Today we all drove down to my brother John's house for Christmas Eve brunch. It was really great to see everyone. The hardest part of the day was seeing my father, who has been dealing with Parkinson's disease. He knew who we were, but he halucinates a lot and he struggles knowing reality from non-reality. I was prepared for seeing the disease bind my father's personality, cloak his true self behind the illness, but I was not prepared for the struggle with a grip on reality.
It saddened me deeply. It worried me.
It also made me worry about my mother, as well, who is his caretaker and who bears the brunt of his illness. Having struggled with Crohns disease for years, I know the toll it can take on my wife when she must assist me getting through a normal day. I can only imagine the struggle my mother is going through.
She will not actively offer up that pain, so I can only hope that she will find strength in my prayers for her and my father and that, if things got too unbearable, she would seek out assistance in some way.
We left the brunch so we could attend the 4:00 p.m. Mass, where my daughter was one of the lectures. Almost all of our friends with kids around the ages of our own were there. It was nice to wish everyone a merry and blessed Christmas.
Tonight my son waits anxiously in bed, trying with earnest to sleep as he waits for Santa's arrival.
Tomorrow should be a good day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment