I love you, Pop.

I know they kept you and Mom upright past your primes

It’s all about the money, of course. 

Money for medicines and machines to keep our weak hearts pumping, our rusty limbs moving, tired synapses connecting ever more slowly..., slowly..., and slowly.

Past our prime, they’ll put us in a home to keep our mournful wails of protest far from earshot.

No facebook or reality shows or you tube videos depicting where all our paths likely lead.

No one wants to look at you now.  No one wants to look because you are our future.

Shhhh! don’t speak of the pain.  Don’t speak of how you worried over the cost of keeping yourself alive.  No one dies in their sleep anymore.  No one dies softly, quietly, peacefully anymore.

I suspected Mom’s death would kill you and now just months later you lay on the floor, alone, for two days your spine snapped from the fall from the stroke.

What do we do with you now, Pop?  What do I do with the man who taught me a love for music and for football?  What do I do with the man who taught me that when you love, you do so without regard for yourself?  What do I do with the man who never yelled, or embarrassed me?  What do I do with the man who came to every pop warner football game for four years; who bought me my first guitar and insisted I take lessons; who picked me up at the bus station when the Army said “thanks but, no thanks; who never blinked when my friends got your name wrong because yours and mine were different.

I know that I sometimes disappointed you even though you never did me.  I know I did even though you never brought it up, never scolded.

What do I do with the man who always waited, hand and foot, on my mother as if she were a princess? Even up until the day she died, you were there, helping her, feeding her, entertaining her, loving her.  What do I do with you now that you’re past your prime?

I remember the day I first met you; the day you came courting my mother.  I couldn’t have known how you would affect my life so profoundly.

You were such a Conservative and still you never argued when I went to anti-war protests. You never mentioned my “hippie hair”.  You would even occasionally drive my little VW with the “Vietnam, Love It or Leave It” bumper sticker.

How do I thank you?  Do I thank you by paying the Doctors for more drugs and ventilators and heart pumping machines to keep you alive?  Do I thank you by letting you pass with as much peace as possible?  Is life of any type worth fighting for; life past your prime?  If I decide, which decision is for me and which is for you or are they both the same?  Why, when I need your wisdom, can’t you answer me now?

I love you, Pop.  I loved you in your prime and I love you past your prime.

It’s been a long journey and you have traveled it well.  Rest now, rest now.