Nursing Home Fiasco

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever clean my apartment again. Back when I was in the midst of cleaning out the house, going through all that STUFF, breaking down the zillions of empty boxes, I vowed that the very first thing I would do upon my return would be to CLEAN HOUSE and get rid of anything and everything that was superfluous.

It hasn't quite turned out that way. Instead, I'm finding I don't want to clean anything. I'm barely getting to my dishes, let alone the rest of the apartment. I definitely haven't made any moves towards getting rid of stuff. No "spring cleaning" going on in this house!

Hmmm...but now that I think about it, I guess I really am doing a lot of cleaning; spiritual cleaning, that is.

What the hell? The other stuff can wait.

So, when I last left off, Daddy had broken his hip and Hyde had become convinced that it was the result of a conspiracy amongst the nursing home staff. He even went to so far as to claim that the orderly who went to try to guide Daddy back to his room actually pushed Daddy down, causing him to fall.

Daddy returned from the hospital and was moved into Mom's room (I almost said Mother; that's what Hyde always called her). During this brief period of time (Daddy died a couple of weeks later), Hyde became quite involved and, shall we say, PRESENT at the nursing home. He was very agitated and angry about what had happened and, allegedly, he began behaving in what the staff perceived to be threatening ways.

I can speak from experience: Hyde's behavior could be VERY scary and threatening. He NEVER saw it that way and always felt peoples' reactions to him were unjustified. He always thought THEIR behavior was out of line. However, I will also say that it's unclear what was actually going on. By this point, there had been enough questionable actions on the part of various members of the staff to throw doubt onto the veracity of their claims.

But, again, let me be clear: I do not think there was a conspiracy; just an unfortunate (mostly) disconnected series of events.

So, one night, I'm hanging with Jeckle and Mr. Wizard the phone rings. I really don't remember who answered it (Jeckle often wanted me to when we knew it was Hyde-caller I.D. and all) but the upshot was that Hyde was at the nursing home. A nurse claimed he hit her and called the police on him.

We go down to the nursing home.

OK, I have to admit that right now, as I am thinking about this again, I can see Hyde sitting on the bench outside when we arrive, his air filter mask on top of his head like a yarmulke, looking crazy as a loon, staring straight ahead with that autistic look he could get, and I feel overwhelmed with sadness for him. I know he was just feeling sad and scared for his Daddy. He wanted Daddy to be taken care of; he felt Daddy was being neglected and, worse, targeted for abuse. But it was part of what was so maddening, and so tragically sad, about dealing with him. When he was "losing it," when he was paranoid, he just created big-ass messes for himself.

And what mess came of this? He was basically thrown out of the nursing home.

So, when Daddy died a week or so later, Hyde did not go down to the home, and he hadn't been there in the days leading up to Daddy's death. And the only time he went down there again was with Jeckle, to see mom, at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. He lived a 5 minute drive away and felt he couldn't go down there to see his mother.

Like I said before, the beginning of the end.