For basically the past decade, my dad has lived in a nursing home. A mix of severe arthritis, mental illness, and a complete lack of physical activity had left him using a walker to get around. He had been living by himself in a double wide for many years, but he had fallen in the bath tub and was unable to get up, so he was there for a couple of days until the meals on wheels person happened by. This was when it was decided that he should be put in the nursing home, as he needed full-time supervision.

What makes this story a bit more unique is that my father was born in 1946. Add to this that if you looked at just his face, you would think he was my brother, so it was kind of strange to see such a young-looking person living with people who appeared like they were his grandparents. My dad spent a couple years in the Iowa State Mental hospital when he was in his mid-30's, so while he would occasionally discuss wanting to go back to his trailer, he didn't get too upset about having to stay at the nursing hiome. I can remember visiting him at the State Nut House when I was 13 and let me say that it was way more frightening than prison, which is something I experienced when performing standup at a State Pen in Indiana. Listening to the mentally ill shriek or cry is way scarier than any haunted house you can visit. I guess the nursing home seemed liked a better option than having to go back to the mental hospital, so that is where he has spent the past several years...until Monday.

Over the past few months I've been called a few times by the social worker who keeps an eye on my dad that he was on a deathwatch. I could rehash the tortured relationship with my father, but it would be easier to just click on this link to get a feel for how it has been. While I've spent my whole life trying to come to grips with the abuse he dished out to me, I'm fully aware how the nature and nurture (or lack there of) he provided has impacted my life. For a long time I developed the whole survivor mechanism of out of sight, out of mind, but since the birth of my daughter I've done some reexamining of my father/son relationship. This reexamination has taken away some of the anger I felt towards my father and replaced it with sadness at what I missed by not having a loving father. Fortunately he did such a number on me growing up that I don't shed a tear like some kind of pansy boy. (The last sentence has a hint of sarcasm to it.)

For the past few years my dad had been falling into a greater level of dementia. The amount of psychoactive medicine he had been given had done to him what Randle McMurphy was fighting against. In this situation it wasn't as simple as a Ken Kesey novel, though, as my father's manic depressive rages had left a pile of collateral damage on about every road he traveled. Sometimes society has to decide if someone should be forcibly medicated if it helps keep others from being physically harmed from that person's manic rages.

The few times I had seen my father over the past couple of decades, I could see how much his mental and physical health was deteriorating. The most time I spent with him was the day of my grandfather's funeral. My dad proceeded to tell me a story about how a few years back he had wanted to go to Liverpool and how he made it as far as Heathrow Airport, only to be sent back when he couldn't produce a passport. The weird part of this, well the really weird part of it, was that my dad never even liked the Beatles. He was more of a Beach Boys and Dave Clark 5 guy. Later on during the day, he told me that about his brother, Andre Agassi. Since in my white trash family, I have an half-uncle who is a year younger than me, I guess that could be possible, All I know for sure is that since he wasn't capable of kicking my ass, anymore, it was kind of amusing. I'm sure it comes off more heartbreaking to others, but when some big, bad monster loses his teeth, it's hard for its former victims to feel much sympathy.

After the first time I was called about my father being on his last fumes, I went out to see him. I was told that he had very little awareness and he wasn't likely to offer up much. When I first saw him, he was laying in his bed, asleep. Since I had driven 7 hours and only had that night to see him, I had the hospice nurse wake him. Propping his head up, he groggily looked my way. I wasn't sure if he knew who I was so I told him it was his son, Scott. Since I didn't know what to really say to him, I started talking about my pride and joy and showed him some pictures of my girl, Maddie. I talked at him, with a lot of uncomfortable silences, for about 15 minutes. He was constantly yawning, which I'm vain enough to think had more to due with the heavy medication he was on versus my conversational skills being the sleep-inducer.

I decided I had kept him up enough and bent over and gave him an awkward hug. I whispered in his ear that I hoped things would go the way he wanted them to and said I regretted that we hadn't of had a better relationship. He responded to this by saying in a heartfelt way that "I'm really glad you came to see me. I love you...Jerry."

Nothing in my life has ever resembled a Hallmark original movie. I can tell you that being called Jerry at this moment was one of the funniest things that I've ever experienced. If he knew who he was talking to or not, if he meant what he said or not, I just want to say it was about as good as I could hope for. I can never remember my dad ever saying he loved me, so at this point, in the state he was in, it would have seemed somewhat disengenous. After all the psychic scars this guy has left me with, a Love Story ending wouldn't have been right.

My dad hung in there for a couple of months, defying the medical experts. In truth, he hadn't had any kind of quality of life for the past 3 decades, so my opinion is it was for the best that his life's shot clock buzzer went off. When I went to see him this last time, so I could peform my own version of last rites, I didn't know if it was going to serve any real purpose for me or not. Well, I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't say it gave me any major inner peace with our relationship, but peering at a face for the last time...a face which looked just like my own, did feel like it would help me resolve some of my issues with him. Well, I think my session is over for this week. Time for me to get off the couch. I will pay the receptionsist on the way out.

Jerry Scott Long