The Nature of Reality

Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colours from our sight,
Red is gray and yellow white,
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion?
~The Moody Blues

I have been thinking more and more about the word "reality" these days, so I dusted off my Webster's and looked to see what they had to say. Webster's defines reality thus: "the quality or state of being real". I found it to be an intriguingly philosophical definition.

For most of us, reality is multi-layered; the tangible bits of our busy days, the anticipations and expectations of tomorrow, and the regrets and joys of yesterday. That is reality, no?

Maybe not. Maybe Daddy is the one with the firmest grasp of what reality truly is. He has no sense of the past or the future, he has only the "here-and-now". As a result, his reality is very tangible: how he feels at any given moment, what he sees, hears, thinks is all he is aware of.

Whose reality is real--his or ours? I have no idea at all.

The Green Dress

No sensible decision can be made without taking into account
not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
~Isaac Asimov

When one helps a toddler get dressed, a wise person asks, "do you want to wear your red shirt or your blue shirt today?" The child then has the independence to make a choice, thus affirming his developing decision-making skills. The child also can't decide she wants to wear her fancy green Christmas dress to pre-school, since it wasn't one of the options given.

Point? Only this. The red shirt is keeping Daddy in a nursing home, the blue shirt is bringing him home with 24/7 care. The entire family knows, intellectually, that the red shirt is the best option. Sadly, though,we all want the green dress--for Daddy not to be sick, for him to remain the vital, active, vibrant nucleus of our family. And that is never going to happen.

Today I am crying and screaming to wear the green dress.

Where Do You Put The Pain?

They who go

Feel not the pain of parting; it is they

Who stay behind that suffer.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Daddy has ended up in a nursing home after all. He had fallen again and was hospitalized for four days, then sent to a local nursing home for rehabilitation. He has been there for two months now, and will soon become a permanent resident there.

Sigh.

This is where he belongs. He is getting very good care. He is kept clean and no one yells at him when he forgets things. He gets tons of stimulation all day long, from physical and occupational therapy to watching the business of this small world buzz around him. He interacts with people all day long, be they other patients or the wonderful people who work there. He is popular; he has friends; everyone loves him.

So why do we cry? We cry for the Daddy we have lost. The man who was the little league coach. The man who taught us to drive. The man who took us on vacations and bought us boats. The man who disciplined us without ever raising his voice (much less his hand) to us. The man who spent countless hours amusing children by telling silly jokes, performing magic tricks, impersonating TV characters, and making funny faces. The man who taught us, by his example, what kind of people to be.

My brother and I cried together last weekend. We cried a river of tears, and it wasn't nearly enough to release the pain inside us. Our father has always been the glue that held us together. He has always been strong in a quiet, gentle sort of way.

Now it feels as if we are standing on the shore, watching Daddy sail off all alone, drifting further and further away from us every day. So maybe now all we can do is stand together on the shore, holding hands, and giving each other the strength and love we need to get by...the strength and love we learned from Daddy.

I love you, Daddy. And I love you, too, Brother.