I have a delightful relationship with my old work family where I still keep in touch with former coworkers and bosses via e-mail, and pre-pandemic, the lot of us would go out for drinks to catch up, usually around Christmas and sometime again later in spring. (Because these days, who needs a good reason for beer?) These days since everything is via Zoom or e-mail, however, I just try to keep up with people where I can electronically. In my end-of-year catch-up with one said boss, I mentioned that my father-in-law would be moving in with us, and he told me that while very few people would appreciate this challenge for what it was, I would also have many “wtf” moments.

He wasn’t wrong.

I’d like to think we’ve done a good job of helping my father-in-law out over the past couple months, making sure he’s eating the right foods, taking his medication, and doesn’t become stressed out over minor, solvable problems. But every now and then, no matter how much the spouse and I try, there’s a genuine WTF moment that we couldn’t have seen coming. And there’s really no non-awful way to put this, but it’s a lot like having a strong toddler or a dog with opposable thumbs wandering freely about the house, seeing what destruction it can cause next without any cognizance of possible repercussions.

Take the butter, for instance. On a Monday or Tuesday, an innocuous question was posed: could I have some butter for my toast? Sure! Out comes the completely full butter dish. Come Friday morning, I note with some annoyance that the covered butter dish is still on the dining room table, significant in that I am always the first one up in the mornings, and therefore indicating that it had been sitting out overnight. As we were leaving for work, I said to the spouse “the butter will need to be tossed out since it was sitting out overnight.” He picked it up, peered under the rhinocerous-shaped lid, and said “oh, it’s empty.”

It wasn’t for maybe another 30 minutes that it struck me: my father-in-law had solo-snarfed an entire damn stick of butter in less than four days. Suddenly the Thursday night upset stomach mystery was a mystery no more.

There have been an abundance of food-related mysteries since then, including the disappearing act of a slice of orange cake large enough and intended for two people. Beyond the glaring breach of etiquette, there was the obvious problem of a person with GERD, COPD, high blood pressure, and so on wolfing down a massive, fat-laden slice of cake. By Valentine’s Day, he’d been admitted to the ER for what would become the beginning of a 3-night hospital stay, while the husband and I anxiety ate delivery sushi and nervously awaited updates on his prognosis.

To say that our collective nerves were shot is truly underselling it. We have since helped him move into an assisted living facility, believing he’d be happier around other people his own age and with access to entertainment more suited to him. In reality? He’s only been there three full days as of today, and everything and everyone is fair game for his disapproval—the residents, the staff, the food. Both days the spouse and I have visited him, he has threatened to move back into our basement, and yet he was the one who wanted to move out.

We still don’t know what the right answers are here. For the husband, how do you deny the wishes of a parent who helped bring you into the world and raise you? But then how do you take care of him when it becomes your full-time job? Medical appointments, bills, cooking, cleaning, substitute counselor, surrogate social life, entire family. It’s taken a toll on him. We’ve been married nearly eight years and together for close to 13, and in all this time the husband has never once raised his voice with me or had an honest to god argument, until this past weekend—he shouted at me so hard that the hair literally flew back from my face, as if we were in a cartoon hellscape.

The argument forced me to confront other things lurking below the surface. I know we don’t get to choose how life turns out, but mine has gone down a dramatically different route than anything I could have imagined ten years ago, some for the better, a lot for the worse. How do you tell someone that this feeling didn’t just happen overnight? How do you silence the voice inside your head that says it could have been better if only…?

I don’t know what the right answer is here. Maybe it’s less about trying to be happy than it is just finding a way to survive another day, and making a home out of wherever you lay your head down each night.

Talking Heads: This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)