Dad’s still Dad

“I miss you tucking me in bed.”

The words were not from one of my children, now grown and away from home, longing for the comfort of days gone bye.

The words were from my dad. He had been diagnosed with cancer several weeks earlier and had just completed his first treatment when I visited him. The prognosis for longevity is not good---less than a year.  

Dad told how me how he missed our nightly ritual after I had returned home from my visit with him and Mom.

I quickly learned Dad’s routine of getting to bed. First, of course, I help him get undressed and into his pajamas. I make sure his trousers are creased on the hanger and his shirt collar buttoned.   “Would you put my shoes on the far end of the closet?” He repeatedly reminds me he doesn’t need my help with his shoes, even though we both know he is not able to bend down low enough to get them on and off.

Dad was a dentist, so brushing his teeth is mandatory.  “Would you please hand me that toothpaste from the medicine cabinet?” Always the polite gentleman, Dad prefaces his requests with, “David, I hate to ask you this, but…”

We then switch his electric mobile wheelchair (mobi) with his regular wheelchair and place it next to his bed.

Dad instructed me on how to roll up a towel and place it against the bed railing to support his back while he sleeps. My sister-in-law, Joy, had perfected this technique when she was helping him to bed before my visit. If I didn’t get the towel wrapped tightly enough and in the correct spot, he would gently remind me how Joy did it. I couldn’t help but smile.

After having prayer with Dad, I would bump fists with him. A nurse started this little tradition with Dad, and my older brother Mark picked it up. After bumping fists, they would make a swishing sound as they slowly pulled their hands away from each other. This always made Dad laugh, for some reason, and so I continued the ritual.

The moment Dad told me how much he missed me tucking him into bed, I thought of how often the roles of children and parents reverse as they age, although Dad wasn’t the one to tuck me in when I was a child. Mom did that.  And after tucking Dad into bed, I would make my way to Mom’s room in the assisted living area of their retirement complex and help her to bed.  But that’s another story.

For both of them, I am still their son, and they are still my parents. At times it feels like our roles have reversed, but it’s not so much that they have reversed as that they have changed. When I am with them, I am a caregiver.

And the time will come when my role will change in another way. As I struggled to get Dad’s shoes on him, my son, Dave, who was there with us for a few days, bent down to help, and I wondered when he might someday be assisting me with my shoes.

Time flashes by just as quickly as the swooshing of our hands after we do our fist bump at bedtime.

Only yesterday, it seems, Mom and Dad were waving bye as I drove off to college for the first time. I had a lump in my throat then.

And I felt it again when I got into the van to leave for the airport after my stay with Mom and Dad. Dad was determined to follow me to the parking lot. There, we made one last fist bump followed by the swoosh.

I think Dad must have had a lump in his throat too, for there he was, in the rearview mirror, waving from his mobi, tears welling up in his eyes.

I may be a caregiver for him.

But Dad’s still Dad.