June 22, 2020 at 1:00 p.m.
'Daddy's Long Goodbye': Machtan chronicles the joys and sorrows of caring for her late father
'Daddy's Long Goodbye': Machtan chronicles the joys and sorrows of caring for her late father
By Stephanie Kuski-
The book is a companion piece to Machtan's "Conversations With My Mother," a memoir released in 2004 that recounts how her family was affected when her mother Marian passed away. It anecdotally examines how the death of a matriarch impacts the family dynamic of the adult children and remaining spouse.
"Our family has never been the same since the death of my mom, she was the glue," Machtan explained. "So this is about that struggle."
"It starts the night my mother died and goes through my father's grieving, but then it goes into my father's moving on - dating (which was crazy), remarrying, selling the family house," she continued. "These were the conversations I would have with my mom in my head as each one of these events unfolded."
Machtan said "Conversations With My Mother" ends on a positive note, calling it redemptive.
"At the time it ends, dad's happily married, everything's going along great," Machtan said. "So I set that aside and life went on. I didn't do any serious writing after that."
"Then in 2012, my dad's second wife (Ruth) died," she continued. "He had been caring for her after she had suffered a stroke... My dad, at the same time, had fourth stage renal failure. So he was dying of kidney disease, but nobody really knew what was going on."
"He didn't make a big deal about it - he was managing it, he was seeing his doctor, he was taking his meds," Machtan went on. "So 'Daddy's Long Goodbye' starts with the death of Ruth and goes through the period when shortly after she died, it became clear... daddy wasn't going to be able to live alone much longer."
When her father LaVerne was 89 years old, Machtan said his physician told him he only had 6-12 months to live. Begrudgingly, he agreed to move in with his daughter and her husband Homer.
"He was from Marshfield and moved in with us in Rhinelander, but he might as well have moved to Poland; it was so foreign to him," Machtan recalled. "He was used to farm country, longer seasons. He had family and friends and he left all that and came up here to this strange place. My husband and I had never had children, we never lived with anyone... so it was a huge, huge adjustment for everybody."
"Well, my dad didn't die in six months, and he didn't die in a year, and he didn't die in a year and a half," she continued, "and as two years rolled around, my husband is looking at me like, 'I didn't sign on for this.' But he was dwindling, his health wasn't getting better."
During that time Machtan dedicated herself to her father, now dependent on her care.
"This is my story of being a caregiver for a man I loved so much, that journey of two and a half years until the morning of his death and thereafter," Machtan said. "I think it's an important story because all kinds of people are caregivers."
"Being a caregiver, you have so much self-doubt," she continued. "You spend so much time thinking, 'Is this the right thing?' 'Am I doing enough?' It's a struggle - it's hard on a marriage, it's hard on your career, it's hard on your heart... it's hard on everything."
"It's a life-changing, huge, very emotional journey, but it is so gratifying," Machtan said. "I would never undo it, the difficulties, and we had some really good times too. During that time he was relatively healthy, we got to know each other all over again. He was very proud of me and we just enjoyed each other."
The writing process was a struggle for Machtan following her father's death, she said.
It took her over six years to finish "Daddy's Long Goodbye," but she said writing it was cathartic and supported her grieving process.
She finished the book in February and planned book signings and readings that were subsequently canceled during the COVID-19 shutdown. But that time was not wasted.
While self-quarantining during the pandemic, Machtan said she was able to finish "Timely Seasons of Desserts: A Trilogy," an anthology of three previously published poetry chapbooks containing a smorgasbord of her writings from 1988-2001.
"The first book was called 'In the Middle of Time Gone By,' the second book was called 'Seasons of the Wisconsin Heart,' the third was called 'Just Desserts,'" Machtan explained, "so we called this 'Timely Seasons of Desserts: A Trilogy.'
"Each book has its own thematic approach," she continued. "The first one, "In the Middle of Time Gone By,' is a reflection of past events and it's divided into four parts. The next book, 'Seasons of the Wisconsin Heart,' is "set up according to the four seasons and they're all seasonal poems," Machtan said, "but extending beyond seasons, into what that means in our lives. All of the work (in the anthology) came out of teaching creative writing," Machtan said, referring to her 34-year career as an English teacher in the School District of Rhinelander. "Whenever I taught creative writing, we wrote every day. My students and I always wrote together, and there was always a journal write of 10-15 minutes. I always wrote with them, and I always encouraged them to share what they wrote."
In place of a final exam at the end of every semester, Machtan hosted a "Poetry and Pastry" contest in which students baked a dessert and read an original poem in front of a panel of judges.
"It started off as a joke... it was just goofy," Machtan said. "So we would produce a book of those poems and the recipes. So that's what the third book in here, 'Just Desserts,' is: it's my poems about people getting what they deserve, in both a positive and a sarcastic sense, and all my favorite dessert recipes."
Machtan said she spent decades in her role as an English teacher before moving on to her current position working with inmates in the Oneida and Vilas county jails earning their high school equivalency diplomas.
"I started (teaching) in 1977 when I was 21-years-old, and I had students who were like three years younger than me, which was tough," Machtan recalled. "So I taught at the high school most of my teaching career, and I taught at the middle school for about a year and a half when they needed somebody there."
"Then I was one of the people who founded the Northwoods Community Secondary School, that was the charter school, and I worked there my last seven years," she continued.
Afterwards, Machtan went on to become an adjunct through Nicolet, teaching classes like speech, intro to writing and oral interpretation.
"In my teaching career, I've always been drawn to the outsider, to the underdog," Machtan said. "The challenge was always getting these people who thought they hated English to find out... maybe they were good at it and maybe they could be successful at it."
"Then when I moved into the realm of charter school teaching, we had an even more marginal population than I had been working with in the regular school system," she continued. "So it seems like everything in my whole teaching career has led up to working in the jails, which is a truly marginalized population, a really at-risk group of people. (And by the way, this is what my next book is going to be about.)"
"I find it so interesting and so gratifying to work with these folks," Machtan said. "Most of the people in Oneida County jail are state inmates that we house... and they're black, they're inner city guys... it's a culture completely foreign to me."
"I grew up in this lily-white world with no interaction with people of color, and I just dig them so much," she laughed. "These guys are 20-years-old, right off the street, and they see this 64-year-old white woman who's going to get them a high school diploma. It's just awesome. I don't pretend to be anything I'm not and they don't pretend to be anything they're not, and it is just really cool."
She said she's anxious to get back into the jails to continue teaching her students. But that also frees up time for her to continue publicizing "Daddy's Long Goodbye" and her other works.
Her books are available on Amazon orby emailing Machtan at [email protected].
Stephanie Kuski may be reached at [email protected].
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