HARD LOVE DADDY ON A HEALTH KICK

I saw hard love work on my Dad after he got his heart fixed.

No smoking for the old chimney.

The doc said it, the family said it, the friends said it.

You’d say it too.

A man in his late fifties comes in through the emergency room with a confirmed heart attack of some kind.

There’s more than one? Yes, Dear Reader, there’s more than one.

I didn’t know either. 

 

My old man was a pack and a half a day smoker, maybe two packs a day when he was really cooking.

His wife smoked over a pack a day herself.

After his open-heart surgery and a handful of by-passes they both quit smoking.

Their’s was a success story for the former smoker crowd.

The never-smokers are still pissed about the second hand smoke on airplanes from one row of seats to the next.

Smoking seats and non-smoking in the same airplane cabin like restaurants that had smoking sections with no more protection than a narrow walk way.

There’s a picture of him wearing his high school letterman’s sweater and leaning on a pole next to a pretty girl with a cigarette in his hand.

He looks like a young man with the world by the balls and ready to give it a swing.

 

Hard Love Daddy Did It For The Kids

My Dad got as far as he could.

Many years later he fell into such ill health that all he could think to do was smoke a cigarette if someone would light it for him.

This was about a month before he passed and I was visiting. And I lit cigarettes two at a time, one for him, one for me.

You know how doctors say people in a coma can hear and remember what’s being said? Sometimes?

Big Wayne wasn’t in an official coma since he was sitting up in a chair, but his facilities were down and not coming back so I told him everything I could think of.

Perfect time for a father and son and a pack of Red. You know, clear things up while he stared out the window.

 

Remember the giant bike you got Joe and I for Christmas when we were too small to ride them? It was a challenge I’ve remembered forever.

Our deer hunting trips were epic. We even got a deer up on Deans Mountain.

And our ocean fishing? I’m still swaying on my sea legs about the time you tossed me the net while I was puking and together we landed a forty-five pound chinook I thought was a shark.

Or the time we watched three guys in a ski boat land a shark that bounced like it was on a trampoline before they tossed it out.

Time for a smoke? Me too. Here ya go.

 

An Ongoing Trend

Several years later I got a chance to improve my caregiving skills when my father in-law fell into such ill health that the medical community gave up.

He’d gone about as far as he could. His wife never left his side and was starting to show signs of fading away.

From living big in Culver City to assisted living in Tualatin, he landed in my writing-room-turned-hospital-room with advanced Parkinson’s.

The hard love started immediately and it was a one way street since he was in a coma, but not an official coma.

Since he’d been bedridden for weeks by then, and the doctors gave him two days to live on the outside, I wanted him to leave this world as he knew it: an ass kicker.

I talked to him in the context of his WWII days in the Marine Corps.

I talked to him like I was a Marine Drill Instructor and I found him taking a nap in the barracks. (Luckily I’d had Army Drill Sergeants scream in my ear for the right tone.)

It started with, “What in holy hell do we have here cuddled up in the rack like some kind of shitty little bedbug.”

Hard love, or bullying? Your call, but my two-days-to-live father in-law lived another vigorous five years.

After that I fielded hard love calls to try and get other older guys in the community to snap out of it. (Hey Paul)

It only worked once, but I’d still give it a try when you’re alone with a loved one who’s not in an official coma.

 

What Hard Love Sounds Like

We’re sick of you lying about everything you’re doing and not doing. 

You’re not drinking the water, not drinking the protein shakes.

Two things and you’re not doing either one? Why, is it too hard?

Too hard for what. Just say you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do and we’ll find some place to help.

Like a hospital.

Or a nursing home.

We’re not going to watch you whither away. You thought we would? Think again.

 

I hope you found this helpful. Follow BoomerPdx for more practical hard love advice.