Ruby Nite

Over the last few weekends, my older sister and I have been going to my father’s apartment to get it ready for him to move back. He’s been living with my sister and her boyfriend since his heart attack and now that he’s feeling better it’s time for him to move back out on his own.

You might wonder why it would take two full days to clean a small one bedroom but the problem is that my father refuses to accept that this small apartment is now his home. Since it is not his home, he felt that it was appropriate to treat it as garbage. I understand his why he was feeling this way and before he got sick we let it go, thinking he just needed time to adjust. My sisters and I were hurt because we worked our asses off to get him into this apartment after he spent months living with us because he had no where else to go. We honestly believed that he would start unpacking and making this space his own but months later it never happened.

Instead when my sisters and I would come and visit, nothing had changed. In fact it was getting progressively worse because instead of unpacking anything he would just buy new stuff and the apartment couldn’t hold it all. We would suggest that he unpack his boxes, or organize his paperwork and of course he would yell and scream at us that his apartment was JUST FINE! If we touched anything of his when we were there he would lose his mind.

When he had his heart attack and we went back to his apartment and we couldn’t believe just how bad it had gotten. He was sleeping on the couch because his bed was covered in papers, books and clothes. Everything was still in the same place as where we had left it when we first moved him in 6 months ago. We couldn’t let him move back into the place the way it was because it would just drive him into a deep depression.

My sisters and I had enough and decided to take matters into our own hands.

It took us two full days to clean a very tiny one bedroom apartment. The first day was just tackled the clutter and garbage as well as started cleaning out the kitchen. It took us about 8 hours but when we left we could finally see the tops of his buffet and kitchen table. The second day we unpacked his boxes of books, hung up all of his diplomas over his desk and then his paintings throughout the apartment. We also scrubbed the bathroom, the kitchen and all the floors. I bought him new dishes and a brand new comforter and sheets that we put on his bed after clearing away all the clutter.

When we finished Saturday night, his apartment looked really good. It’s like a mini version of the house we had in Hamilton. Even Gary was impressed with the change when he came back from his wanderings around downtown Hamilton.

While my sister and I feel better about the home atmosphere we’ve created for my Dad, we both fully know that he is going to be mad. Not just mad, but he will have the righteous anger of a father who has been bullied by his daughters. He will rant and rave about how we ruined his organization. How we lost his broken watch, or misplaced this piece of paper. I will likely get calls every day for the first week he comes home with him barely containing his fury as he asks me again if I saw this or that.

And you know what, I don’t care.

My sisters and I are very happy that the place he is moving back into looks like a home. We hope that it will inspire him to be more productive by being surrounded by the things he loves. The true test will be when we visit him every other weekend and we’ll see if he keeps the place up or not.