My dad's 3 week visit expired today. He came out here on my suggestion that it would do him good to get out of his apartment and spend some time out here in good ol' Nashville. I had warned him that on weekdays Nat and I would be busy at work during the day, but I figured we would be able to do enough stuff in the evenings and weekend for him not to be bored. In the end, I think he ended up being more on the bored side than anything.
I am sure that it was refreshing for him to get out of his apartment and visit our new house, but after a few days being landlocked here that feeling must have faded. On top of that, our first weekday after he landed Phoebe decided to be an escape artist and was running, with Stella, out in the neighborhood without dad noticing. If that wasn't bad enough, our psychotic neighbor called Nat, who was at a meeting at the time, twice and left voice messages saying that our dogs had been running wild for 2 hours. As we have no home phone line, I drove home preoccupied about our dogs getting hit by a car or getting lost. When I got home the girls were back inside with my dad, who was incredibly calm. Me being me, I vented that I had driven home worried sick and asked him how could he let such a thing happen? No better way to welcome dad to our house than to reprimand him on his third day here.
Fortunately the rest of the stay was very much low key, maybe too low. With him not being a big fan of the outdoors, partly due to him not being the quickest on his feet anymore, our weekend activities were somewhat limited to watching football on weekends, which was fun but nonetheless involved staying in the house, or venturing out to go grab something to eat or to run to the grocery store. On top of that we had a solid week of rain that limited the daily activities. In sum, his 3 week visit included a lot of the same activities that he has at home with the exception that he had us and the girls to spend time with.
Now that he is gone I am able to reflect, as often happens, on how I could have done things better. While the trip to the Korean restaurant was fun, the drastic change in his diet definitely did not do him much good. The Hibachi visit to a local restaurant would have been better if the place hadn't sucked so bad (stay away from Toyama in Nashville). He seemed to enjoy making a paella for the three of us last Wednesday and oddly enough one of my favorite times of the visit was this morning. While I was attempting to balance our checkbook we spent a solid 30 minutes talking about a multitude of things. Now that I think about it, my favorite part of the whole trip was the frequent chit-chats we had.
One huge downside to growing old is that your parents also do so. Sometimes they age and show signs of aging before you are emotionally and financially ready for that change to happen. I still feel that I did the most growing up when he had his stroke during graduate school and my sisters and I had to scramble to get him into a hospital, take care of him, and pay some of his medical bills. Thankfully my sisters werein a better spot to do so. The stroke debacle also brought to front and center the fact that my dad is not the perfect being I looked up to when I was little. The notion of your parents being all knowing and perfect evaporates with the passing
of time.
Nonetheless, as I waited for my dad to make it past security at the airport I couldn't help but feel nostalgia for those times when all it would take to make me happy was nothing more than a little chit chat with him about something as simple as the weather. Even if those times were early that morning.
I am sure that it was refreshing for him to get out of his apartment and visit our new house, but after a few days being landlocked here that feeling must have faded. On top of that, our first weekday after he landed Phoebe decided to be an escape artist and was running, with Stella, out in the neighborhood without dad noticing. If that wasn't bad enough, our psychotic neighbor called Nat, who was at a meeting at the time, twice and left voice messages saying that our dogs had been running wild for 2 hours. As we have no home phone line, I drove home preoccupied about our dogs getting hit by a car or getting lost. When I got home the girls were back inside with my dad, who was incredibly calm. Me being me, I vented that I had driven home worried sick and asked him how could he let such a thing happen? No better way to welcome dad to our house than to reprimand him on his third day here.
Fortunately the rest of the stay was very much low key, maybe too low. With him not being a big fan of the outdoors, partly due to him not being the quickest on his feet anymore, our weekend activities were somewhat limited to watching football on weekends, which was fun but nonetheless involved staying in the house, or venturing out to go grab something to eat or to run to the grocery store. On top of that we had a solid week of rain that limited the daily activities. In sum, his 3 week visit included a lot of the same activities that he has at home with the exception that he had us and the girls to spend time with.
Now that he is gone I am able to reflect, as often happens, on how I could have done things better. While the trip to the Korean restaurant was fun, the drastic change in his diet definitely did not do him much good. The Hibachi visit to a local restaurant would have been better if the place hadn't sucked so bad (stay away from Toyama in Nashville). He seemed to enjoy making a paella for the three of us last Wednesday and oddly enough one of my favorite times of the visit was this morning. While I was attempting to balance our checkbook we spent a solid 30 minutes talking about a multitude of things. Now that I think about it, my favorite part of the whole trip was the frequent chit-chats we had.
One huge downside to growing old is that your parents also do so. Sometimes they age and show signs of aging before you are emotionally and financially ready for that change to happen. I still feel that I did the most growing up when he had his stroke during graduate school and my sisters and I had to scramble to get him into a hospital, take care of him, and pay some of his medical bills. Thankfully my sisters werein a better spot to do so. The stroke debacle also brought to front and center the fact that my dad is not the perfect being I looked up to when I was little. The notion of your parents being all knowing and perfect evaporates with the passing
of time.
Nonetheless, as I waited for my dad to make it past security at the airport I couldn't help but feel nostalgia for those times when all it would take to make me happy was nothing more than a little chit chat with him about something as simple as the weather. Even if those times were early that morning.
1 comment:
I don't know if there's anything I'm less prepared for than watching my parents age.
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