Days with my father

[Oerg]

I don't think this has been posted yet ( i searched) so I thought I would like to share this with everyone.

http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

It's very good. Thank you!

 

[Astronuc]

Pretty intense. Thanks for sharing.

My will be 80 this year, my mom just turned 78, and my mother-in-law is 87. They are all slowing down, particularly my mother-in-law who is starting to have issues with memory.

 

[turbo]

Thanks from me, too.

My mother-in-law is suffering from dementia, but at age 90 is otherwise healthy apart from some respiratory problems, so her 7 kids are taking 24-hour shifts with her so she can live at home. She gets very frustrated about having to put up with the supervision, though sometimes she is lucid enough to be upset with herself because of the sacrifices her kids are making to do this. My wife and her younger sister have it especially tough because they both work full-time (and often overtime) and then have to give up 24 hours each over the weekend.

 

[edward]

Thanks for sharing. It brought a tear to my eye.

 

[ZapperZ]

That is simply amazing!

Zz.

 

[BobG]

Very touching article.

It's tough when your parents get old. My dad has Parkinson's and you can see it wearing him down, even if his medications control it. Or maybe he's just getting old and the Parkinson's has nothing to do with it.

Funny, but I don't think he really started to live until he retired. He and my mom started doing work for a prison reform group and gained quite a lot of respect and publicity for it. All the things he's most proud of are the things he and my mom did together after he retired.

Somewhere along the way their relationship changed, though. I always thought of my dad as being so strong and always the smart one in the family. Between the Parkinson's or whatever, he's aged a lot faster than her. It's amazing how much he relies on her, now.

I don't know what he'd do if something happened to my mom. In fact, I'm not sure what she'd do if anything happened to him. I didn't grow up in a very demonstrative family, so I don't think I ever thought much about their relationship with each other. I never realized how much they love each other.

 

[Borek]

Touching.

Great pictures.

But somehow it was spoiled by the ending.

 

[Astronuc]

When one spends a life time with another, the other becomes part of oneself.

More than half my life has been with my wife - and I might make 2/3 and 50 years of marriage if we live long enough.