I saw my parents and sister on the weekend for lunch which was lovely. But every time I see my parents I am reminded that they are getting older and older. It seems my father is 'shrinking' in front of me.
Every time I have seen him over the last few years he has just seemed to get smaller, the big broad shoulders that used to pick me up and swoosh me onto things as a child have become much smaller.
The chest which I would fall asleep in as a little toddler has shrunk too. The wrinkles on his face and neck are far greater and they tell enormous stories of my dads last 77 years of experience.
But by far the most distressing thing about seeing my father grow old is his mind. Once a brilliant man, he is fast turning into an old forgetful man.
Sometimes he forgets things like what he was doing just that moment and you can see the confusion flash across his face.
He does not remember people's names and never really has, but it has started to get worse and he no longer remembers things in the close past and instead remembers things in the distant past.
Mind you the most difficult to participate in was his adamant 'memory' of something that did not actually happen to him. I was seriously surprised by that episode on the weekend, because I was at the event he was adamant happened to him and not my mother.
It's hard watching your parents get old, and my mother has had her fair share of medical issues over the last twenty years. My father has always been a bit 'eccentric' but recently it has just got worse :(
The father becomes the son, and the son becomes the father
Labels: contemplation, family, father
