My Dad Reading to Stacy
Dan is like an adult child in his mind. He lived at home with mom and dad and was like a kid until his world got turned upside down.
Dan lived with my parents and I lived with my nice little family down in Texas. In 1995, we took a trip to Ohio. We had a good time. We visited with my parents and with my mother-in-law. The morning we left to return home to Texas, dad offered to make us breakfast and I took him up on the offer. It was one of the smartest things I ever did because that was the last time I saw him as I knew him. Shortly after that, he was to have surgery for a blocked artery but when pre-surgery blood tests were done, my dad was found to have acute mylogenous leukemia. He had to go into the hospital for chemotherapy. Mom arranged for Dan to go to work while she visited with dad in the hospital. The chemo did a real number on my dad, however he did not loose his hair. He went into remission, but just as soon as he did, the artery that needed surgery released some plaque which caused my dad to have a stroke. It was then that mom called me and asked me to fly to Ohio. Steve made the arrangements, I was in shock. I think Dan was still work when I arrived, but I don't remember now.
Dad could only talk in sentences of just a few words, although he understood things just fine. I visited my dad every day. Dan visited dad only once or twice while I was there. I don't know why Dan wasn't there as much, I can't remember now.
Dan had accumulated quite a collection of records and one evening when I was at mom's house, after having visited dad at the hospital, we heard a big crash in Dan's room. He had been using a book shelf - one of those you buy at a discount store and put it together yourself - to store his vast collection of records. The book shelf finally gave away under the weight of the records. Dan reminded me of the guy in the movie, 'Rain Man.' The guy in the movie could find any book in his large collection easily. Dan was like that with his records. I went upstairs and helped Dan sort out the mess. Fortunately, not many records were broken. We stowed the records in laundry baskets and plastic boxes so we could move what was left of his bookshelf out of there.
I remember telling dad the big news about Dan's record cabinet at the hospital the next day and dad was clearly not happy about it. Even though dad couldn't say much, he expressed himself quite well. That is, until he eventually slipped into a coma later in the week. I talked to him every day, told him what was going on at home and stuff like that. I brought pictures of the kids and showed them to him. He really enjoyed that while he was able to. Dan didn't see him after he slipped into a coma. We figured that would be too upsetting for him.
I spent time with Dan while I was there. I helped him with cleaning his room and we had what we called 'talk sessions' while we worked. The 'talk sessions' included stores about Echo and memories we had of when we were kids.
Our father died about a week after I came to Ohio. At the viewing, Dan stood by dad's casket and talked to him. It was Dan's way of saying 'Goodbye.' Dan held up well during the viewing and the funeral. His world was turned upside down, but he still had mom. I went back to Texas and Dan lived with mom. A few months later, our Grandmother Compton died. She was mom's mother. She lived in Columbus, not far from us and was a big part of our lives. She was always good to Dan. She baked him cookies, like Oatmeal Scottchies, which he liked. . She made him a quilt and curtains when he was little. She was a big part of our lives. She had been living in an assisted care facility called 'The Kensington' and was moved to the nursing home part of it just before she died. Two major people in Dan's life had passed away in just a short time.
Mom made sure that he kept his routine of going to and from work every day. Mom would take Dan to work and pick him up. Dan helped mom around the house quite a bit and I am convinced if it weren't for Dan, mom would have ended up in a nursing home. Mom developed Parkinson's Disease and became more disabled as time went by. She had a chair installed that moved her up and downstairs. It became harder and harder for her to get around and she relied heavily on Dan to lift her out of her bed, to lift her into her lift chair, to lift her in and out of the car. Dan was quite strong and could lift her easily. I couldn't lift her. He also knew how to do it properly, I never could get the hang of it. Dan did all of the kitchen work, laundry and stuff like that.
It got to the point that mom could no longer drive and thank the good Lord that a neighbor who lived across the street from her convinced her of that after an incident where she backed out of the driveway and things went awry. Fortunately, her car was the only vehicle that was damaged and no one was hurt. She wouldn't tell me why there was a fender in the garage, I later learned of the incident from her neighbor. After that, she had to have friends take Dan to and from work. Sometimes his co-workers did that as well. The people he worked with at Bob Evans were very nice to him and gladly helped him out. Mom had a cleaning lady that came out on a regular basis. There were ladies from an organization called 'Heart of Ohio' who came out and took care of her every day.
The chair that got my mom up and downstairs
I took Dan to visit mom at the hospital. I took care of the household. Dan kept going to and from work for a while with the help of co-workers. When mom got worse, her sister, Aunt Bonnie and Uncle 'Tode' came to visit. I remember the first night they were visiting, they took us out to dinner. We went to Donato's Pizza in Gahanna. My uncle had surprised me by asking if he could get a martini there, we couldn't but I showed him where he could get one. They were very generous, we got a great dinner. The Dan ate and ate and ate. He ate until he was out of breath and I had to tell him to stop. That's when I realized that the defective judgement center of his brain didn't tell him when to stop eating! I knew that was something I was going to have to watch.
Mom passed away soon afterwards. It was the second time I'd ever seen someone die, the first had been my father. The hardest thing was when I had to go home and tell Dan. I took him upstairs and into his room. I told him as gently as I could that mom had died. Of course he cried.
My aunt helped me arrange mom's viewing and funeral. It was a heavy burden, dealing with the loss of my mother and the sudden responsibility of her estate and my brother.Steve and the kids flew up to Ohio to help me and go to mom's funeral. They stayed with my mother-in-law. One of the kids said it was like an Ohio trip in the fall. They helped clean out mom's basement which, due to a cat that made a big mess. The cat died about a year earlier, but the mess was still there.
Dan and I with our aunt and uncle and Stacy
At our mom's viewing, Dan stood besides her casket and talked to her just like he had talked to our father at his viewing. It was Dan's way of saying 'Goodbye.' I remember when arranging her funeral, I was afraid I wouldn't have any pallbearers, but thanks to help from her church friends, there were a lot of pallbearers including a man that was a fireman. Mom's funeral was the day before the one year anniversary of 911. I had mom dressed tastefully in red white and blue. At the burial, we were seated in front of her casket, waiting for the service to begin. There was a pile of flowers on top of the casket. One of the flowers fell off of the casket and landed at my daughter's feet, like mom was giving her a flower.
Dan at his and mom's house in Gahanna
After that came the cleaning out of mom's house, going through her's, dad's and grandma's stuff as well as helping Dan go through his stuff. My family had to get back to Texas so the kids could get back to school and Steve could get back to work. My aunt and family had to get back home to their lives. Other than Dan, I had no family close by that could help. My mom went to a wonderful church and she had a whole lot of wonderful church friends that went out of their way to help Dan and I. We literally couldn't have done it without their help. Mom had a lot of stuff.
Dan sitting with some of his toys when we were going through mom's house.
I had to help Dan go through all of his stuff. Dan had to come and live with us. We lived in a small 1100 square foot house. We had to whittle Dan's stuff down quite a bit. Dan had a massive collection of around several hundred records.He also had several large boxes of parts of electronic stuff that had been discarded. Dan had the turntable from mom and dad's old console stereo. He had a washing machine pump. He had various parts from record players, I'm not sure what all it was, but we couldn't take it to Texas.
Dan checks out my computer.
Dan couldn't put together moving the mouse and the cursor on the screen. He could type in 'Word.'
Dan standing next to the dishwasher he worked on at Bob Evans
He had to quit his job there. He loved that job.
Some of mom's jewelry
Some of mom's ceramic collection
Some of mom's jewelry collection
Some of mom's glassware
More of mom's glassware
Mom's little glass paperweights. I thought these were cool.
Dan's records.
The blue foil bathroom they had at their house.
All packed up
Mom and Dad's living room
Dan's room
My husband told Dan he could keep a certain number of records and had to auction off the rest of them. Dan picked out the records he liked the most and put the rest of them with the stuff in the garage to be auctioned off. I think we had to throw out most of the electronic parts he had collected.
Auction at mom's house.
Mom's friends helped go through the vast number of things she had. They helped me get a Realtor to sell mom's house. What was cool was when the Realtor came to evaluate mom's house, she wanted to know how old stuff was. Dan knew the dates we got the stove, dishwasher and when the sump pump was replaced, when the roof was replaced and stuff like that. Dan, with his ability to remember dates, was a valuable help with this. They helped me get the auction guy. A couple of ladies even brought lunch for us and invited Dan and I to dinner a couple of times. For that period of time, her church friends became my family.
It was hard for both Dan and I seeing stuff we'd grown up with auctioned off. We made arrangements with a moving company to move Dan's furniture, and the stuff of mom's , dad's photographs and slides and family heirlooms shipped to Texas. We made an arrangement with a storage place to keep this stuff until we could make living arrangements.
Dan on the plane, on the way to Texas
Dan arrives in Texas and meets Peppermint and Kandy
Like my husband said in his blog, I would like to say that we welcomed Dan with open arms, but to be quite honest, it was hard for us. It had just been the four of us in our little yellow house in Arlington, Texas. Our daughter, Stacy, gave up her room so that Dan could stay in there. Stacy stayed on the sleeper sofa in the living room.
Dan stands by the two grills we had, we brought one from mom and dad's house and we had our old one which was really getting rusty.
We had looked into the possibility of a group home for Dan, but there were none. There were a few for severely disabled people, but they were in Dallas, which was too far away. It's just as well, my parents didn't want him in a group home anyway. Dan living in an apartment by himself was out of the question, he would always need supervision. I took Dan to a government place to get tested. They were trying to tell me that Dan wasn't retarded that maybe he was just a little slow. After growing up with Dan, that struck a chord with me and I blew up. My husband was right when he said that the government was trying to save money. They tested him and the test results proved what I was trying to tell them that he is RETARDED. The next step in the process was to get Dan a job, but first we had to work out the living arrangements.
We couldn't stay in our little yellow house unless we added on to it. We decided it would be better to move. We decided that since Steve worked in Plano, that we should move closer to there. Thus started the long process of getting our little yellow house ready to sell and the search for a house that would comfortably fit all 5 of us and the animals.
I hate to say it, but I was upset that because of our responsibilities to Dan, we had to say goodbye to our little yellow house, our neighbor friends and our life in Arlington. I had to quit the job I had at Hobby Lobby, cutting fabric and working in needle crafts. I liked that job, I had a lot of friends there. There were a lot of changes taking place and I wasn't ready for it. Having Dan around was like having another child, only he was an adult, but still a child, and he wasn't my child, he was my sibling. My kids were growing up fast and they were more mature than Dan ever will be. This was a tough adjustment for all of us.
The first birthday Dan had with us while living in Texas
Dan at Medieval Times
Our Little Yellow House in Arlington
Stacy help tremendously with fixing up the house.
Steve painting the skylight area in our house in Arlington
After an exhausting search, we finally found a 2-story 4-bedroom house in McKinney. After we got the keys to the house, I drove Dan to McKinney to see the new house. Moving day came a little too quickly. Dan says we moved July 15, 2003. Every year on July 15th, Dan will tell us how many years we lived in the house. Now Dan had his own room with his own stuff and Stacy had her own room. There was still a lot of adjusting to do.
New House in McKinney, 2003
Jeff tries out the stairway and the balcony
Dan in his new room before we moved in.
The story continues in 'Dan Part 7.' Stay tuned.
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