Falling

On Sunday I received a message from my mother saying, "I'm at the hospital with your father, but everything is fine."  Motivated by the spectacularly warm and sunny day on the east coast, they went to the beach to take a stroll.  On a gravel path, teaming with families and dogs, my father stopped to pet a German Shepherd and blacked out, landing face down.  A concerned stranger called the paramedics, and an ambulance whisked them away.  Thankfully, no bones were broken, but his lip was gashed and swollen, and his face raw with abrasions.

The last few years, time has significantly altered my father's life.  Simple actions like walking without taking a spill are no longer taken for granted.  In the last year, he seems to have surrendered more and more to his limitations, while still holding on to one last pleasure.  A set of car keys in my father's hand represents a freedom he discovered in his youth when he would take his father's car without permission for a spin on the streets of Manhattan.  My parents have resisted my requests for my father to give up long distance drives. "I'd rather be dead than give up driving", was his response.  When I spoke to him yesterday I was glad the fall didn't deter him from wanting to attend his watercolor class this Friday.  "I signed up for the morning class, didn't want to be driving home at night," and there was a long pause, "you know, there's a lot of traffic at night."  I was grateful, and saddened by father's acknowledgment that he's no longer capable of doing the many things he loves, the things he equates with living.

When I woke up feeling out of sorts today, I quickly put a label on it, "still recovering from the 50th birthday celebration I attended this weekend", and dismissed it.   It lingered through out the day like a bruise tender to touch, and I realized it was a different 50th birthday that had me in a tailspin, one I attended 33 years ago, my father's.  Witnessing the twilight of my father's existence makes me grateful for every day, and simultaneously terrifies me.