Dad comes home

It’s 6:00 a.m. Monday, April 11, 2011 and I’m at the kitchen table in Barb and Terry’s basement suite, the quiet retreat where I can gather my forces before returning to mom and dad’s and facing what has to be done there.  It’s still dark but the birds have been chirping for a few minutes.  I have already talked to Jay in Korea at 5:00 and messaged with Barb in Mexico. Skype still amazes me, even though the reception this morning with Jay was frustratingly bad.  Our pictures were pixilated and voices broken, so we messaged a bit and didn’t talk for as long as we usually do.  But the fact that before breakfast I have been able to get in touch with my son and a friend in such distant places while I sit comfortably in my pajamas in Victoria is wonderful. 

Dad is going to come home from the hospital today.  He’s made a lot of progress. When I first saw him last Wed. afternoon he was lost in a world of memories of Sherlock Holmes stories he had read.  He was convinced that the hospital and all it’s staff were the setting for and sinister characters in a tale in which he, mom and I were the victims who must escape as quickly as possible. He was trying desperately to get up, and would have had he not been so weak. Within 2 days he was mentally alert and now he’s much stronger physically too, although still very frail.  Sometimes he gets worried about what’s going on and what’s going to happen next, so do mom, Bill and I, but he’s had a wonderful nurse the last 2 days who’s helped us a lot.  And of course Patrick’s here too; we’re in it together, with all the mutual support and usual friction that any family gathering entails. ‘ The whole catastrophe’ as Zorba the Greek said in the eponymous movie.  A family seems to spin like a comet through life, held together by the same frictions and energy that could blow it apart at any moment.  I’m going to drive Pat to the ferry this morning because he’s going to visit his mom and Matti now that dad seems to be better.  Bill and mom will wait for the Medivan to bring dad home and we will work things out together bit by bit from there.

The ferry crossing back to Victoria again

Patrick and Bill in front of mom and dad's apartment.  Patrick is pointing to the construction of the new Oak Bay Hotel

Written on the crane is, ' The Snug returns'.  The Snug is the name of the popular pub that was in the old Oak Bay Hotel.  We hope to return too, for a pint when it's finished.