Strokes are like earthquakes that go off in the brain. While some are mild, others can be deadly. The strong ones that don’t kill right away can cause a lot of damage that can be difficult to recover from. There are a lot of tremors and aftershocks, electrical jolts in the scars of the brain, that can cause shifts in one’s personality and alter the landscape of one’s physiology.
My dad had major strokes in the years 2000, 2009, and 2014, with a lot of minor strokes in between, but he recovered rather well from all of them.
He continued driving even after the 2014 stroke, which was a particularly violent one that left him emaciated and aged him some 20 years. After that, what was supposed to be a 30-minute trip would turn into two hours because he would get lost, all the while insisting that he knew where he was going. He’d drive over curbs and get into minor accidents, and my dad, the father that I knew, never had accidents.
It wasn’t until he had another major stroke last year that he finally surrendered his car keys.
Since then, my dad has lost almost all use of his left side. The muscles in his left arm hang loose from disuse. He is unsteadier than ever and now walks with a cane.
His speech is slurred. It is so difficult to understand him that he laments that no one talks to him at parties anymore.
But, yes, he still goes to parties. He walks to and from Church to hear Mass everyday with my mom. He goes to the wakes of his friends who have passed away. Now that they finally have a decent, reliable driver, my folks are once again attending their weekly prayer meetings.
When I’m around, and my parents are the reason why I’ve been spending more and more time in Manila, I take my dad to his physical therapy on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Sometimes, I take him to the mall, but he has a tendency to wander so it is physically challenging for me to have to keep maneuvering him. I take him out whenever I can to give my mom a break from having to care for him.
When I look at photos of him from just a few years ago, the man in the pictures is no longer recognisable to me. My dad now is a stooped, frail old man.
The only thing that has remained from the man that I knew as my father is his sense of humour. The Olivares brothers and sisters have always loved to laugh. But, among the nine of them, I always thought that my dad was the funniest. I didn’t think it was possible but it seems that he’s become even funnier now. It’s difficult to get a straight answer out of him, and my mom is always frustrated and infuriated with him as he seems to have made it his life mission to have fun at her expense. Of course, when she is exasperated, he turns on the charm and tells her how beautiful she is and how much he loves her.
We laugh a lot. I am my father’s daughter after all, and I’ve always been his keen understudy. Sometimes, I’ll throw back one of his own jokes at him that I recall from childhood. He is genuinely surprised and taken aback. And then he will let out a massive whoop and declare, “I am so happy!”
Recently, I was fake-lamenting to him, “Why??? Why do I have such a crazy father???” He laughed and said, “You’re exactly the same.” That filled me with pride. I’m glad he thinks that I’m funny and that I can make him laugh.
I am happy doing nothing with him. He asks me to put Joni James on Spotify for him. Or Ricky Nelson. Or Bobby Darrin. He has old CDs of Louie Armstrong, the Everly Brothers, and Frank Sinatra that we like to sing along to.