My biological father is still alive.
To be clear, he wasn't put on the fast track toward a demise, or anything. He's living out his final days slowly but surely in the local nursing home in PA.
But I did expect my cell phone to ring last night with that news -- mostly because I could not fall asleep and wrestled with his spirit for what seemed like two hours. Maybe it's the accumulation of medicine in my system now that I'm recovering from an illness or maybe it's my impending milestone birthday, but for some reason, I hit the sheets with a very specific memory in my head.
And then, suddenly, all the synapses in my brain started firing and I was flooded with scraps of my interactions with him over the years. It's not like we've ever been extremely close (he was of the generation that let his wives take care of the kiddies in the house -- rest assured, he had one of those at a time -- he's not a polygamist), but I just couldn't keep them from coming. My coping mechanism kicked in, and I started compartmentalizing the bits and pieces of recollections under some kind of timeline just to deal with the onslaught.
Which, in turn, led me to my biggest takeaway of the unsettled time I spent attempting to fall asleep -- the realization that when I came into being at the end of the first week of the year 1972, my father was well on his way to the half century mark in his life. So, other than the stories I've picked up along the way, there are five decades of unknowns when it comes to that man.
But ... he's still alive. I just don't know if I can get anything out of him in the state he's in. And, at least last night, that caused me to lose sleep. To be continued ... ?
MY PERSONAL GENERATION "CANYON" ... APPLIED TO THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Companies-Face-a-Generation-Canyon&id=6579455
A POPULAR DREAM TOPIC THIS YEAR:
http://gagascorner.blogspot.com/2011/03/last-night-i-dreamed-my-dad-died-second.html
WHERE HE'S LIVING OUT THE END OF HIS LIFE:
http://www.luthercare.org/
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