Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Visiting Dad, Day 6

The reason I never give up hope is that everything is so basically hopeless. Hopelessness underscores everything--the deep sadness and fear at the center of life, the holes in the hearts of our families, the animal confusion within us; the madness of King George. But when you do give up hope, a lot can happen. When it's not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens like one of those fluted Japanese blossoms, flimsy and spastic, bright and warm. This almost always seems to happen in community: with family, related by blood or chosen; at church for me; and at peace marches.
--Anne Lamott, Small Victories

Seeing dad today was good and different. Good because he was in a very good mood, different because I realized his desire to sleep most of the day has become central to his life. This wasn't a new realization, as I recognized the importance of sleep to him last week. No, I think the important thing was my discovery that this is primarily his life. It's not a bad life, I think he's as content as he's ever been. But I think too that I'm finding that I need to not only to accept it but to live with it as well as he has. I must be as all right with his life and the way he lives it as he is. Can I be? Yes, I will have to be.

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