Bye Daddy

VALMORE (Big Val) SAMUEL JR., age 78, passed away peacefully on October 22, 2013. He was born on October 25, 1934 in Huntington, WV. He was also known as Valmore (Junior) Hill. His mother, Rebecca Robinson, preceded him in death. Val graduated in 1954 from Douglass High School. While there he lettered in basketball and football. He received an athletic scholarship to Marshall University. After a year of college, he enlisted in the 178^th Ordinance of the Army at Fort Bragg, NC.

He moved to Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1960’s in search for a better life. He joined Mt. Nebo Baptist Church and served as a Sunday school superintendent and usher. He married in 1967 and had one child. During this time, Val completed additional studies to earn credentials as a machinist. He was employed with Osborn Manufacturing Company, where he was subsequently elected union president. He was later employed by Fisher Body and ultimately retired from General Motors at Parma in 2004 after 19 years of service.

He was actively engaged in his community. He attended local civic and street club meetings.  He coached boys’ basketball and girls’ softball, and also served as booster club president at Christ the King Elementary School.

Big Val’s favorite pastimes included softball and basketball. He was also an avid weightlifter and bowler. He enjoyed attending cabarets and taking casino trips. He was a very proud grandfather and loved spending time with his grandkids and barbecuing in the backyard. He was often seen in the neighborhood sitting on his porch eager to chat with anyone who stopped by. He enjoyed listening to blues, gospel and soul music.

Survivors include his only child Valerie Rebecca (Beckie); a granddaughter, Hailey; and a grandson, Zachary. The family would like to thank the caring and able staff at Wyant Woods Care Center in Akron OH.

Fuck you Dementia.

*My apologies if this post sounds bleak. I don't mean for it to. I'm actually in good spirits considering. It helps just to be able to write about my dad and dying without hearing a bunch of useless though well-meaning platitudes. There are no words to console me. There just aren't. And I have to learn be ok with that.

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I've heard so many people say, "when I get old, I don't want to be hooked up to machines. Just let me die." But rare is the case where an elderly person is wholly sustained via machines. What is more likely to happen is death in a more odious manner, whereby the body dies, cell by cell. There's no machine keeping you alive, rather some parts of your body dies and other parts don't. At least not right away, not for years. Such is my view of dementia, as my maternal grandfather died from it and my paternal grandmother likely did too. No one knows exactly what she died from, just that she was senile and in a mental facility and died at age 55.

He's stage six with vascular dementia. It's not pretty. Think of descending a ladder. Lowering a foot is like losing a cognitive ability, but once the foot is on a rung, everything is stable. For a while. Then something happens like a mini-stroke, or a fall or a hiccup or the next day, and it's down another rung. My dad's in a decline right now. He sees things that aren't there, he thinks things that aren't real. But in between there are flashes of normality. Don't blink because they are real easy to miss.

Yesterday we were watching the Cleveland Browns play football. Sometimes he can follow the game, and other times, he just stares at the tv. Most of the time, he nods off, and lately he's taken to leaning so far out of his wheelchair he almost falls out. Leaning back is uncomfortable he says. In mid-doze, he proclaims if the Browns had any kind of backfield, they wouldn't lose so much.

He's always so excited to see me. He was like that most of the time before dementia. Most of the time he wasn't drinking that is. When he was drinking, he hated everyone and everything. He wasn't very nice. Now he's so happy I took time to visit him, and maybe he could go with me when I leave unless they scheduled him to do more work, which they usually do. When is my mother coming for a visit he wants to know. I'd rather he was still drinking.

My dad doesn't sleep at night. At all. Dementia doesn't give a fuck about a bedtime. Dementia doesn't give a fuck about anything. Dementia roots out all control you ever thought you had about your bladder, your appetite, your ability to recognize a sock as a sock and not call it a door. Dementia kidnaps your dignity and hangs it upside down off the balcony. It doesn't want anything in return for it, because you're never getting it back. Dementia makes you shit yourself, but it doesn't stop there. It will make you unable to recognize shit for what it is; you think it's paint and wonder about that weird odor while strangers try to clean you up and you think they're the ones who threw paint on you so you fight them but you're so weak and frail you just end up making yourself tired and pissed off.

Dementia is a slow, tedious evil bitch. Dementia strips away your independence and does it without a machine. My dad could live for years still in this condition. I really hope he doesn't.