RaisingDad

My grandson is at an age where he can talk, but is still too young to grasp certain concepts.      For instance, when heard me refer to his great-grandfather, whom he calls Mac, as my father, he asked me, "Mac's your father?"      "That's right," I told him.      "And you're my grandfather?"      "That's also right."      "Then what... I mean..."      I knew what he was asking. He was just having trouble finding the words.      "Mac's your great -grandfather," I explained.      My grandson considered that.      "What's so great about him?" he wanted to know.      Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

There's a book called The Secret.      It takes 198 pages and $23.95 of your dollars to tell you this one thing: If you want something, you only need to say it out loud, and it will be yours. There's something about the power of words that sets the universe in motion.      It must work, because it works for my father. He'll say, "I want a treadmill," and then my wife will say, "We need to buy your dad a treadmill," and, before you know it, he has his treadmill. That's the secret to The Secret, when you say something out loud, you need to say it in front of my wife.      Treadmills, once you get them home, are pretty simple to set up. Basically, you just unfold them.      "Well, would you look at that," my father said, looking at his new toy.      "Let me show you how you use it, dad," I told him, plugging it in.      "Be careful, son," he said, warning me.      I didn't t...

Last words are important.     You only have one chance to get it right. Get it wrong, and you’ll spend eternity thinking of all the things you should have said, just like you do when you’ve lost an argument with your spouse.     I bring this up because now that I have my elderly father living with me, I look at him and see myself in the future. He’s 98-years-old, so that’s not necessarily a good thing.      Gone are the days when I used to think I would live forever. Now I know that no matter how much weight I lift, how many miles I hike, or how many promises to God I make, I’m still going to get old and die.     And not necessarily in that order.      E verybody knows the famous words of Patrick Henry, who declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Now those would be impressive last words under any circumstance, but, when he died in the comfort of his own home, his actual las...