Hot Day

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine

desertexposure.com

My father walks every day--EVERY day--rain or shine.

     Today was not only one of the shine days, but it was also one of the hot days. The VERY hot days. I try to pass along this information to him, but if there's one thing I've learned from dealing with my father, it's that I can't deal with my father.

    "Pop," I tell him, "it's hot outside."

    "No, it's not."

    "Sure it is."

    "No, it's not."

    "I was just outside. It's hot."

    "It feels cool to me."

    "It feels cool to you because you're inside the house. Outside, it's hot."

    My father isn't listening to me. He's trying on the new pair of Nikes I brought him from Tucson.

    "Oh, yeah," he tells himself, "these feel good. It's just what I needed."

    He stands up. Does a little high-stepping around the island in the kitchen.

    "They fit perfectly," he tells me, heading toward the door. "I'll see you later."

    I try to distract him.

    "You know, pop, my wife will be down in a few minutes. You don't want to wait for breakfast first?"

    "For what?"

    "For breakfast?"

    "Are you going to make it for me?"

    "Er… ah… um..." I say.

    I've learned if I can distract my father long enough, he'll forget what he wants to do and will settle down, watch TV, or maybe take a nap. There's no distracting him today.

    "That’s what I thought," he says. "I'll go on my walk first." He's really excited about trying out his new shoes. He's like a big kid.

    I'm really regretting buying him those Nikes. No good deed may go unpunished, but it can also cause you a lot of inconvenience as well.

    So off he goes.

    Meanwhile, my wife shows up. A minute late, but not a dollar short. It’s our bank account that suffers from that ailment.

    "You want breakfast?" she asks.

    I have a very beautiful wife. I look at her. She's wearing cotton pajamas that are a size too big. The sleeves go past her wrists and halfway down her hand. The pajama bottoms drag on the ground. She looks awfully cute.

    "Well...  I AM hungry," I tell her.

    She knows what kind of meal I’m talking about, so she changes the subject.  

    "Where's dad?" she says.

    "Walking," I admit.

    "Walking?"

   "Yes," I say, knowing where this is going. “Walking.”

    "So you let him go on a walk?"

    "I didn't let him. He went."

    "But it's hot."

    "He didn't think so."

    "It's VERY hot."

    "He thought it was cool."

    "Yes, inside the house it's cool, but outside it's hot."

    “That’s what I told him,” I say, starting to get agitated, “but you know my father. If there was a way I could have kept him from going out on his walk, I would have."

    That's the thing about my father. He affects so many aspects of my life. My wife and I are sniping at each other, not because we're actually irritated with each other, but because our lives are essentially put on hold. I can't kiss my wife good morning without my father sticking his nose between us asking if his dog has been fed yet.

    I look at it this way: I have a window of opportunity to do certain things, and that window is closing way too fast for my taste. By inviting my father into my home to live with us, I've limited the things I can do. I can't hike as often as I would like. That would mean leaving my wife to deal with my father all by herself. He would drive her nuts, and that’s MY job. So I hike when I can, and I wait for my father to come back from his walks the rest of the time.  

    "Should I fix something or what?" she says.

    "I would guess 'or what'."

    So we make the best of a bad situation. I make two cups of coffee. She likes sugar and cream. I prefer mine black. I grab the newspaper. She picks up a novel she's been dying to read. Michael Connelly’s The Late Show. We go outside to the front patio where there's shade and it's still cool.

    I sit down. Single out the Sports Section. My wife sits down and opens her book to the first page.

    And THAT’S the exact moment my father comes back.

    "Man," he tells us, wiping his forehead with the baseball cap he was wearing. Detroit. Like Tom Selleck in Magnum PI. Not the new guy. "It's hot out there."

    "Did you have a nice walk, dad?" my wife says, trying to be nice.

    He ignores her question completely.

    “Is there anything cold to drink?" he asks her. "That sun was BURNING."

    My wife gets up to get him his drink. “Your wish is my command,” is what she should say, but she’s too polite.

    "I told you," I say.

    "You told me what?"

    "That it was hot."

    "When did you tell me that?"

    "Just before you left."

    He ignores that. I don't know if he doesn't hear what I say, or if he just ignores the things he doesn't want to acknowledge.

    "I should have had breakfast," he says, shaking his head and sitting down in my wife’s chair. "I could have gone for a walk later, when the sun cooled down."

    He looks at his new shoes, and shakes his head some more.

    "I don't know about these shoes,” he says. “They hurt my feet."

   

You know what else hurts?
My pride.
I ease my pain at RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com, JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com, or @JimDuchene.