Juggling for Relationship

   My Father did not usually cook, but if Mother had to work late, he would make his favorite dinner for the family­­-- bacon and eggs. I was skipping rope on the cracked sidewalk in front of the house and through the window I saw one, round, white ball up in the air, then another and then another. Were they balls or were they eggs? I flew into the house throwing my skipping rope down. There stood my Dad whistling and juggling three white eggs while the bacon grease snapped and crackled its sizzling cheer. It looked like a circus. My Dad’s burnt orange hair and powder blue shirt mimicked the centre ring juggler. I gazed in amazement not wanting to break his concentration in case I caused him to drop them and yellow blobs would crack onto the floor. 

    “You wanna learn?” Dad motioned.

    “Would I? Yes sirree!” I squealed and he handed me two tangerines from the wooden fruit bowl. 

     “Throw one up and move the other one into your open hand.”

     This was easy because I had spent hours playing with two Indian rubber balls against the brick school wall. The only difference was that this was in the air instead of against the wall. The trick and struggle came when he told me to get the third orange out of the bowl. Plop, drop, sigh. This was challenging!

    “You always have to have one ball in the air and one leaving your hand while you pass off the other,” he said in a matter of fact voice.

       Simple in words but not in practice. I helped him finish cooking the dinner that evening, but this became my new after dinner activity with Dad. He would laugh and patiently show me again and again. Finally, one day I was ready for hard boiled eggs and together we juggled eggs.   He had three breakable ones and I always used the hard-boiled eggs. 

   Life for us seemed to come in threes. We were a family of five, but my oldest brother was off to college and busy with girlfriends.  When Dad was working, my middle brother and I were often with Mom learning a skill or doing puzzles. But when Dad was home, Mom got the jobs done that she couldn’t with us underfoot, and we had Dad all to ourselves- a trio.

   One summer vacation the four of us headed out to a little blue painted clapboard cabin in the woods. On Thursday, Dad suggested that Mom lay out in the sun for a leisurely afternoon while he would take us somewhere special. He loved adventure and I loved that too. 

   “You will need your swimsuits on,” he stated even though the campground had no pool. 

   I was squealing with delight standing in my yellow bathing suit and Mark had a red towel draped around his neck ready to go too.

    "You be careful with those kids," warned my Mother, "It is rough waters."

    After a short drive I jumped out of the car and gawked. I had seen bubbling, rocky rivers on Sunday evenings with the Wonderful World of Disney. We got to watch the first 45 minutes of the hour program before we had to leave for evening church.  I began to create my own ending for each story and some of them were crazy and wild. But here in front of me was a river just like the show about a bear who came to drink in the cool rushing stream and it ended with the bear becoming friends with a boy. I imagined I was on a Disney set.

    "What are we going to do? It is too rough to swim." I half announced, half asked.

    At that very moment, a dad and boy came careening from behind some rocks laughing while being carried along. Extreme fun and terror melded together in my mind. 

    Incredulously Mark exclaimed, "We are going to do THAT?" pointing toward the rushing current of teens coming next. We watched as each group of kids, families or teens rode the current down the middle and splashed into the leveled pool ending the ride.

    "Now hold on to me and don't let go," Dad commanded.

    There was no need to state the obvious. Mark's eyes, round as pancakes, reflected fear and excitement. We climbed to the top where everyone was getting in and I clung to my Dad like a baby koala. My brother did the same. Fear gripped me when we entered the stream. My brother's and my grip tightened around my father's throat as the splashing water attacked us. Where was my Dad's head? In our desperation to hold tight to him, he was forced below the water only bobbing occasionally for air. He realized his own children would drown him if he did not do something. That 'something' was severe, shocking, and frightening. He pushed with all his might and shoved us away. Our trio was broken. Our screaming was unheard because the rushing water swallowed the sound. But my Father emerged like a hippo who had survived a crocodile attack. He scooped his arm around each of us but this time we were facing outward. He was our lifesaver at that moment. We looked like three-headed manatee. Again, and again the three of us careened together down stream and then we would walk up the rocky path back to the top for another ride. Life with Dad was always a ride. 

     When I was a woman of twenty-four with my groom in front of me and my Dad holding my arm proudly at my side, I walked the long aisle to the front of the church. I would leave Dad tearfully, and yet in great excitement cling to another man. The years have passed, and my Mom has passed along with them.  Only my Father was there to greet my firstborn when I became a family of three. Later I had three sons and Grampy (as he became known to each of them) had his own adventures with them. The adventures were not as wild and crazy, but relationships between the three generations continued. 

    Then life took a sharp turn more like a three-point turn. He was a father and a grandfather that would become more like a child. The disease of Alzheimer has forever changed our lives. He played with me as a child and taught me how to juggle for fun, but this skill of juggling would punctuate our new relationship. I was busy with family life, social life, and now care giving would become the third ball to juggle. 

   Caregiving became three again. My oldest brother was off on his own adventure across the country and it was Mark and I and Dad. Mark as a single man was able to move in and live with Dad, but he had to work during the day, and I was now needed for the day shift. I became my Dad’s social planner as I tried to include him in my regular daily world.

    "Do you want to help me with . . . ?" I would ask. 

In the beginning he helped, but as he grew more tired, he only watched as I prepared the meals, gardened, and interacted with my sons.  He also accompanied us to school events and even to all the sports events. This was great for the three boys to have Grampy there more ‘permanently’, but the stresses would come. He began to say inappropriate things and his mobility faltered until my days of dragging him along on family outings was no longer working. 

    Caregiving for me then had a new face. It became a full-time occupation in his home from nine to three. After several months of struggling and juggling life’s responsibilities, I felt the grip of his arms around my neck tightening much like he must have felt when we nearly drown him in the water that vacation.  He had to shove us away to save himself, and now my brother and I were in that spot. We were now drowning trying to keep him afloat. Together we made decisions to enlist more support workers to help so that we could continue in laughing, loving, and caring for him—just like he had done for us as children.