Five Years

Chingu seems to really like diet soda.

This is as good a time as any to recap the last five years of my life, no?

In 2021 I returned to America from my job teaching English in South Korea.  I moved in with my Dad in Bellingham, Washington.  He was 88 at the time and dealing with, well, age, as well as a very bad romantic relationship that had just ended.  Basically, he needed full-time care, and he couldn't drive any more, and he lived in the middle of the woods.  Neither of us were thrilled by all of this, but it was necessary short of putting him in a home.

I worked a weekend / part-time job with the Whatcom County Humane Society which changed my life, in no small part because I adopted the tuxedo terror (pictured above) and his sister -- Chingu and Mandu (Korean names for "friend" and "dumpling.")

In 2023 my Dad was finally diagnosed with vascular dementia.  It was a secret to nobody, especially his doctor, who seemed strangely reluctant to actually give him the test that would allow for the dementia diagnosis.  These were, understandably, very difficult times for everyone.  I cried when the doctor asked my Dad some simple questions -- Date? Location? Where are you, basically.  It wasn't just that he was "wrong" in his answers, but that he couldn't fathom the concepts of test, date, location, and, well, reality.

It sounds crazy but me and my sister moved him across the county back to Maryland, where he'd worked for 35 years for the Department of Agriculture and U.S.A.I.D.  He was a scientist, and a very successful one.  To see a truly intellectual guy fall apart like he did was gut-wrenching, to say the least.

But we couldn't stay in the woods, as lovely as they were.  We were way too far from town for access to the hospital.  The two of us living together was doing neither of us any favors.  I remember telling my sister, "I can't do this any more," and she understood exactly what I meant.  Maryland meant he would see his grandson more often and have an actual support system beyond my limited abilities.

Dad was in a nursing home with mixed results.  Eventually he and I bought a house together in Frederick, Maryland and he eventually passed at the age of 93.  My sister was there.  We were hiring private nurses during the day so I could work (office jobs, substitute teaching).  In November of 2023 it was all over due to pneumonia.  (Was it COVID?  I was a hawk about keeping us both vaccinated and myself masked.  I never had it, so I doubt he did.  He rarely left the house.)

Later this week I'm driving down to eastern North Carolina to look at houses.  While I wouldn't call it retirement, I'm ready to move on from Maryland.  It's got some nice things.  It's also very expensive.  And while Frederick has some charms it's got a lot of downsides too -- traffic, rapid development, an unearned sense of greatness for what's basically a boring exurb.  Downtown is nice.

By the end of this year I'll be living near the beach and will hopefully have sold my home here.

I'm definitely ready for a change, a big one.

I'm excited to live somewhere near the ocean with my two cats and all my good memories of my father, the laughs and the talks and the moments when we were all at peace, the many moments.