The late 1980's and beyond.

By this time, Daddy had been sober for a while and things in our house was much more calm. Though our mother continued her drinking and smoking, Dad remained "clean"...a nervous, anti-social, TV-obsessed fiend, but clean. My brother was pretty young during these years, and our older sister had long since escaped. My recollection of these years was that I slowly realized that my Dad had actually been the source of much of our misery, not our Mom...who was used as the scapegoat for our misfortune all along.
I think it was somewhere during Daddy's first "sober" years that he started having the night terrors. He would scream and curse and hit the walls during the night. He and Mommy were already sleeping in separate beds by now...Daddy in a hospital bed obtained by the VA after a few surgeries he'd had on his neck, to remove his gallbladder, these really bizarrre "cysts" he started getting all over his body, and a host of other issues. He had gained quite a bit of weight too, and had been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. His favorite pastime was TV. Hey, look, it's 6 AM and Dad's in front of the TV. Hey, look, it's 10 PM and Dad's still in front of the TV. He was all about TV. All day and night. Well, that's not entirely true. He'd glance at old movie books sometimes, do yardwork on weekends, and do a quickie dust and vacuum job riiiiight before Mommy would get home from work...but other than that...TV.
Somewhere during this time, can't remember when exactly, Daddy got injured at work and went on permanent disability. He'd fallen through a roof while on the job at work...he'd worked for many years in Heating and Air Conditioning, and this injury was the end of that.
My parents rarely fought anymore after this for some reason. Occasionally, when my Mom would get unusually rip-roaring drunk (her liquid courage), she'd start spouting off truths about Daddy and antagonizing him about his weaknesses. We all got on Mommy's case about her drinking and smoking, but the way she saw it, it was her only pleasure in life. She had no intention of giving these vices up, so we dealt with the occasional outburst from her. Honestly, I didn't mind it so much, because what she said was absolutely true and she needed to get it out somehow, I suppose. Mostly she got drunk and quietly went to her room and fell asleep, while Daddy was in the living room eating and watching TV.
Other than spending every single Sunday with Nany and Papa and going to work, my parents hardly spoke, and spent their time in separate rooms attending to their separate addictions and social backwardness. They had no friends, and I do mean none. My Mom had a few people that she joked with at work, but there wasn't even one person that ever came over or whose house we visited. Well, once when I was 7, we visited some couple they knew (although I have no idea what happened to those people after that), and one other time we went to some lady's house that my Mom worked with to make tamales...but does two times in an entire lifetime even count? Those acquaintances were never even spoken of after those occasions.
In 1997, we got news that Daddy's biological father had passed away. This was the first I'd even heard that his Dad had even been alive all these years, so I was stumped, and it barely registered as a glip on my radar. We'd never met the guy, and no one had ever really talked about him except in passing that he had existed at one point. But, I remember Daddy having more night terrors after this, so for him it was clearly a major trauma. Whatever unresolved issues he's had with his Dad and all of life's other issues came to life at night.
Also in 1997, Daddy's Mom and Papa moved back to New Mexico after nearly 30 years of living in California. My Mom was definitely relieved to have some peace with their move, and maybe Daddy was too...but he seemed to also see it as a void in his identity...it was almost as if because he didn't have someone constantly telling him when and where to jump, he was lost. Though we all loved Nany and Papa, Nany was just, I don't know how to put this mildly...she was a pain in the ass. Sorry Nany, but I think you now know you really were.
During the next year I became quite close with my Mom. She had eased up on her drinking and seemed more at peace...maybe having Daddy's Mom hundreds of miles away was calming to her...she was much easier to talk to now. I was out of the house, married, and was about to start my own family. Me and Mommy talked almost everyday, and I'd hear all about how Daddy was a thorn in her side.
By 1999, though, her stories started including how Daddy's night terrors began evolving into actual sleep-walking events where he'd run through the house searching for "the kids" that were harrassing him in his room. She'd tell me how some nights she'd hear a bunch of commotion down the hall and she'd find him dazed and using the clothes dryer as the toilet. He'd punch holes in walls. Start singing in his sleep. Scream. Yell for help. He was driving my Mom completely crazy, and she clearly never got any rest. And, not that I thought she was lying, but I admit that I thought she may be stretching it a bit because I knew they just couldn't stand each other. Around this same time, we found out that all those years of smoking finally caught up to Mommy. She had lung cancer. Daddy really didn't react. Mommy went through the removal of one lung, chemotherapy, lost her hair (I shaved her head when it got thin), and generally became very weak from the whole ordeal...and Daddy just, I dunno, stayed stoic about the whole thing...during the day. At night, when Mommy clearly needed to be sleeping, Daddy's anxieties woke up and he'd explore the house and swing at things that weren't there. He'd have fist-fights with people, lots of people...in his bed, out the window, knocking at the front door...all people who, of course, weren't really there.
He also started having episodes of really low blood sugar. Quite a few times his blood sugar dropped to the 50's and 60's and Mommy would call and say he had lost his damn mind...that he was now talking about "the people" during the day...the people that only he saw. We didn't know for sure what was causing the low blood sugar (although later, while looking at the side effects for all the drugs the VA had been giving Daddy for anxiety, I think that may have been the cause).
In 2002, we got word that our Papa was expected to pass. He'd had cancer a few years prior and had lived well beyond his Doctor's expectations. Daddy had flown to New Mexico where Nany and Papa had moved back to, and me (pregnant with my daughter), my then-husband, Mom and son (who was 3 at the time) drove by car, hoping we weren't too late. Though Papa didn't come along until Daddy was an adult, I know that Papa was really the only father figure my Dad ever had. Papa's death affected many of us in ways I think we never could've imagined, and I'm sure this was just the first of many issues and death's that would irrevocably speed-up Lewy's arrival.
When I now think back about turning points in my Dad's state of mind, one incident that always sticks out in my mind is an afternoon when Mommy called me and said Daddy was talking about how she'd ruined his singing career...that he would've had a lucrative career as a famous guitar-playing singer if it weren't for her. The reality was that Dad really couldn't carry a tune to save his life that I know of. She had him test his blood sugar and it was in the 40's...which can, from what research I've done, supposedly cause brain damage? I called my brother who lived closer to them at that time...to tell him someone needed to go see what the hell was happening ASAP. My Mom had called 911...and had to do it slyly because Daddy was completely paranoid that she was trying to kill him. She called me and had him get on the phone...and she had to convince him that he hadn't heard the phone ring because of his singing...that IIII had been the one that called them because he was suspicious and asked why I'd want to talk to him. He acted really odd on the phone and would go back and forth from asking what I was doing to humming a tune that he'd just "written" himself. The ambulance finally came, and my brother had shown up by then. Daddy's blood sugar was at 34 (!), so they gave him some glucose to boost him up quickly...and his mental daze improved...but something definitely triggered a change that day because his delusions got worse after that.
At the end of 2004, I was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer at the age of 32. This, after quite a few years of Thyroid disease and knowing something had been seriously wrong with my health. I had gone from Doctor to Doctor, being ignored. After all was said and done, the Doctor that diagnosed me said going by the size of my 3 areas of cancer, I had probably had it for a good 5 years. Jesus. I look back on this part of my life in amazement of the ridiculous crap that was going on. My health was crap (despite never smoking, didn't drink, and I was a vegetarian...), my Mom went through cancer treatment, my marriage was in a state of "what the hell did I sign myself up for here?", and I was watching my fairly young parents fail before my eyes. Shit, and I just remembered that my sister and I weren't even on speaking terms at this point because of some stupid e-mail she'd sent. (rolling eyes)
Anywaaaaaay...my parents came to stay with us after my cancer surgery and during my radiation, so my then-husband could go back to work. My Mom had healed up fairly well after her own surgery, but she just wasn't the same. She was really tired and the arm on the corresponding side that her lung was removed was weak. Dad was just, for lack of a better defintion, "not there". He didn't say much and seemed to just be irritating my Mom with his uselessness.
Shortly after all my treatment, my then-husband and I decided we were going to be move closer to my parents. I wasn't doing that well, and I saw that both of them were failing. We found a house farther north, closer to them. While waiting for our house to be built, we moved to a rental. My Dad insisted on helping us move. He got lost driving to our house, and was having a lot of problems with balance. Quite a few pieces of furniture got ruined during this move because he'd lose his balance and stumble, dropping whatever he had in his hands. It was like there was a button for the aging process and someone had hit "turbo". When I'd talk to my Mom on the phone during this time frame, she had a horrible cough again...like the one before she was diagnosed with lung cancer...but she kept saying she was fine. Dad was just 'out to lunch', blissfully watching the days go by in TV land.
The month after moving, I drove with my then 6 and 2 year old to see Mommy...it was the day before Mother's day. She didn't look like my Mom. Not to get too graphic, but her entire head and face was swollen, she had a terrible cough and could barely breathe. She couldn't get out of bed. I asked my Dad why he hadn't taken her in somewhere and he was completely clueless that anything was even wrong with her. I knew something was wrong with him. He had this expressionless look on his face, it was almost droopy. He'd talk and his mouth would move, but he had no expression, like all these Hollywood freaks with botox-filled faces. When he wasn't talking, his face fell even more so, like a cartoon frown. I
called my brother on my drive home to tell him what our Mom looked like and asked if he could please try to get Daddy to take her to the Doctor. Everything I had tried failed. When I'd been there, I tried to convince them both she was seriously ill, but they wouldn't budge. I think my Mom knew she couldn't be helped and was just too tired to deal with it. She also didn't have health insurance, so I know she didn't want the headache of what it would cost to go in, considering they were broke.
My brother convinced them to go to the ER. She was immediately admitted to the Hospital. After a few tests, we were told she might have two weeks to live...the cancer was not only back, but had basically spread everywhere. After about a week in the hospital, she was sent across the street to the Rehab/Nursing Center where they did Hospice. My older sister came to California from Washington and stayed with Daddy while this was going on. I drove daily to see Mommy and to make sure I said everything I needed to say to her. While our hearts were breaking, Daddy would sit in a chair in Mommy's room, saying almost nothing. He seemed totally unaware.
My sister, who was still not speaking to me at the time, was the one who called me on the evening of June 5, 2005, saying the facility had called to let us know Mommy had passed. It was a quick, fairly "informational" call. My sister said Daddy was oblivious to the news and asked if he could go back to bed.
Lewy had moved in, hung drapes and artwork, and had no intention of being evicted.