collapse he knew that they were still in his office going over his files. My dad's life was forever changed that day, as were countless more.
His doctors told us after he passed this last February that his remorse, his depression and probably some unspoken guilt is what slowly did him in. That and diabetes.
My folks were very young when they got married back in 1966. Twenty-one was my mom and twenty-three my dad. The two of them belonged to the Young Republicans party and a year later they bought their first house and soon after had a baby girl, three years later I came along.
Their starter home soon became too small and they applied for all sorts of bank loans so that they could buy a proper home to raise their family. It's hard to believe that back then my father was making all of $300/month and that wasn't considered a bad salary for the times.
So here I am, 35 years later back in the home this family has only really ever known. Countless Christmas trees, birthday parties, Thanksgiving day dinners. My sisters friends would practice their kickline routines in the same backyard my friends and I would crack teeth out of our mouths while playing Lacrosse or practice doing ollies off of the cement porch.
In 1988 when I left home for college in Brooklyn I never looked back and spent the next 19 years kicking the shit out of myself while trying to get somekind of career together and in doing so I generally made the 45 minute long train ride back home for visits maybe 4 times a year. I was a city boy and Long Guyland was so in my past.
My father had his first heart attack in 2004, right after I had just been promoted to Operations Manager for the Public Theater, a spot I had been vying for for a long time. He spent a month in hospital of which I was able to get out and see him twice. Our season had just started and I was working 16 hour days. When he got better they started to see an eye doctor for my mothers failing site, they would drive in three days a week to go to Columbia-Presbyterian so that the best doctors in the country could do their magic and save my mothers vision. When it came time to operate they told her that there was a very slim chance of failure. Weeks later when they took the bandages off she was completely blind and it would stay that way, the doctors felt like shit. My mothers world started to unravel. I remember getting the call from my dad on October 1st telling me how things went while I was standing alone in the middle of the now empty stage in central parks Delacorte Theater where we produce each summer the much loved "Shakespear In The Park" series. The sky was clear blue, the trees were starting to turn and there were white swans swimming in the green turtle pond just behind the stage, I felt guilty for being able to see such beauty.
In late may of 2007 I was ditching my office one day and calling the shots from my Motorola. I had become quite enamored with a bar down the block from the theater, a real hole in the wall place where people went to disappear. I had been frequenting the place for years but when my father ended up back in the hospital to undergo quadruple openheart surgery that's where I stayed for the day and I didn't care who came calling for me, I told everyone from work that I was downtown buying lights for an office reno we were about to do, again. As I sat there with a bunch of old school pensioners in comes this guy who sits down and starts talking to the bartender and myself. He had grown up in New Jersey and made a life for himself outside of Boston. The reason he was in town was because earlier in the day he alone buried his father in a cemetery out in Brooklyn where his fathers parents were also laid to rest. He stayed for one beer but during that brief conversation he told us that his one regret from all this was that he barely got to spend anytime with his pops because he was too wrapped up in his own life and now he's gone he feels like he let his old man down when he needed him the most.
With what I was going through with my own folks at the time I didn't have to let that nugget of hindsight brew for too long. I quit my job with the theater, which was a relief to them because I think they were looking to get rid of me anyway. My mind was no longer interested in catering to pampered psychotic actors and upper management dillitentes.
I wasn't ready to move home yet but I thought that if I could just free myself of some time I could work from home when I wanted and go see them as often as possible. NYC doesn't abide the part time worker without a trust fund. So home I moved, at the ripe old age of 37. Quickly I became the cliched unemployed man-boy living on a couch in his parents basement, watching Samantha Brown marathons on the Travel Channel. Thankfully by this time I had already found Mog and was enjoying regaling you all of my past music related memories.
By the time I got home my father was already going to a dialysis center 3 times a week because the diabetes killed his kidneys, he'd come home all nauseous done in and then feel a bit better the next morning, this was supposed to subside but never did and he continued to feel this way until the day I signed a form that both removed him from the machines and released the doctors from responsibility in the eventuality of his demise.
On February 22nd of 2009 my father, shriveled to 83 lbs, whacked out on morphine to ease the pain from the grapefruit size bed sore he developed on the small of his back, passed away while watching the end of Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood on CBS, my mother was with him in the end but being blind she didn't know he was gone. Funny thing about this part of the story though is that a week prior, my mother had a slip and fall that broke her ankle. I took her to the same hospital that he was at and the staff was kind enough to put the two together in their own room. If she hadn't found that tiny patch of ice on the driveway to slip on then my father would have died alone in a strange hospital surrounded by strange people.
I always knew that I was coming home to help out my parents and to spend some quality time with them, this time as an adult and not like the stupid teenager that I was when I left for what I thought would be a better, more interesting life. I figured I'd fix up the house and get it ready for the market and then move them down south to where they wanted to retire.
My mother was also being ravaged by diabetes (blindness, brittle bones, kidney failure). A few weeks ago she started having pains in her abdomen, then she suffered a series of strokes. The doctors put her through a whole slew of tests but never truly answered our questions, then one Friday night, June 5th, her GP calls me to say that she has stage 4 liver cancer. There's just nothing to fight, it's that bad. Her body would never survive chemo it would only just put her in months of agony. So we spoke the next evening, my mom my sister and I, and she told us that she was done. She said she was done even before finding out about the cancer. The brittle bones keep her in a wheel chair, she's blind, she just lost her husband. She says she's got two great kids and two great grandkids but she's just tired and it's time. So on June 10th I arranged to have her moved home so she could die around her family and not in some horrible hospital. She's been off of the machines for 18 days now and she is just now starting to show signs of toxic overload. I have a hospice nurse that comes in the evenings for a few hours but it's been mainly up to me and my sister. I imagine this time next week it'll all be over.
So if you've been wondering "What ever happened to that Dachmo feller?" well, this is what I've been up to. I'll come around here and there but it's like I've said before "Life trumps Mog." I'll be back hopfully by autumn.
Have a good summer, and if your parents are still around, grab them and give them a big hug and a kiss and if they say "why?" just say "because I still can".
(I picked this song because it's become my mother's favorite.)
Comments (26)
Stay strong Dave, we'll be here when you need us.
Dude
I echo Dale--we're here when you're ready to come back. Until then, keep working at life, ya know? This summer's been a bit of "Life Trumps MOG" for me too, although nothing near like what you're going through. I'll bee keeping you and yours in my thoughts and prayers.
Excellent song choice, by the way, one of my favorites too.
So very touching. I have tears in my eyes. I'm glad you are there for your mom (and were for your dad as well). I hope you someday you can have the distance from this pain to appreciate just how much t means for you to be there. My best to you and your family in this time. See you when you return.
A very touching story. I haven't been around on MOG for quite a while - living my busy scientist life which reminds me a bit of what you did in NY. I will take heed of your advise. Living on the big European island while my parents live on the continent it's not so easy to visit them quite often. My best to you.
You've just made me appreciate my parents a little bit more...thank you! Stay strong, and know you'll be missed while away.
Dave, you are a part of us and we a part of you. It saddens us and sobers us to think of all you've been going through recently, as well as since 911 forever changed your family.
I for one, will be saying a prayer for you and yours. Your MOG buddies are here for you to hold you up in thought and prayer and be that caring presence you need in times such as these. stay strong.
Gosh .... I haven't checked in for ages and when I do, I find this ... poignant and heartfelt post. I have tears in my eyes as well.
Thanks Dave
I'm so sorry for your past 8 painful years. I know what a profoundly depressing but equally moving experience it is to see your parents ill. I hope your mother passes peacefully and as a sister who needed her siblings during the rough time, I'm so very happy to hear you have siblings to help you too. I also hope you find some work that makes you happy over the summer. It's tough to start over in your 30s and 40s (doing that myself!) So, in me, you have a very empathetic ear. I'll keep checking in and hope to find your life in less turmoil in the not too distant future. Thank you for sharing such a beautifully written account of your life.
I've also been "not around much" for a while, but I am glad I looked at your post. I really am so sorry for what you and your family have been going through. As Garagerock said, you HAVE made me appreciate my parents more.
I am glad that your mom was staying in the room with your dad when he passed.
Take Care. ---and of course MOG is cool, but life definitely trumps it.
What a story! I hope things improve for you. Good choice of soundtrack.
Oh my ... I cried till I was almost sick. Way too close to home. This is my first year of having noone to buy for on Father's day or Mother'd day and it's been horrifying. I truly wish your Mother a comfortable and painless trip when she goes to be with her husband.
My heart goes out to you and the rest of your family.
This inevitably sucka majorly, but take what comfort you can from knowing that you've been able to be a blessing to them when they needed you most. You and your family are in our prayers.
your post brought a tear to my eye, and seeing I have not cried since I dont know when that is saying something
Be good Dach. Mog, such as it is will always be here. Life has been ass-kicking lately. I know exactly where you are coming from. Great piece.
sorry to hear d, but thanks for the update. prayers and love sent your way. see ya when you get back.
Dave,
2 years, wow. I remember when you first started you were closely guarded about your personal life. You would shell out details here and there but never anything like what you wrote just now. So for 2 years and change we slowly got to know each other in fits and starts. I followed you back to LI and I caught news about your mom and your dad here and the other place (Multi). I cracked up when I saw pictures of you in high school and I cried my eyes out when you told us your dad passed away. I laughed like hell when I saw the basement of your parents house and felt sorry for you when you moved back home because you didn't seem happy about it.
You know we share what is useful.
Be well my friend and stop in or drop a line when you can. You've gotten so far under my skin I can't hear the sweet sound of the 80's and NOT think of you.
Love your mom like there is no tomorrow, like there is only today.
This was such a moving read. Made me so glad I wised up a little before my Mum passed and I could pay back some of the amazing love, freedom and opportunity she gave me. Clearly you feel the same way about them. That's a wicked wedding photo btw - what a couple.
I feel like I've just taken a passage back in time of conversations we've had from the start of saying hello. It's not that I didn't know of these things, nor that there is any doubt you could tell a tale with such heart ... but just that you've said it here, in this way, is a beautiful testament to the guy you are and the family you come from. Hold tight D, and give a kiss to your mother for me. It's a given that you are missed when life calls. :^*
Hi Dach, being "dutiful" doesn't seem like such a hot value when one is younger, but it comes into its own sooner or later. Moving to be with your parents must have been humbling for you, but I think it was brave and selfless as well. I admire you for that and I'm sure you will never regret it.
When I think of you on Mog I think you are the only one who remembers the power pop scene with Dwight Twilley, Rubinoos, Shoes, etc!
Wow...don't know what to say. That must have been a hard post to type.
Hope you feel better soon!
Your story is absolutely heart-wrenching, but I'm so glad you resurfaced briefly to share it with us. Thoughts and prayers are with you.
I have similar regrets about being a douchebag when I was younger, I wish I hadn't been so self absorbed and opened up to them more. I'm happy I read your post before our trip back east.
Life does trump MOG and most everything else when it comes to it. All the gods' blessings being sent your way. You are a good son.
Goodnight Mom.
Sept. 30 1945 - June 30 2009
Blessed be. I hope you are doing alright and that she went gently into that good night. Thoughts and prayers to you and your family, good sir. Take care of yourself.
David.. my sincerest condolences.I honestly don't know what to say. I wish I could hug you. I'm so so sorry to hear about your mother.
Take care, and if you need anything, you know we're all here.