With Her Still

I saw you, Daddy

I sat up in bed when I heard her struggling to get up

I was putting my glasses on

When she came down the hall past my doorway

Bent over her walker

Her shape in the darkness

Curved like a melon wedge

I saw you behind her

You were taller than the last time I saw you

Those inches lost to the years

Magically restored to you

And your head was held high

Not bent in the defeated posture

Of your last few years

It was this contrast of postures

That convinced me

I wasn’t just misinterpreting

Her shadow

With something I desired to see

You followed her closely

A hand on her shoulder

You glanced up when I rose from the bed

To offer my assistance

And then you were gone

But…

I saw you, Daddy

I saw you

I know you are with her still

My dear father passed away in 2020. He never had Covid-19, but we believe he was a casualty of the epidemic regardless.

After an injury, he was confined to a nursing home to recover. The "No Visitors" policy did as much harm as good for patients who could not understand, or remember, the reasons behind it.

He felt abandoned and gave up.

But that wasn't his way, generally. He wasn't a quitter. He was a lover of life until dementia robbed him of his short-term memories and told him little lies about the things going on around him.

He lost interest in his yard and garden. Oh, he talked about it all the time. We'd plant this or that. We'd have fresh tomatoes. The flowers would bloom soon.

But I couldn't get him to leave the kitchen. "Pretty soon," he'd say. "Just a minute."

So, I would spend a lot of time in the kitchen, cleaning up, cooking and getting him to tell me stories.

The past was always there, and vivid details of places he'd been to, jobs he'd worked and things he'd done were revealed daily. I loved to listen to him.

We were fortunate, as far as a family of a dementia patient can be considered so. Until the last, he knew who he was and who we were. We were not forgotten.

My father is not forgotten, either. In everything we do, he is with us.

My father taught me to bait a hook and cast a line. Even better, he indulged me by removing fish from my line and cleaning them for me. He teased me for being squeamish, but he never once refused to take care of it himself.

My father gave me the dumbest nickname in the history of nicknames. And no, I'm not telling you what it is. Suffice to say, it was worse than any of my siblings' nicknames, and those were bad enough.

My father told me I could do anything I wanted to do. And he meant it. Whatever I decided, he encouraged me.

He didn't read for pleasure much, but he did read my stuff. In his last days, he listened to each chapter of the novel I was writing as I finished it. Even more remarkable, though, was the fact that he remembered the story from chapter to chapter at a time when he wasn't remembering much in the present tense.

When he fell and went to the nursing home, that project got set aside. It's nearly finished, but I haven't had the heart to get back to it.

I will.

I will probably be able to finish writing it as soon as I manage to clean out the closet that is still waiting for me almost two years later.

I miss my father every day. Sometimes the pain of his loss hits me at unexpected moments, and I find myself reduced to tears. But these days, my memories of him are more likely to bring a smile.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!