Things Are Similarly Different

In my return from Michigan, where I spent a week with my family of all proximities, I realized again how much of an influence meeting my dad, even just once, had on people in the past year. Middle of 2003, my father's first signs of short-term memory fog had sprung up. Now we see all of the things dementia can do to a person, a family, and thoughts of futures.

My cousins and their spouses or friends, my aunts and grandparents, all speaking of my dad in loving tones and words. "Gerry's always been such a loving and caring guy, and so funny and cool about everything. And ridiculously SMART, how can anyone know that much about international business AND the football rivalries of the SEC?" And nobody liked what they saw now, the man my dad has become. They know what's happening, and they offer their love and support, and that's the best I can ask of anyone.

Last night I dreamt of my family in a van, dad, mom, me, grams and gramps, cousins. I sat at the wheel with all the coolness of having a Siegfried&Roy and flopping another George Michael before the turn. (those are all Queens, by the way. Siegfried & Roy is my term for suited queens in poker) Weaving through traffic, dodging on-coming weavers and wild ones. Semi-trucks swerving, losing control, tipping over. The airbags could have deployed and filled with the constant stream of yelling, gasping, and "Do this" or "Get out of that lane"s. And I constantly did my own thing, never feeling, even in that weird dream way, dangerous or endangered.

I understand that many of the things I want to see happen for my dad will have to come from my own doing, my approach and follow-through to get the ball down the lane. A couple of warm-ups and I hope to be able to pull strikes and clean up spares. No gutterballs here. I'm playing for my dad's health, and the sanity of a car-load of loving family members.