Dad Turns 88

Dad's 88th birthday was last week, and I was at a loss as to what to give him.

His need for belongings is small, his world is so small these days, too. I wanted to enhance his life somehow, but more and more I am having a harder time knowing how to do that. In the end, I decided to make another photo collage to hang on his wall. Dad loved to fish, he practically lived to fish, and I hoped that maybe this could bring back some very fond memories.

Anyway, a couple days before his birthday, we arrived to visit him and found that he was getting ill again. They had already done a chest X-ray and were waiting for results. Within the hour, they knew that he had another bout of pneumonia and started him on antibiotics. They took care of things before he got so ill that he would need to go to the hospital.

I've been a nurse for a very long time now, and I've seen good care and I've seen bad care. I am so grateful for what they do for him in this place. It might not be a big, fancy room, but they give him good care.

After a day and a half of antibiotics, Dad said that he'd "taken a turn for the good." He even let me take a picture of him holding the fishing collage.