Today I spent hours and hours at the hospital with my father. His health took a dramatic turn for the worse late last week. It’s a long story, one I might write a book about, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first. It’s one of the oldest stories in the world. I have lots of notes that I’ve been sharing with family and close friends.
In his haze have come some of the sweetest things my father has said in a long time. Yesterday he asked if I wanted to go to the zoo with him. Of course I do. Today he looked at me and asked What’s the concept? I said I don’t know, I asked him to tell me what the concept is. Yesterday he turned to my mother and said in a loud assertive voice — Let’s get out of here right now. Where would you like to go? To a Chinese restaurant. What would you get? Chinese orange soda.
My father is a PhD and a college professor. A man with a deep and powerful mind. A mind that now is somewhere else.
Some wise person said that our parents teach us so much, and the last thing they teach us is — and there I have to leave it blank. I don’t yet know what the last thing my father will teach me is, but one thing’s for certain, even as his health is failing, he is sharing so much with me, and in ways so much more than he has since I was a child. His eyes are a gentle brown. He is a handsome man. Somehow it’s been 40 years or more since he let me look into his eyes and study them. Now he welcomes me. His guard used to be so high, now it is all the way down.
It’s an honor to be able to return the gift of care he gave me, and if you ever doubt if it’s great to be so needed, it is.
[Scripting News]
Wow
