I don't know if can do this, after all. Take care of my Dad, I mean. I'm going to have to whine here a bit, but dammit, that's why I'm here in the first place: to give a proper home to all this shit in my head that has nowhere else to live. It, for sure, can't just stay in my head anymore.

Seven years ago I had a proper family: a mother and a father, a home and pets, aspirations to go out into the world, knowing that I would always have a place to return to. Six months later when my mother died I had to learn that the only place I would ever have to return to would be wherever I happened to be at that very moment. But, fuck, it's hard. It's hard to accept that. It's hard to not want it to be easier. I'm grateful that I've already learned this. Knowing this much about myself has enabled me to better explore the world. But then again, sometimes it just sucks.

Ever since I moved out here to California my Dad has steadily declined, requiring more and more care and assistance. He's had cancer spring up in two different places, his lungs have gotten worse and he's gotten a little more frightened of the world. My Dad: a man who survived six months in a German POW camp during WWII, subsisting only on bread made primarily of sawdust, is now unable to get out of bed.

Tonight, while he sat on the edge of the bed, I had to climb around behind him, place my hands under his butt and, quite literally, lift him into a standing position. Later, while I was in the bathroom, scrubbing his dentures (I can't actually handle touching them so I just dump them into the sink and move them around a lot with a toothbrush before prodding them back up into their dish), I looked up at myself in the mirror. I realized, for the first time in a long, long time, how young I look...how young I am, particularly the skin around my eyes - I don't even have crow's feet yet. Then I imagined standing at the same sink, prodding around the dentures in one year, five years...when I'm 30.

I love this man so much. He's incredible, as a man, as a person. You wouldn't believe the stories he has to tell, the places he's been in this world, the things that he has helped to build. And at least this much is owed to him, I think. At least he deserves to have someone that will help him through this, someone that will be there for him in the last year/s of his life. Most of us deserve as much, I think. So I guess I should stop my whining.
12:49:20 AM     comment []