"Not goin' down til the sun comes up" is a song by Garth Brooks but it was my dad's anthem last night. Yep, I spent the night at the hospital with my daddy. I think he slept for maybe 2 hours all night. I slept for a couple of 10 minute sessions and here I am shoveling down my yogurt and working through the day like no one's business. Lunch as usual. Ok, that's a lie... I am working but like a propped up zombie jacked up on a veni (the jumbo cup) from Java City. My boss asked me how many I would have today and I predicted 3. Ya do what ya gotta do!
Spending the night in a hospital with my dad was actually good for me. I think I now know why my sister Sherry actually enjoys some of her insomniac nights. The world is very quite and still. I sat in a chair beside the window of his 5th floor window and watched trucks going down I-30. I began to get the silly's about 4:30 and tried to guess what was in the trucks. I had convinced myself that one of them was full of those Tickle Me Elmo toys that dance. But I also had deep thoughts. Thoughts about all of my family. Where we've been. Where we're going.
At one time when I did doze off I woke 8 minutes later to find my dad standing beside his bed without his walker. I had thought that he would be sleeping all night since he was up the night before and didn't sleep during the day. My first thought was the siblings are gonna kill me if he falls. I kept my eye on him the rest of the night. Just as he would go to sleep the nurse would come in to check vitals. At 5:30 he started shaking violently and I was just about to hit the door for the nurse station but he was yelling about being so cold. He was dreaming. When he realized this and was awake his face looked like a scared child. In all honesty, he was looking into the face of his scared child. I sat in the chair that I had now pulled up to against the bedside and put my hand on his shoulder to let him know I was there and he returned to sleeping. I sat in the early morning darkness wondering just how many nights he had done the same for me when I was a child.
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2 comments:
ah, geo, its good that you can be there with your dad right now. as our parents age, the roles become reversed as you are seeing now. hang in there, i'll be thinking about you.
I know it seems like a hard time right now, and it is. But I'm so glad you're able to be there for him, George. It's a real, strengthening privilege to be allowed to help an elderly parent, to repay a little of that care we got when we were helpless, and to look into our own futures, to see what lies ahead for us. I think it can make us brave. I know it's the best of all possible uses of your time right now. It's where you should be and what you should do. And it won't last forever, however long these nights can seem.
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