It Begins

It is not something you ever plan for.

Your parents should live forever, with a strength and a vitality that never ends. Their mortality brings our own lives into question. In this never ending assembly line of humanity, we take a step forward, we change. Take another step forward, change again. At some point, we get close enough to the front of the line, we can see the end.

Then, as we take our next step forward, the one in front of us is at the end.

The important place to be is not number one - it is number two.

Since I am speaking in circles, let me clear it up...

We are born...we live...we die.

Somewhere in between these three events, we laugh, we love, we cry, and most importantly, we learn who we are and what we were meant to be. Hopefully sooner than later.

So, as the generation before us nears the end of their journey, and we are standing in position number two, it is our job - no, our CALLING, to enable them to depart this journey and start the next with dignity, surrounded by love, knowing their purpose has been fulfilled.

They had meaning. They counted.

We are better because of them.

My father is 73 years old. He has slipped from a healthy, strong man, into a frail feeble little shadow of himself. He "almost" meets the criteria to be diagnosed with dementia, only the working of his memory keeps him out of that classification. If we were in Europe, rather than the United States, he would have dementia.

This is the beginning.

3 days ago, it was Father's Day.

This weekend, he came over and we had dinner together, and he gave me a card. His handwriting was never elegant, but was smooth, and...well, I liked it. I tried to write like him when I was younger.

Now, it is difficult to read his writing, and sometimes hard to understand the words.

He wrote, "I don't know what I would do without you."

I gave him a card, and he stared at it for a little longer than normal, then as if he had read it, he said thank you.

I wondered if he really read it.

Later, after his doctor's visit, I learned he probably did not. He is unable to maintain attention long enough to have read and absorbed the information.

This is the beginning.

My father, standing in position one, is facing the darkness of the end of this journey. Sometimes, he looks over his shoulder as if to make sure I am still here.

I am here, right behind you.

Number two.

I am here, and though I think it is my job to help you face this time with dignity, I know you.

I know your character.

You are the man I would yell for in the night, when as a little boy I was afraid.

You are the father that ran to my side when I was hurt on the football field.

You are the man that stood by me when I needed it most.

Now as you face the darkness, you are no less courageous.

I am behind you, I am number two.

When the time comes and you answer the call from the darkness, I will be there when you run once more, when you step into who you are meant to be.

This is the beginning.