I've been sitting at the kitchen table for the last couple of hours sorting through a bag of bills and papers I found in my parent's house. The receipts will allow me to complete, as best I can, their final tax returns.
I can see the changes in my mother's handwriting over the last two years when I scan the bills. Her notations and ledgers move from shaky to almost illegible. My dad remains my dad....he wrote little notes to himself on the envelopes....call and check on this figure....call and talk to Bob about this bill.
I recovered a few pics on my IPhone from a night when my dad was taken by ambulance from the nursing home to the ER with pneumonia. I can still remember the quietness and the emptiness of that ER holding room.
With the exception of the hissing sound from the oxygen mask my dad was wearing....there was a surreal stillness in the room. It was 3am and my dad had finally fallen asleep under some warm blankets I swiped from the nursing station. I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair....tired but on guard...waiting for the doctor.
The room felt like a sleeping dragon....capable of rising up and bringing great disaster....but there was also a sticky kind of sadness in the room too.....it seemed tired and weary but oddly vigilant.
My pics from that night:
