Just recently, my father asked me if I would drive him out of town to visit some family he hadn't seen in a while. I told him sure, but to let me check with my wife first.
You see, my elderly father is a handful. After my mother died, in a moment of weakness I asked him if he wanted to come live with us.
"Hello? Hello?" I said into the phone I was talking to him on.
My father was already knocking at my front door with his suitcase packed.
Of course I jest.
What I didn't realize was that my father would turn out to be more work than all of my children combined. He's recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, so my wife and I have the additional sadness of watching a man who could once take apart his car and put it back together with no problem, become someone who once made my wife cry when he wondered what those little green balls were in the basket on her kitchen table.
"Those are limes, pop," she told him.
"That's what I thought," my father assured her, but his eyes said something else.
And so I asked my wife about taking him on a road trip.
"That's a good idea," is what she said.
I could use a break, is what she meant.
What she didn't do was remind me that I once took a similar trip with him a few years back and I swore to her and to anybody else who would listen that I would never do such a frustrating thing ever again.
"I don't know, pop," I told him, when he first brought the subject up.
"If you don't want to take me, I'll drive myself," he said.
"You'd better take him," my wife told me later. "You don't want him to go and never find his way back, do you?"
When I didn't answer, she asked me again, louder this time, "Do you?"
You know, for a tiny woman, my wife can sure hit pretty hard.
The interesting thing about my dad was that late into his marriage to my mom he willingly gave up driving. As he got older it was my mother who drove the two of them around more and more, until she was the one who always drove.
I could understand that. I used to drive for a living, and, after being behind the wheel all day long, it was relaxing to sit in the passenger seat and let my wife deal with the usual gang of idiots on the road.
My father would still get behind the wheel whenever he wanted to go someplace and my mother did not. The accident he had the last time he ever drove, was why I found myself on this particular road trip with him.
It was night and we were on a highway that he couldn't find on the map. He was a little concerned. That happens when people get older, they worry about a lot of little things. Also, they can't read a map, especially in the middle of the night.
Personally, I enjoy driving the highways of New Mexico in the middle of the night. Arthur C. Clarke, in his classic science fiction book 2001: A Space Odyssey, said in his introduction that there is a star in the sky for every man who's ever lived.
On a clear night in the southwest, you can see every one.
"Son," my dad told me, looking out the window. It was dark. Very dark. That was another thing for him to worry about. "Do you know where you're at?"
"Sure, pop," I tried to reassure him. "We're just fine. I'm heading east, and I can only drive so far before I drive into the ocean."
Obviously, I was joking.
"What?" he said, jumping up in his seat. His eyes got big. Real big. "Until you drive into the ocean? I think you're lost, son. I've driven this road many times, and this area does not look familiar."
He looked out of his window again, into the darkness, and whispered, "I don't remember this area. Nothing looks familiar, and I know this area. I've driven it many times." Louder, he said: "You're lost."
"I'm not lost, pop."
"I think you're lost."
"When you don't know where you are, and you don't know how to get where you're going... that's when you're lost. I'm on the right road and heading in the right direction. I'm not lost."
"Son, I know what lost looks like, and you're lost."
I calmed myself down--no one can push your buttons like your parents--and then I tried to calm my father down.
"Relax, pop," I told him. "We're in no hurry and I've got a full tank of gas. Worse case scenario, we'll just stop somewhere for the night."
My father nodded his head at the last part. When a man gets older, he gets slower and slower to pull out his wallet to pay for anything. I had gassed up twice and we had eaten six times, but only my dad's appetite ever made an appearance.
In the meantime, his head was on a swivel, turning left and right, left and right. His eyes were all bugged out like a wrinkled Roger Rabbit as he strained to see a landmark, any landmark.
"I don't remember any of this area," he said. "Nothing looks familiar. I think we're on the wrong road. I've traveled this road many times, and I'm familiar with all the landmarks."
He forgot that I'm looking out the windshield, too. If I couldn't see any landmarks, I know he couldn't see any landmarks. Apparently, my father must have had night-vision goggles implanted in his corneas because...
"Now, that tree over there, I don't remember it. I also don't remember any 7-11s when I last drove out this way. I know this area. I think we're lost."
"We're not lost, pop," I repeated, and then I tried to change the subject. "When did you last drive out this way?"
My father thought a bit.
"Hmmm... ahh... drive this way. Now, I was born in 1919--or was it '20? Joined the service. When did I last drive this way? Had to have been 1945, right after the war, and again in 1953 (or was it 1954?). Maybe it was 1954, because I had a '54 Chevy. Great car. I drove it back and forth many times."
I was trying not to fall asleep from his stroll down memory lane, when he suddenly snapped out of his nostalgia. "Hey, I don't remember a Wal-Mart out here! Now I know you're lost."
"Hey, look at that!" I told him, pointing out my window. He looked out his window.
"Look at what?" he asked.
There was a fish truck passing us on the left, but in those few seconds it had moved in front of us and all that was left of it were two red dots in the distance. I've forgotten the name of the company, but the motto on the side of the truck was: "If It Stinks, We Have It."
"That's a funny motto for a company," I told him.
"What?"
I told him again.
"What?"
And then I told him several times more.
It was time for drastic measures, so I changed the subject again.
"Hey, Dad, what's that?" I told him, pointing out his window this time.
He looked out into the night. A night so black David Chase could have ended The Sopranos with it.
"I don't know," my Dad told me, and then shook his head sadly. "I don't recognize anything."
to be continued
Raising My Father
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@JimDuchene
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