Fairness

There really is none at time of quick decline. You get a good day and hope the next is too, feel you’ve earned it with a few bad ones.

Where he was walking two weeks ago without too much trouble now he is barely able to make it to the bathroom.

Each time he sits we wonder if this will be the time he can’t get up again.

Spent the past three nights over at their place as he’s gotten to where he wants to get up a few times a night. He was doing that pretty regularly but in the past three nights he’s stopped getting up as often.

Feels like just days ago Mom would catch him getting a “sippy” (shot glass) of scotch at 2am or even 9am. No harm in that, not like the booze would kill him. He’d open cookies or snacks at the kitchen counter, spilling cheerios and milk on the floors. Pain in the ass to clean up but now I miss the messes as he’s simply not capable of doing any of those things anymore.

He’s started in the past two days being much less comprehensible, coughing more, and today is seeing people in the room with him. Mom and I know it’s close, but we don’t know how close of course. Could be days or weeks, it’s impossible to tell.

His body is simply getting tired. It reminds me of the scene in Lord of the Rings when Theoden is old and weak. We can see him in there, under the sallow skin and weepy eyes. He’s just not as present as he used to be.

It feels like his mind is elsewhere but his body is keeping him rooted to the ground.

I still rub his head with coconut lotion because he’s a Parrot Head and it makes him think of the beach. Every day he leans his head back and soaks in my touch. Lately it’s been freezing hard here in central Texas and my fingers have been cold, and he gets a quick shiver. But they warm quickly, then I do his feet and calves and shins with some aloe vera lotion, put his socks on, and watch him doze off with a grin on his face. Unless his feet hurt that day, they’re swollen and puffy and he gets nerve pain now in his toes.

I’ve been working in his shop, cleaned out a little corner to set up my gear and speaker for music. I turn on the fire-spinning playlist I made for last year and add new songs to my 2025 list. I dance and sand wood pieces I’m working on and look at the walls around me, hung from floor to ceiling with tools, airplane parts, car parts. My shop will forever more have airplane parts tucked away in corners.

I will hear his voice singing along with Jimmy Buffett each time I first open the door.

“Mother, mother ocean,

I have heard your call,

Been wanting to sail

Upon your waters

Since I was three feet tall…”