RaisingDad

I was driving my father to visit an old military friend a few cities away. On our way there he decided he wanted to visit some family that lived somewhere in between, so I made a little detour to accommodate him.      It was no big deal. I know how to get there, and I know the area.      "This does not look familiar," my Dad says.      I continue to drive down the street I'm on. I say nothing. Between you and me, I'm on the right street.      Out of the corner of my eye I see him looking out up and down the street. Side to side. His head must be on a swivel.       "I don't think you're on the right street," he tells me, his eyes bugging out. "I don't recognize the area."          One funny thing about my Dad I've noticed the few times we've traveled together, his e...

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 ...

My father likes honey in his tea.      Today, out of the kindness of my heart, I went to a farmer's market and bought him some raw honey, straight from the bee hive. I even bought him a flavor I knew he liked, Orange Blossom. I didn't know honey came in different flavors, but that's neither here nor there. Well, that's not quite true. The honey's here , and my money's there .      Later that evening, as my wife is making his tea, she tells him how I drove to the farmer's market just so he could have a local honey for his tea.      "You'll like it, dad," I told him. "The guy I bought it from harvests the honey himself, and it's a lot sweeter than store bought honey." The honey contains no extra ingredients, and it's not cheap. It's also supposed to be good for your allergies. I tell him all that, and more. Except for the "it's not cheap" part.      And then I have t...