RaisingDad

For a few minutes, I thought I was going to receive my inheritance, but before I tell you that story, let me tell you this one:      When my Mom was still alive, she and Dad were watching their favorite soap opera, As The Stomach Turns, or some such nonsense. She had made my father a nice chicken sandwich, and he was sitting there simultaneously eating his food and complaining about how stupid the characters were on the soap opera.      "Don't talk while you're eating," my mother told him, mainly, because she had served him poultry, not seafood. ( See food, get it?)      "I'm not talking while I'm..."      All of a sudden, he starts to choke on a piece of chicken.      "I warned you not to talk while you're eating," my Mom scolded him, thinking it wasn't as serious as it was.      My Dad made no reply. Mainly because a chunk of chicken ha...

Well, my Dad has been sick for several days now, but he doesn't listen. He continues on his walks. In the cold. In the wet. It doesn't matter. We ask him not to. We tell him not to. It doesn't matter. He knows better. He always knows better. He's determined to walk his illness away. When he comes back, he's tired. And not feeling well. He thinks walking will help him live forever, but it just might be the death of him.      At this particular time, I'm in sitting in the great room. All the lights are off. The drapes are closed. I like the cold. I like the dark. I guess that makes me Team Edward. I swear, my Dad must have a camera somewhere inside the house, with the receiver in his room, because he'll stay in his little father-in-law house until one of us, mainly me, enters the kitchen or the great room, and then, seconds later, he'll walk right through the kitchen door. My theory is that he is constantly monitoring us on his receiver, and as soon as h...

What starts off as a good morning changes in the blink of an eye.      I'm sitting in the kitchen at my favorite spot, enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee. I'm waiting for my wife to serve me breakfast. She doesn't serve me because she has to, she serves me because she loves me.      Don't judge me because I'm beautiful.      My Dad walks in just as my wife puts a plate of food in front of me. He has that kind of timing.      "Good morning, Dad," my wife tells him happily.      I look at my breakfast. Two eggs, over easy. Just the way I like them.      "Good morning, Dad," I tell him, also happily. Food, I hate to admit, makes me happy.      "Good morning," he tells the two of us, but I really know he's talking to my wife. "Well, I'm feeling better."      Feeling better? I didn't even know he wasn't feeling w...

The more things change, the more they stay the same.      It's been raining here for over a week. I've already let the dogs go outside to do their business this morning. They weren't too happy about it, but they do what they're told. My Dad, on the other hand, is a stubborn old coot. I call him an old coot with affection. Besides, that's what he is. Me, too, for that matter.      He's sitting in his favorite chair. Not the one in the great room, but the one at the kitchen table. At the HEAD of the kitchen table. You know... MY chair. So he's sitting in my chair, the way he usually does, and he keeps talking about going for a walk.      "You'll have to skip your walk today, Dad," I tell him. "It's raining."      "No, it's not," he tells me.      Not raining? That catches me by surprised. It's only been raining for the past week. This morning's no different.    ...

When my Dad thought his radio was broken, and all it turned out to be was that the volume control knob was turned down, it made me laugh... but it made me sad, too.      There was a time when there was nothing my Dad couldn't build or couldn't fix. When he was twelve years old-- eighty-one years ago! --he used work on his uncle's car for the opportunity to drive it around town. For all I know, even at twelve, he was trying to woo the fairer sex with a ride in his jalopy. When he was in the Army during World War II, and stationed in the Philippines, he built a washing machine for his platoon. He used a metal barrel, a jeep... and his own personal smarts. I don't know if there was even such a thing as a washing machine back in the 40's, but my Dad had one, the one he built. I have a picture of it. He's standing next to it with a big smile on his face, proud as all get out. Years later, after he was married and I was old enough to pay attention, I r...

I'm at the kitchen counter enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee, reading this month's issue of the AARP magazine. Yeah, I'm that old. My wife is cleaning the counter tops. My Dad walks in. I look over the top of my magazine. He has a look on his face. I recognize that look. He has a problem. And it's about to become my problem.      "Ahhh," he says. Smack, smack, smack! Click, click, click! My Dad makes these smacking noises when he talks. Even when he doesn't talk. Sometimes when he just sits. Now he's started making clicking noises as well. "Hmm, I don't know. I just don't know."      "Don't know what, Dad?" my wife makes the mistake of asking him. She has a heart of gold, she does. My Dad shakes his head, and lets out a weak laugh.      "I don't know about those house cleaners you have," he tells my wife, seeing as she's the only one listening to him. "You know those house cleaners?"      ...

It's not the big things that you drive you nuts... it's the little things.      When I first asked my 93 year-old father to move in with me and my family, I knew that there would be a period of adjustment. What I didn't know was just how long that period of adjustment would be. Here it is, years later, and I'm still adjusting.      My father? He's doing just fine.      My father had been the head of his household well into his 80's. Myself, I've been in charge of my own life since I turned 18, when I put what little I remembered from school about geography to use and went to college out of state.      As a kid, I learned early on that no one was allowed to touch my father's morning newspaper until he was finished reading it. And he took a looong time reading it.      "Pop," I would ask him, "can I have the comics?"      "No," he would always answer. My father was...