I have been scarce on Open Salon for the past few weeks.  At first my son and I got H1N1 and were layed up and lacking in energy.  This past weekend my father was admitted to the hospital in the ICU with double pneumonia.  He did not have H1N1, but he did have a respiratory infection that attacked his lungs viciously and left him clinging to life just less than a week ago.  It was touch and go for a couple of days.

I am very happy to say that today his doctors informed me "he's out of the woods on this one."  I'm thankful.  I'm joyful.  I'm elated.  Not only because of my father beat this ferocious pneumonia, but because of something that happened in the interim this past week.  Sometimes things happen to us, both good and bad, when we least expect it.

I have written numerous times that growing up my father and mother were divorced when I was my son's age, 9-years old.  Now that my son has reached that magic age that I had attained when my parents split up, I look back and don't really know how I survived it.  My son is 9 and I still think of him as a very young child and I can't imagine putting him through what I had.  I myself remember every nuance from that age with the greatest of detail.  It makes me want to be a better father every single day of my life for him.

My father was never intentionally destructive to me, he just wasn't a responsible parent and I ended up raising myself for the most part, and him too to another extent.  He was an alcoholic, but not an externally damaging alcoholic.  Not to his knowledge at least.  He was a solitary drunk and I was the sole witness every weekend that I spent with him.  To his credit, he quit drinking via an ultimatum from me when I was merely 12-years of age.  That's a tough gig for a 12-year old folks.  I simply told him to choose between me and the alcohol.  He chose the former.

Unfortunately, although he stopped drinking he still didn't know how to function alone, without my mother.  He could never quite get over her and never has.  He never re-married, although he came close one time.  He only ended up getting his heart broken again.  So for the past 25 years he never remotely came close again.  In 2006 he suffered a mild stroke and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.  He was unable to live alone and take care of himself in the most rudimentary way.  He was a danger, unintentionally to himself and others.

Again, the burden of finding a nursing facility fell on my shoulders.  I found the very best place in the region for him to live and he is very happy there as far as I can tell.  He is happy because he can walk around the grounds and get exercise and since it's enclosed, he can't wander off on a bad day.  This has helped him tremendously.  He has days when he remembers nothing, some days a little and some he remembers more than I would ever expect.  This disease is so unpredictable and the mind truly is a wonderous and heart-breaking entity.

When I went to the hospital to see him Monday, he had been there two and a half days and they had pumped his body full of IV antibiotics and he was doing much better.  He actually kept some food down and ate more than usual.  We started talking about this and that.  The one thing my father and I have always had in common are sports and music.  Music is mostly forgotten to him.  Whatever part of his brain that cognitively remembers music has disappeared or been erased.

For a good 18-months of the past 3+ years he lost all interest in everything.  I would bring up sports and this former walking encyclopedia (that I get earnestly) of sports stats couldn't tell a person who was winning what in any major sport.  Slowly but surely over the past year, with a lot of work and time spent with his doctors, experimenting with different medications on top of his Aricept (for Alzheimer's), he started becoming social again.  He began to  communicate more openly to others, and most importantly to me.  I got the impression that he once again wanted to live.

So Monday, we're sitting and discussing Sunday's football games and he is remembering things from the previous days games like old times.  He was talking about how poorly his beloved Redskins had played all season and how good the Saints looked.  He even listened to me talk about my educated guess at a Super Bowl of Steelers vs. Saints and agree with me.  In a word, we were finally enjoying a father/son moment without me worrying about or dreading leaving him.

The guilt that I had always felt, whether it be as a youngster fearing that he may fall asleep drunk with a lit cigarette or with the stove on, or as an adult fearing that he may harm himself, was all but gone.  Every time I visit him at Life Care Center and have to leave I am nearly in tears.  This past Monday when I had to get up to go attend a meeting for work, he told me that he loved me and thanked me for visiting and the talk.

This time I teared up for an entirely different reason as I walked down the hospital corridor.  My father never really thanked me growing up for taking care of him.  I know that he appreciated me, and loved me and always told me he was proud of me.  This time he had thanked me for spending my time with him and simply being there for him.  It was on my mind the rest of the day and night.  I'm not exactly sure why.

I've always strived to forgive my father for all the lingering anger I had toward him in regards to my childhood.  It was as if he got ill this time to put us in a place where we would have solitude and time just to talk like we did when I was a really small child.  This morning I went out and bought my father a new 37' Vizio LCD TV and took it to his room and replaced his aging 27' Sony picture tube television.  I slipped in and took the old one out, donated it to the center and assembled and put his new TV on the stand.  It looks phenomenal and I can't wait for him to see it.

When my father gets discharged in the next few days he will come home to a new flat panel TV to go with his digital cable box.  He will be able to enjoy the football, baseball and basketball games that much more and best of all, this time I was able to do it because I truly wanted to do it and for no other reason.  I wanted to do something to help improve my father's quality of life for however much longer he has to live.

I think everyone would agree that the past several years have been trying and at times we feel like nothing good will ever rear its head.  When I got the call a week ago that dad was direly ill, I fully expected the worst.  Life works in a very strange way.  It turns out that my dad's most pneumonia was a Godsend, obviously not so much for him but I might say selfishly for me.  My dad became my dad again, and I got to do something selfless for him and just be his son. My heart is full and my conscience is finally at ease...