So I saw my Dad today. I asked him, “Do you want to see Lee,” and he nodded, “Yes.” So I show him this one (and a gif of him with Pandas and one from “Halt and Catch Fire” (this season). After a minute, he says, “He needs a shave”..
That was unexpected. THEN, we had lunch with another man in his ward and his son (who’s a lawyer in town) then I took him to my house. He seemed to know what was going on but it wasn’t until I opened the door and my cat Cairo heard his voice and started to meow wildly. Dad was surprised Cairo remember him. So he sat down and they played for awhile.
Aslan was even somewhat playful.
The saddest part of the day was that dad didn’t remember my house. He didn’t remember buying it for me or the lay-out of the yard. He remembers me and my cats and my car but not the house--though he still wants the yard people to clear out the flower beds and the cut down the vines strangling the large rose bush. That will happen, but he had no memory of the house. Then when I took him back home, he wanted to go back to his “home”--where Gloria lives on the other side of the building and thought that his wife was forcing to live where he didn’t want to be.
I managed to get him to take a nap and worry about it later--then he called me later thinking Gloria, my stepmother lived with me. I learned he only has two numbers on his new cell phone--mine and his wife. Not even my sister--though he said she’s here and not in the Caribbean. I think he’s fine now. But he thinks he lives at the university he taught chemistry for 36 years. It’s kinda weird sometimes, @fortunatelyclevercandy. He told me he didn’t want me to have children because he said he’d have to take care of them--he still thinks I’m 25.
I told him he was 86 and the year he was born. He forgot that, but not what he used to do and that Lee Pace needs a shave. He did like the part about his farm--because he is a country boy, born in a one-room house that still stands on the land my grandfather owned (and the family still does). His room is littered with photos of the family and few he recognizes as he told me, but if I explained someone, he seemed to remember.
I wasn’t as upset as I thought I should be. I don't know why--I guess it’s because I know his time is limited and my time with him is as well. I won’t be in charge when he dies as I was when my mother died unless the family lose their minds again and I’m forced to be the strong one. But my parents told me since childhood what they want to happen when they die and had prepared me for it since I was four. I think I’ve mourned them both when I learned their illnesses just so when the time came, I would be the one keeping things together @fortunatelyclevercandy.
On my mother’s side, everyone had Cancer or Alzheimer’s. On my father’s side, everyone has had Cancer or Alzheimer’s. You’d think I was an expert by now. I just know what to expect. Mom had Pancreatic Cancer, my grandmother and aunt and Alzheimer’s on my mother’s side. My father is the last of his 13 siblings. The youngest died of cancer and the oldest died of cancer--and she lost her daughter and granddaughter to cancer before she died. I’m afraid I’m getting used to all this death, to be honest. I should though--I’ve been around it since I was three and my great-aunt died. I thought she was sleeping in a box. Someone told me I wrote death well--I write from experience.
I was there when the life of my mother left her body--I felt her skin grow cold and the stiffness of rigor mortis slowly crept upon her as the monitor attached to her heart become softer and longer between beats until it was heard no more.
Dad had a good day, though--in spite of not knowing much about me other than I’m his “kid” and he thinks I live somewhere else than I do. I love being with my Dad. I almost have to see him some days so I can write. Makes it easier to carry on to the next chapter. Even when I write fantasy, there’s always far more real life in there than anything else. I know how precious time is--though my family has always thought otherwise. I worry I will not see my father before he goes--and some days I don’t want to--I want to be in Scotland and have to come back or not at all.
When he dies, I will be alone without a parent as I was when I was born and abandoned. When he calls, I’m relieved--even if he doesn’t want to talk to me at the moment. Cannot take any life for granted, @fortunatelyclevercandy. It comes to an end too soon. It is as it begins--in a moment. Time is as much a friend as it is an enemy. We are at its mercy from our first breath to our last. All we can do is live as long as it allows us to and do it well.
