In the summer of 2020, our oldest, Andy, was getting ready to start his freshman year of high school, and the thought of it filled me with a sense of dread, fear and anxiety that I didn’t completely understand. I knew some of the reasons: How was it possible he was already starting high school?! People warned me high school would go by quickly, which it did. He was starting his freshman year online during a pandemic. But even with being aware of all that, I knew there was something else going on. Then one morning, I had what Oprah would call an “Aha Moment.” The dread, fear and anxiety I had about Andy starting high school was about me more than it was about him. High school was not a happy time for me with my mom passing away my freshman year, and I was projecting my negative feelings about it onto him.

When I realized what was going on, I told myself that Andy’s high school experience wouldn’t be mine. His circumstances were vastly different. As these thoughts swirled in my head, an all too familiar thought pattern emerged and a feeling of anger consumed me. It went something like this: “If I could have only one parent survive, why couldn’t it have been my mom? If only my dad had done things differently, life would have been so much better.” And just as quickly as those thoughts ran through my head and I burned with anger, a deep sense of shame and remorse kicked in for even having such thoughts.

In many ways, my dad was not a complicated guy. He had a strong sense of faith. His favorite place was the cabin he and my mom bought on the St. Croix river when middle class families could still do that. He was a connoisseur of jello salad and lemon meringue pie. He enjoyed telling stories. He loved me and my siblings with all his heart. Most of all, he adored my mom. He once told me that he always sided with her when she got into arguments with “one of you kids,” because he knew we were going to go out and create lives of our own. But the life he created was with her. When she passed away, he lost the most of all of us.

Caring for others was in his DNA and how he made his way through life. He followed in the footsteps of both his parents by becoming a chiropractor and a very good one at that. When I was little, more than one person told me that he had magic hands, which amazed and confused me in equal parts, because they just seemed like ordinary hands to me.

He made house calls to patients, most of whom were elderly women, who couldn’t come into his office for treatment. I remember going on a house call with him when I was seven or eight. It was to care for a woman named Sunny who lived with her son and his family. As I colored at their kitchen table, I heard a loud gasp of joy. Here came my dad gently dancing with Sunny who was old and frail but had the biggest smile on her face as her family clapped and cheered for her. On the way home I asked him if he danced with all of his patients. He explained only a select few whom he knew loved to dance as much as he did. Years later when I asked him about that memory, he recalled Sunny spent most of her time in bed and getting her out and moving, even a little, was good for her.

In the years after my mom passed away, my dad moved forward. He learned to bake and once made my sister, Maggie, a birthday cake that was over a foot tall. He spent time at his cabin on the St. Croix river. He celebrated birthdays and graduations. He enjoyed being the father of the bride or groom as my siblings got married and happily became a grandfather. He also could make things difficult for himself and others.

I recall being in my early 20s, angry and hurt by something he’d done and venting to my oldest brother, Jack. He patiently listened and told me I had every right to be angry. Then he said, “But you gotta remember, Marth, he loves you very much and is doing the best he can.”

As I got older, time didn’t heal my complicated feelings toward my dad. After he was diagnosed with dementia, I was incredibly sad for him, but I also had thoughts that this was just another thing he was doing to make things difficult. I wish I could say it was immaturity that kept me stuck in this negative and toxic thought pattern, but I was old enough to know better. It was simply self-centeredness that kept me stuck. All too often, it was all about me.

As my siblings and I cared for him after his diagnosis, I admired and was jealous of how they did so with such joy. I rationalized that it was easier for them, because they had gotten a better version of him as a parent and didn’t have the emotional baggage with him that I did. It didn’t take much for me to become impatient, frustrated or annoyed with him. Lacking awareness and insight about how I showed up for him, meant there could be a wide gulf between my intentions and how they were experienced. When Joe and I first started dating, we had dinner with my dad who spent much of the night regaling Joe with stories about the joys of raising eight kids. In response to one of those stories, I made what I thought was a funny comment. But later that night, Joe told me I should apologize to my dad because he could tell by the look on his face that my comment was hurtful.

Even with dementia, my dad didn’t lose his desire to care for others. After his diagnosis, he began going to adult daycare, which he wasn’t thrilled about, but actually came to enjoy. When paramedics were called one day to help another daycare participant having a health crisis, my dad went up to the care providers and said, “I think I can help her.” They convinced him that it was best to let the paramedics handle it.

He made things as easy for us as he could as we cared for him. He didn’t complain when he had to stop driving or sell his cabin on the St. Croix river, because it had become too difficult for him to take care of. Two of my brothers bought the cabin, which he once told me made it easy for him to sell. He didn’t complain when he moved into a memory care facility or when he moved to a second one when he went on oxygen and needed a higher level of care. He did complain about the cats that liked to come into his room at the new place, but he learned to tolerate them. He moved for the third and final time without complaint when the facility he was in closed. He was in his new place for only a few months when he passed away on November 27, 2011, at the age of 82.

In the months following my Aha Moment, I reflected on why I carried anger toward my dad and what purpose it served. I believe he sent clues to help me figure it out. I re-read the eulogy his brother gave at his funeral, which talked about how much he had done for so many. I found a notebook with notes from when I was in therapy years earlier that included, “In a loving relationship, we accept that we will be disappointed as well as disappointing.” I was reminded of a road trip we took to Arizona when he shared the worst time in his life were the months after my mom died. I admitted to myself that had my mom been the one to survive, she would have done difficult and disappointing things, too. I reconciled with how my dad disappointed me and how I disappointed him. One day in the mail, I received a cup from a friend that said, “Let That Shit Go.” I learned my thoughts of anger and shame toward him were a stress response that I could change, so I set out to do that.

Andy graduated high school last year and did just fine. I gained enough awareness and insight to understand that in our loving relationship my dad and I both did our best. Lily Tomlin is credited with saying, “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.” I couldn’t change the past, and the anger and shame that I felt about it did neither one of us any good. In fact, it was like a weight that was getting heavier to carry the older I got. I finally learned to let that shit go, and I am so grateful to my dad for helping me do that.

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Visit the Center for Healthy Minds to learn about the work they are doing to create a kinder more compassionate world by scientific study of the human mind.

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