The look on Dad's face as he was asked by Mom if he wanted to "go home" this morning was one that will linger with me for the rest of my remaining life.
Dad is 76 and is suffering from Parkinson's disease which has robbed him of his invincibility that he once had when I was a kid. He was a man's man - a 20 year Navy veteran who also had served several stints on "special police" rosters where he was a police officer on a part-time basis which he turned into a post naval retirement career working his way up to a lieutenant with a double digit GS rating as he managed to rise up the ranks there and ended up as one of those awful double dippers with two retirement incomes.
Dad is with us sometimes in a complete lucid reality of how he once was.
There are other days he is talking about a 12 car accident on a small road that never had one. Cars were disappearing and reappearing he would tell us.
Yet, for the most part of the four hours we got to spend with him today at home he was more Dad than a memory, and he was able to leave his convalescent home and could head back "home" where he'd have Father's Day dinner with his immediate family.
When Dad has days where he has "Dad" in him, he remains a fighter and has the will to temporarily overcome his affliction and today was the best he's been in the last year - a time where he no longer can live at home because he was falling and a not quite 5 foot wife who might weight 90 on a fat day could not help him without calling the rescue squad . Over the year leading up to his eventual placement in this rather nice rest home, he'd fallen about ten times and was a serious risk of injury as the falls were happening more regularly and his lucidity was now a matter of good days and bad days turning into good hours and bad hours.
The look he gave today when Dad was Dad and he knew he was headed home was priceless.
I wheeled him out of his room in the wheel chair and met Mom at the entry way where we now had the struggle of getting a 6 foot, 220 pound mass of man into a car; sometimes this is an exercise of me having to do 80% of the work as he just can't raise himself from the wheel chair on his own and upright onto the walker that he uses to get to the car and then the process of lowering himself onto the seat cushion.
I say Dad was more Dad than usual because he wanted to do it his way. For a moment, my fifty plus years of recollection of him was now being played out in reality before my eyes. He asked for help to raise out of the wheel chair onto the walker, but it was not like other times where I felt I had several earth gravities fighting me and reminding that my back isn't what it once was.
With just the extra help he needed, he rose to his feet and started to move his feet and legs with energy I haven't seen in over a year. To my surprise, he instructed me to set the walker to once side where he could brace his left side with it and he used the car door handle to hold onto with his right and he raised one leg into the car and then lowered himself into the car and was three quarters on the cushion when he managed to swing his remaining leg into the car and he managed to place himself in the seat cushion without aid. I pulled the seat belt around him and gave him all the slack I could so he could insert the belt into the buckle and for a brief moment, Dad was back albeit a slower version.
I gave him a hug and whispered into his ear "I love you. You make me so proud. You did this all on your own."
Dad smiled back. His eyes watery showing that Dad was with us at this moment.
I won't go into the steps from this point in detail like above, but he exited the car with much the same determination and strength of will and used his walker to make his way up my parents' home's walk way and he navigated his walker and his legs over the threshold in a manner that we take for granted in our able-bodied condition. For him, this was like winning the Super Bowl. Today he didn't tackle a perpetrator of a crime.
He tackled life.
For the next few hours we watched a baseball game on TV, and Mom fixed his favorite meal for his Father's Day dinner and his plate that was filled as he would once have it, was soon empty and he was once again a Dad that was always at the head of the table.
His activities during the early morning had taken its toll on his stamina on the way back to the Home.
He was still there with determination, but he even admitted he had over done it - a nice sign that he was with us in reality and not in a 12 car pile up in his mind.
The return to the Home was bittersweet - he needed more help but I let him ask for it rather than treat him like someone who can't contribute to the cause.
Mom and I got him back to his room after having him get into his wheel chair - he had wanted to walk to his room, but stopped and asked for his wheel chair and we dutifully had it ready for him to lower himself back into it.
I gave him another hug and told him how proud I was of him doing what he had done the past few hours. He looked back at me - the emptiness of his eyes was replaced with direct contact and a smile and a nod.
Dad was with us for hours today.
But he'll always be with me for eternity.
As we left his room, we both had tears in our eyes.
It was the best Father's Day ever.
wow such a heart warming story...thank you for sharing...markEE
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