Dad got his teeth back, I won a Tim Horton's coffee! Everything is good in the world!!
However, I am finding out that Dad is full of shit! Hasn't stopped pooping all morning. Which really cuts into our rally time in his wheely chair. He must have kick started his colon again yesterday with the quantity of food he ate. Amazing how a man can eat so much spaghetti without teeth! So, we're waiting for a break in the action so we can tour the halls.
To take dad's mind off of things I set up his table and got out his sketchpad and charcoal. He had an image in his mind. How wonderful it was to see the concentration on his face, the small strokes of the charcoal, think lines, edges, thin strokes and the gentlest of smudges from his aged hands. An underlying commentary of, "that's supposed to be a birch tree" still sketching...."I'm envisioning a field, smokey grey with mist and fog"...."I used to be able to draw trees...". Nothing was said with anger or frustration. Just matter of fact, never wavering or glancing away from his paper.
My father is a pretty good artist. When I was about 7, we were camping in Wildwood Park near Honey Harbour on Georgian Bay. Dad would bring his big art box full of oil paints and tools. I loved the smell of that box. It's brass locks and hinges, all of the wood inside covered with flecks of oil paint from tubes of paint that might not have been closed properly. The small Heinz babyfood jar full of dirtied varsol. Stubby brushes, a pencil and the ever important painters spatula and his palette full of smears and blobs and wonderful colours. I yearned to use that stuff, to manipulate the paint as dad had done so many times.
So on one sunny summer vacation day, I asked dad to teach me how to paint. He said ok. I was so excited! He set me up with a pencil and a coarse piece of paper and said, "Ok, draw a circle." Around I went with my pencil....voila! "No, do it again and again without leaving the page" I looked at him questioningly but didn't say anything...so a drew circles.....again and again. After 10min or so I thought I was an expert and I was ready for paint!....Nope, all I got was another piece of paper. Needless to say, I never got to paint. I got bored and decided to go fishing instead (some may argue that fishing would be just as boring...I might agree!). To this day I have not used dad's oil paints but I can still draw a damn fine circle!
It seems to be a bed day for Dad. He's resting, somewhat uneasily. Full of hand twitches and snoring puffs. He desperately wants to go outside but we can't until his bowels give him a break. These are the times I feel sorry for Dad and the elderly in general. Loss of control, loss of dignity, loss of awareness, loss of movement...feeling like a prisoner not only in the room with its close 4 walls but captive and stuck in a body unwilling to work properly, lost in years gone by. And yet, here I am, very much in the present making memories that I am sure to remember when I am 86 years old...
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