Tis the Season

I think I just spoke to my father for the last time.

Years from now, I'll look back at this as a present, the likes of which I may never get again, but right now it feels like a dark pall on my Xmas day. Lemme 'splain.

First, my father has been sick. Really sick. He's over 90, so this is hardly a shock. He smoked for 40 years, worked in a factory and generally lead a sinful, meat-eating, stripper watching life. But my mother died a couple months back and apparently, that's all that was holding him together.

Though we don't talk about it much, most of the members of both my bloodlines have selected the time of their deaths. My mother's mother left a little note the night she died. My mother called and talked to everyone before she kicked. My father's father was particularly cruel by telling the boys to stand against the wall in punishment until he came back down stairs, then laid down to die. The examples go on and on.

Before my nana died, we had a Very intense talk amidst a sea of aberrant behavior for her. She hadn't been lucid for days but managed to speak her peace to me before drifting off again. Most folks made the same remark.

Well, I just had about the same conversation with my dad. He's cleaning out, speaking his peace, and looking for solace in his last days. Even if I talk to him again, I doubt I'll get my dad, but rather a rapidly deteriorating shell.

Merry Xmas to me.

*sigh*