As he got into his 70s, my father developed some health issues, including severe restrictions on the use of his hands. Over the years, I made a few attempts to connect with him, but he never seemed very interested in me. This could have been a result of my relationship with my step mother, but I think it was also an issue with him - he liked to be alone, didn't like children, and didn't seem to want to spend much time with his children or grandchildren.
Though it was difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to arrange, I would visit occasionally, sometimes with Susan and the children. There were certainly some pleasant times, but he generally made it clear that he didn't want any of us there. He and I did have a good conversation in a a car when I went to my cousin Blair's wedding in Memphis.
I don't remember exactly what year it was - maybe around 2015 - but when my step-mother died, I offerred to come live with him, but he turned me down. I don't know if it was before or after then, but he hired a caregiver named Shelly that seemed to make him quite happy.
My dad tended to live beyond his means and make bad investments. I think he got some money from the lawsuit about my mother's death, and I think her mother also helped with things like private school tuition for us children, but he also inherited money from his parents. After my step-mother died, he continued to live in a large and expensive three-bedroom house on an extensively landscaped property in Cotati. He also bought tons of CDs, DVDs, books, and things like figurines reflecting his interest in Egypt. At one point he invested most of his money into something that was clearly a ponzi scheme.
In approximately 2018, he contacted me and my brothers to request that we give him somehting like $2,000 per month. He provided a budget that included things multiple streaming services, petty cash for buying physical media, and other things that I don't even allow for myself. We were all somewhat upset by this request, as he had enough assets to live a decent lifestyle without any support from his children, would have had more if he had made better decisions, and was asking his children for money for things that he really didn't need. We turned him down.
When I was going through my divorce, I asked if I could rent his garage, which was another attempt to reconnect with him. He got frustrated and didn't want to hear about my situation at all.
Around the tenth of July in 2022, I was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Marta when I received notification that there had been a medical emergency. It's hard to see how this all could have happened quickly enough, I don't remember being involved, but I believe that the ambulance called one of his children to ask whether to ressucitate him. I was or would have been against it, but I think Adrian made the decision to keep him alive.
In addition to drinking whiskey almost constantly against doctor's orders, he had taken a bunch of pills that should not have been fatal and fallen off the bed, clearly trying to kill himself. This had set off an alarm on a monitor that he wore, which resulted in an ambulance arriving to take him to a hospital. I don't think this suicide attempt was a call for help - the doctor had told him that his cancer was terminal, likely within a year, and that he would never regain more than about 5% use of his hands. I am sure that he was in significant physical as well as psychological pain. It would be possible to blame him for things like taking the wrong pills, not removing the monitor, and not having a clear Do Not Ressucitate order near his body. but I he was likely drunk, exhibiting symptoms of dementia, and experiencing some pshchilogical disturbance at the time.
Two of my brothers lived near him in the bay area, but Adrian flew in from Orange County and I drove down from Portland. Dad was in bad shape, on drugs and drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes acting like a peaceful child and sometimes clearly upset about everything. We hired some professionals to car for him, but they were disappointing.
Before his suicide attempt, Shelly was clearly buying whiskey for him, which would have contributed to his health decline. I don't hold this against him - everyone is free to do what they want, and if it helped with the pain and psychological symptoms, I might have even encouraged it. But clearly, Shelly was not focussed on improving his health. I didn't know much about her, but from my perspective, Shelly was a bit of a degenerate, in a relationship with a known meth user named Lance.
My dad apparently considered Shelly to be like a daughter to him, and apparently cared about her more than his own children. In addition to paying her, he had spent a few thousand dollars to buy her a car. There were probably other significant gifts. He had offered to help her with a down that I don payment on a house. A day or two before he died, she had written a check to herself for $100,000, and he had signed it.
When we learned about this, we contacted the police, but did not file a police report to support criminal charges such as fraud or elder abuse. The bank blocked the money transfer. A civil case eventually went through the courts and I think we settled such that she got $50,000, where the other half was all or mostly spent on my family's legal team.
While we were at his house, we couldn't all just sit around his bed waiting for him to die, as recovery would be impossible. One night, we went to a Mexican restaurant. I was ecstatic about my Yaz and our relationship and got very upset when I felt that Tim had been rude to the Mexican staff.
I had a lot of trouble with the situation. I was likely going through a manic phase related to my possible bilpolar disorder. After telling my dad that I had to leave because Tim and I were having various conflicts, which I now regret but he seemmed to understand, I ended up leaving much sooner than I had expected. He died within two weeks. Before his death, he had done some paperwork such that my half-brother James and his wife would inherit the house, leaving me and my other brothers with basically nothing. I didn't really care - these were his assets and I never expectede to inherit anything other than debt - but my brothers and step-brother and step-sister arranged that James would pay each of us $25,000. As I write this, it's November of 2025 and I just learned that we will each get $12,000 from a legal settlement regarding the ponzi operation.
Driving north, I picked up a hitchhikge named Tim. We drove together for several hours, from approximately Woodland to Eugene, where I dropped him off. I let him drive for part of the time, but he was a terrible driver. Along the way, we stopped at a Walmart or something so that he could return some product. It became clear that he stole products and returned them for a living.
Tim had clearly had a rough life. He told me that his family had abandonned him at a young age, that he had grown up in a boys home, and that he had basically always been homeless. After I told him my life story, especially regarding Susan, he said that he would not want to trade places with me. He clearly felt sorry for me, and was a strong believer that freedom was more important than anything else.
Of course I was sad when my dad died, and I still miss him sometimes. In fact, sometimes I think of calling him and then realize that I can't. He also sometimes appears alive in my dreams, but less often over time.
On the other hand, to be completely honest, I think there is some relief. For one thing, there is nobody significant to judge me anymore; I don't have to try to live up to his expecations or make him happy. There's also no more trying to communicate with him and getting rejected. Maybe most importantly, I don't have to worry about his health or pay for his decline, so I'm not financially sandwiched between caring for my parents and caring for my children. It feels harsh to write, but there's a certain freedom that comes from my parents being dead.