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My old life
By juliezavala in My Turn
October 11, 2010

My life is not the same. Big changes are happening here and there's a part of me that wants to turn and run from the new responsibilities. Last night my Dad woke up at 2:30 a.m. and got dressed to go to a job that he's been retired from for 25 years. The motion detector my husband installed right outside my Dad's bedroom went off and I jumped out of bed to see what he was up to. There he was, fully dressed with his Southern Pacific windbreaker on, looking jaunty and wide awake. No matter how I explained it, no matter how I tried to convince him that it was still so early he would not get back into bed. Now a word about the motion detector...one of the most annoying sounds I've ever heard. We turn it on every night so we will know when he gets up. Oh, he gets up. At first, it was just twice each night and I was able to tuck him back into bed and he stayed there. But then, stupidly, Robert and I tempted fate by patting ourselves on our backs about how well he's doing here with us. That was the beginning of the end.

Robert (did I mention that he's a saint?) stayed up with Daddy last night and even took him for a drive around town to calm him down. Dad's just like a small child--the parallels here are too many to count - except he's not nearly so small and not always so cute. After being up all night Dad stayed awake for the rest of the day only napping once for 30 minutes. I know it was 30 minutes because I got on the treadmill to run off some stress. Like clockwork he came out of his room as soon as I finished my walk.

And now it's just past 11 pm. I can hear him bumping around in his room moving his belongings around, maybe getting dressed for work again. I miss my old life of sleeping through the night and going to work the next day. I miss carrying on a conversation at a normal speaking level and not having to repeat everything I say. Most of all I miss my freedom to come and go. But like all things in life I'm learning something important here with my Dad. I just wish these life lessons were a little easier and included more sleep--for me and for him.