My Father

Everything good about me comes from my father. For more than an hour I have sat here and it is all I can say. I can’t bear to write details of his hospital stay, the falls that brought him there or the fact that I will be touring nursing homes in a few hours. Sometimes I feel that for my whole life I have loved him too much and I can’t imagine my life without him.
Two pictures of my father after a recent fall.


Always the comedian, he puts up his dukes.

So many Alzheimer victims become violent in the later stages of the disease. Not my pop. He literally doesn’t have it in him. He is truly the kindest person I have ever met. He has never been religious, although he pretended to be ‘for the children’ to please my mother. He told me once that he just lives by the Golden Rule and that is enough for him. And he does. And it is.
The last few days I spend all the time I can, first in the ER and then in his hospital room, juggling my two children in the small spaces and trying to be cheerful. Mikaela loves Popie and was determined to see him yesterday He always makes her laugh. She tries to kiss him goodbye and he looks in the opposite direction and waves. I kept trying to move his head in her direction and he kept saying, even when he was looking right at her, “where did she go?” This makes Mikaela laugh because she thinks he is playing with her. My father loves Nigel, he always calls her a girl, but what can you expect, he raised four girls! My dad tries to pat Nigel on the head, usually misses and pats the air and laughs and says “beep beep”. Nigel laughs and tried to pull off his glasses.
I want to grab hold of my father and say, please, please don’t leave me.