I just got a call from my sister that my dad is now insisting to go home. I had to call and tell him that I heard from the maintenance man at his apartment and it might be a few days till he can go back. I thought he knew that he had a doctor’s appointment today. We are trying to get him admitted to a facility that works with dementia. I won’t bore you with the details, but he believes if I take him to the car dealership that just sold him a car that he will become a millionaire. I keep telling him that I rescheduled the appointment.
He does not know that I returned the car a threatened a law suit. We took his keys from him but he doesn’t remember it. I don’t know what happens if he is not admitted today. There is not a plan B. Or there is but it sucks. He’d have to go back to the apartment and have two two hour visits from an aid who’d cook for him and give him his meds. He has already been found in the parking lot try to get into cars to find his.
I had dinner with him, my wife, my sister and her wife and my mother and sister from his second marriage. My parents sat at the heads of the table. I don’t remember the last time a saw that. They’ve been divorced over thirty five years. He was as lucid as I’ve seen him, but then he started screaming at my mother and calling her an asshole. The dinner was fabulous. Roast beef, Caesar salad, mashed potatoes and squash.
Returning to this blog helps a lot. I could never share this on Facebook. So thanks for reading. I’ll be back. Same time. Same blog.
WTIT: The Blog 
My dad died in December 1991 and I still remember every horrible moment of it. He’d had a stroke and there was disagreement as to how to handle his care. He was 58 — young chronologically, but in horrible shape physically and he was never, ever going to have a full life again. My mother (who had the legal right to make decisions) and my grandmother (who couldn’t comprehend seeing a child in this state) weren’t on the same page. It was a painful time.
I just shared that for the sake of universality. No family functions well at a time like this. And yet we all get through it somehow. Possibly by blogging about it. You’re not only expressing what’s roiling inside of you, you’re sharing your experiences so that those who went before (like me) and those who have this ahead of them won’t feel so freaky about how non-Waltons, non-Norman Rockwell the whole ordeal is.
You keep writing. We’ll keep reading. And we’ll all be better for it.