How It Is Today

This is how it is today with my dad. 

First, we had a perfectly lucid and even somewhat philosophical conversation about racecar driving.  He talked all about having your head in the game, and how a driver really needs to make the decision to drive long before he gets in his car, and how this is a decision only the driver can make. 

A nice thunderstorm rolled in and we opened the curtains and sat companionably watching.  I was on the couch with the dog, and she was scared.  So Dad actually got up and came over to sit on the couch with the dog between us, and he stroked her tail and feet to help calm her. 

Then he got up and started walking along the couch.  He stopped in front of me, and I looked up at him and joked "are you going to sit on me?"  He kindof chuckled and looked sheepish, and then did a joking backwards shuffle back to his spot and sat down, laughing and shaking his head.   A few minutes later, he stood up again, and I asked where he was going.  He said "some refer to it as up, some refer to it as down.  I call this the 'duh' position."  But then he walked over.  I asked again if he was going to sit on me, and this time he looked very confused.  He said no, and then very hesitatingly continued to shuffle past me.  I asked where he was going, and he said he didn't know.  A few steps later, he barely rounded the corner table and oh-so-slowly tipped over.  He just managed to catch himself on the wall, and by then I got there and got hold of him.  Both shaking, we got him back to where I had been sitting.  Then he got up and went to bed. 

This is how it is today.

Two Things

My father is dying.

So many days, I am just trying to balance the fullness of life with this fact.

Today we had the most wonderful storm.  First there was some rumbly thunder, then big crackling thunderbolts and a stream - I called it an exodus - of people off the beach.  Golf carts and hand carts full of bright towels and chairs and toys and kids.  Bikes and flip flops slapping.  Black clouds rolled in over the mountain and it was magnificent, with lightning bolts over the lake so close that there was no separation between the sight and the sound.  Then the really cool part began.  First, it just looked like a wisp of white at the far end of the lake.  A friend commented that I should go get my camera, and I said I've tried to get that wispy shot a thousand times and it's never really that good on film.  But then, the white got bigger.  The end of the lake started to disappear.  I ran in a grabbed my camera, heading over the neighbor's lawn to get pictures as the white swallowed the whole far shoreline.  Bit by bit it turned into almost black water and this white wall.  I snapped shots like crazy, wind whipping, and my equally crazy wonderful middle daughter stood there with me cackling, running back to the house each time the lightning cracked and then back out to me.  Gone gone gone, up the lake it came, white and heavy.  Then we ran inside just as the edge came over, and it was hail, pounding raging hail, a big wall of hail.  It blew all the way through the porch and Elisabeth kept sneaking out to grab some to eat.

Later, when it was quiet again, we all went for a walk and stepped in the puddles.  Alexandra carried her new Hello Kitty slippers in her arms the whole way because she wasn't allowed to wear them outside.  We went to the park and the sun came out, and Elisabeth swung happily and made up a song about eating hail and how much she loves being here.

Some days, despite it all, all can be well.