Daily Life Has Many Facets - Here Is One

Insomnia does not intrude on my sleep. After my kind of day - and I'm willing to bet your kind too - all my body cares about is falling into bed. Sometimes later, during the deadest of sleep - the stage when waking up to a loud noise leaves you feeling as if you had to burst out of fifty feet of water, gasping for air - Dad gets up to go to the bathroom. The route from his room to the bathroom takes him past my room. Always, I leave my door partially open so I will hear if something unusual happens. Always, his heavy, unsteady plodding wakes me.

As you know, he is 88. Tiptoeing and avoiding the squeaky spots in the floor are no longer his concern. He just wants to make it to the bathroom and back without crashing into stuff by his unsteady gait.

I listen until he returns and his bed makes that familiar creak and all is quiet. I have recently taken to putting my son's old baby gate across the top of the stairs, after Dad, in his sleepy fog, mistook the top of the stairs for the bathroom one night. He fell down the three steps to the landing. My heart pounded as I flew out of my bed, not stopping to grab my glasses (much less taking the time to put my contacts in). All I could see in the darkness with my -9.50 nearsightedness was a crumpled pile of white pajamas. What a rude awakening for him, expecting to be in the bathroom but instead on the stairs landing.

Part of me cried inside - what had become of my omnipotent Daddy?

As I helped him up and into the bathroom, he assured me in that understated way of his that he was fine. An hour or so later, I was able to relax and resume my sleep.

Since that night, the baby gate has allowed me to feel a degree of assurance that Dad will reach the bathroom without incident. Its presence, while reassuring, is also sad.

I am aware of the irony that his aging is following the same arc as my son's growth, only in reverse.

Food for another post.