Dad's Last Christmas

As the Yuletide season winds down and begins to fade into memory, I think of another memory from another Christmas: Christmas Past but not too far past — just ten years past.

My dad was in the hospital and not doing well, but Cuppa was determined to bring him home for Christmas. It was also my wish to have him home, just for the afternoon, but my mother was against the idea, so I didn't quite know what to do. Partly, she was afraid of him kicking up a great fuss about going back into the hospital in the evening. And it would also be difficult to have him home, even for a short time, for he couldn't walk anymore, not on his own steam. He could bear some weight but for either mental or physical reasons (I'm still not sure which), he couldn't seem to support himself or at least he couldn't ambulate. Nevertheless, Cuppa's will prevailed, and I'm glad it did, for due to the whole strange scenario (which I'm not going to go into here and now) of how he ended up in the hospital in the first place, I was in a state of perplexed ditherdness in those days.

In short, we got him home, and it went quite well. He had a bit of turkey, plucked up a bit of his old-time humour, even in his demented sate, and I felt a lot better about doing this little thing for him whether he was terribly cognizant or not. I think he enjoyed himself in his own way even though he would have forgotten about it almost immediately.

That was his last Christmas. He slipped very quickly after that day, and a few weeks later he mercifully left both us and his misery behind.

Christmas 1998
Dad's Last Two Photos