My father had heard through the network of friends that my mother had Alzheimers and wrote me a letter in which he asked about my mother's condition. He called her "Mamusia" (Mummy in Polish) a term I had never heard him use. I wrote back a very informal letter referring to him as Dear 'Tata', which was what I called him in my youth. I explained what was wrong with my mother and gave him the address of the nursing home. I considered it would not hurt her now if my father visited her, since she did not even know who I was, let alone recall my father.
Soon after my father rang. I greeted him warmly, but when he realised who I was he started screaming at me, reproaching me for telling him he should visit my mother, and making other accusations. He became increasingly enraged. Recalling the many rows between him and my mother in my childhood, I could not take it and hung up. That was the last time I would speak with my father.
Soon after staff at Bentleigh House Nursing Home told me that a stooped gentleman had visited my mother and left some lollies. I knew that gentleman was my father.
One day I was phoned by the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. They told me that my father had been admitted there with what appeared to be advanced dementia. They suggested I phone the Jewish Welfare society for further information. I was told by the society that my father had been in touch with them over the past few months, asking for help, then one day they found him outside their offices, incoherent and looking quite shabby. They sent him to the hospital.
For the first time in over twenty years I visited my father, and was amazed by how well he looked physically. He seemed to be in good hands and I agreed to be the point of contact with the hospital. I rang my father's family doctor to discuss his condition. It did not seem to surprise the doctor.
Although I agreed to be informed about my father's condition by the Alfred Hospital, I refused to involve myself any deeper, declining to take any responsibility for his affairs. My reasoning was that I was already preoccupied with dealing with my mother's condition; I did not want to burden the family with this new responsibility. Finally, I did not know what financial situations my father may have been involved in over the past two or three decades, and what debts he may have had (he had some years earlier written to me that he had a financial problem). I did not want to expose my family to grief by assuming any responsibility.
After being operated on at the hospital for a prostate condition, my father was shifted to a nursing home by the State Trustees.
I visited him a few times, accompanied by Lin and my children. Although at the hospital my father seemed vaguely aware of who I might be, now at the nursing home he was well beyond that. He would go wandering, and a couple of times the nursing home staff had to look for him in the surrounding streets.
My father seemed to be deteriorating visibly each time I saw him. On the 23rd of February, 1994, the nursing home rang me and told me my father had just passed away. According to the doctor who examined him my father had been suffering from a brain disorder of some sort.
A wave of sadness came over me, many good memories flooding back.
All his financial affairs were being taken care of by the State Trustees. His funeral had been pre-arranged by the Jewish Orthodox Chevra Kadisha.
Later I was contacted by my father's next door neighbour, a young Jewish Orthodox gentleman who described my father as a model neighbour, pleasant, very religious, chanting and singing Hebrew prayers at home.
Apparently at some time after we parted ways my father had reverted to and found solace in his Jewish Orthodox past, regularly attending his local Synagogue.
My father left me a token $2.00 in his will, leaving his estate to charity, describing exactly why. He stated that I had abandoned him, and that I had prevented him from seeing his grandchildren.
Although at first I considered the prospects of challenging his will, it would have been a costly exercise. I decided that I had no claim to any of his will anyway.