JWG's Done and Not Begun June 19, 2011

Zwerglipatch  June 19, 2011  7:59 a.m.

I just found a four-leaf clover. This is a lucky day.

This is Father’s Day. Dad Meyer has been taken to church by a neighbor who does this for him each week. Dad Meyer is frail, and forgetful. Today, our neighbor voiced concern for him. She does not wish anything to happen on her “watch” as she put it. Her concern is shared by us all.

Yesterday, Dad visited his son, Roy. He came back home with his sunglasses on and never took them off until, I, myself, had to take them off of his face. He forgot they were there. I even said he was wearing sunglasses, but, he thought I asked why he wore them. Dad’s reply was, “When I ride in a car I need them.” I reached over, took them off, and said, “I think you can see better in the house without them.” “Oh, no. Oh, no.,” Dad muttered as he placed his sunglasses on his bureau.

Later on, when Dad was fumbling with his nighttime pills (he takes sixteen a day), he could not remember which was the hot water faucet and which was the cold. I pointed out which was which. He preceded to begin turning on the hot water. When asked if he preferred hot water to cold to take his medication, he said firmly, “No!” I had to switch the faucets and tell him to wait for cold water as I had been doing dishes and the water was warm. He said nothing.

The other hiccup he had last night was finding his pants to wear today. I went through his whole closet after pointing out pants that were hanging with his suit coat which he was going to wear. They were not the ones he was looking for. I took two more pairs from the closet. None were “right”. Dad said he would try them on to see what fit. He later told me he found the “right pants”. This morning, I noticed that the “right pants” were the pants I had originally pointed out to him.

Of course, there was another episode before the pants concerning a flashlight.

When I went into the basement to fetch a beverage for René and myself (we were sitting outside at the picnic table), I noticed that the dark basement was being lit by the moving light of a flashlight. My assumption that Dad Meyer was up to something was correct.

The sunglasses-wearing Dad Meyer could not see in his closet to find some pants. He couldn’t remember how to turn the light on in his bedroom. He needed the flashlight, which one can charge with a cord and was plugged in being charged; but, now his concern, after taking the charging cord out of the plug, was that the cord was not long enough. I showed him how he did not have to use a cord to use the flashlight. I fetched the beverage I went down to get and went back to the picnic table and René. It was then that I realized that both the sunglasses and the light were “problems”. I went into the house to check on Dad. You know the rest of the story.

This morning, Dad Meyer got out of bed, had breakfast, got dressed for church, and napped. Knowing he would forget to take his medication, I got it out for him with a glass of water. It was on the table when he awoke. He came, slowly, into the kitchen, saw the pills and water, looked, probably thought that he, himself, had put them there, poured out the pills, which are placed in a plastic eggcup for Dad’s ease of knowing which pills to take, onto the table and stood took one pill at a time with the water. He said not a word. I continued making tea. This, these days, is a typical Zwerglipatch morning.

Enough talk on René’s father.

I spoke to my father yesterday who sounded robust and cheery.

We have cheery residents at Zwerglipatch. Cardinals are nesting outside of our bedroom window in the Rosa ‘Carefree Delight’. A delight it is to hear and see the nest and parents. Mother Cardinal sits patiently upon her eggs. This was the surprise we had yesterday.

Life continues — it may be slow or harsh, yet, the constant is perpetual.