I Must Be Dead

I've said it before, and I don't mind saying it again:

     My wife's a saint.

     So when she runs into the kitchen worried about my father, I have to listen, even though I'm in the middle of reading the Sports Section of our city's fine newspaper and drinking a nice hot cup of gourmet coffee, my only indulgence.

     "Your dad," she says, breathlessly.

     "What about my dad?" I ask, when she doesn't go past her initial proclamation.

     I can see that she's having a problem putting it into words. Thinking about it, I come to realize that it's a little later than my father's usual early-to-bed-early-to-rise time. Thinking about it some more, I begin to get a little worried myself.

     "Is he... uh... alive?" I ask her. They weren't words I wanted to say, but they were words that had to be said.

     "Yes," she answers, "he's alive, but..."

     Even though I asked the question, deep down I knew my father wasn't really dead. If he had been, my wife wouldn't have been worried, she would have been hysterical. As ornery and cantankerous as my father is, the alternative, while eventually unavoidable, is not something we look forward to.

     "But what?" I say, encouraging her on.

     "Well," she begins, slowly explaining, "when he didn't get up for breakfast this morning, I thought I'd check in on him, and..."

     She's right.

     By this time of the morning he's had a full breakfast, a slice of pie, and is busy keeping the newspaper away from me.

     "And what?"

     "And he says he's dead."

     "Dead?" I say, although it's more of an exclamation than a question.

     My father gets plenty of attention from his daughter-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but it's never stopped him from trying to get more. Still, saying he's dead....

     That's a bit of a stretch.

     Even for my father.

     I really don't want to go check on my father, even though I know I have to, because I don't know what kind of nonsense he'll get me into, but I go. My father no longer lives in the father-in-law house in the front of our property. Time and circumstance stuck its ugly nose into my business and he's moved into the main house and has his own room with us. When I've talked to my wife about renting out the little house, my dad, like time and circumstance, sticks in his nose and vetoes the idea.

     "Why, dad?" I've asked him.

     "Because I might want to move back in," he's answered, even though the two of us both know that that will never happen. My father is no longer independent, but it's important for him to thinks that he still is.

     I knock on my father's door.

     He tells me to come in.

     I say that my lovely wife--his daughter-in-law--tells me that he's saying he's dead.

     "That's right," my father answers. "I'm dead."

     "What makes you think you're dead?"

     "I must be dead," he insists. "When I woke up this morning, nothing hurt."

 

 

Raising My Father

RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com

jimduchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee

@JimDuchene

    as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine