A Labor of Love, Volume 2

I will launch each of the rest of the chapters of my tale of woe and wonder with a labor Hercules performed, and then I’ll make the analogy as to what I was doing at the time with the aid of my dad. If you look at the Free Dictionary, you will find that the labors of Hercules include any “job, task, or activity that requires a huge amount of effort, energy, or physical strength. Sometimes used ironically or hyperbolically.” If you look up the adjective “herculean,” often not capitalized, you will read descriptors like “extraordinary power, extent, intensity, or difficulty.” How did I come to be in such a role? By what means was I provisioned strength, resolve, and endurance, not to mention a protective and protecting love? Exactly when did the transfer of power and change of roles take place? Were the gods conspiring against me? Had I some transgression that I needed to atone for? Why did I accept the task? Couldn’t others have done it, or couldn’t we just have left well enough alone and let nature take its course? How long did the job last, and what did I have to do? Was what I did more extraordinary than others in the same position when caring for their aging parents? And what was the mitigating event, the turning point such that it became undeniable that my dad was not only not okay, but that help should be on the way for this man, not merely aging, but in a distinctive way? I recall one of my early caretaking days (without calling it such). I happened to be particularly stressed out and distraught; I can’t recall the precise circumstance — just my feelings. I was at school and in between two classes during our nine-minute break. I happened to be fielding a phone call on behalf of my dad, and it was right after I had answered a ridiculous email from an out-of-touch relative. Seeing me juggling a phone call here and an email there while looking ahead and anticipating what else I needed to take care of for my dad that day, the analogy was made between Hercules and me. Our school’s mythology teacher and a fellow English instructor and friend looked over at me from the sidelines and commented with care and concern, “It looks as though you’re doing the Herculean labors for your father.” I didn’t think about what she’d said then, though I did find it curious. I tucked away her apt observation and recall it for you now. This older friend of mine got it; she had taken a full year off to handle her aunt’s affairs after her aunt had passed. My travail began earlier. My labors would last from 2002 until he died in 2009; in 2007, through an unforeseen and extraneous circumstance, my caretaking suddenly got kicked into high gear, and I felt like I had found myself sitting in a rickety seat on a wild roller coaster ride wearing no seat belt. With each decision made or action taken, I felt like I’d added another pound of flesh to my back. There was no rhyme or reason, let alone mythology or religion, in me while I was taking care of his business, just non-stop caring, handling, and foreseeing problems that needed prompt attention as if I were Sisyphus on a janky treadmill. I would have this recurring dream where I would be scaling high hillsides, climbing on all fours, going through thickets of tall grasses as fast and furiously as possible. There was no end or crest in sight. And all of the above does not figure in responding to all my dad would throw at me — all the calls, the pleading, the countering, the cajoling, the cursing, not to mention dealing with the rest of the havoc he wreaked behind the scenes. Oh, we were busy ones, we were. I felt like I was embroiled in a war with a terrorist who was shadowboxing and inadvertently punching himself. As I mentioned, 2007 was the year my POA got put into effect, but I get ahead of myself. Still, at the time, I didn’t think a thing more about what this teacher said when she compared what I was doing to the herculean labors, that is, not until after my dad died. I reread Hercules’ labors at my leisure and next found myself teaching a unit on mythology. Only in retrospect did I see what she did: that I had completed my labors for my father in the same vein as Hercules had done his to atone. We both did it for love; we made that choice. As it turns out, there was more than enough evidence to make a modern-day parallel and account of these labors that prove to be no fiction.