Call Me Father

I didn't sign up for this.

No training. No manual. No warning that one morning I would wake up and become the parent of my own parents.

One has Alzheimer's. The other is lost in his own sense of place.

In three months I have learned more about dementia, sundowning, hidden medications, and human patience than I ever wanted to know. I have sat with them through their worst nights. I have made impossible decisions. I have lost my temper. I have cried in the kitchen so they wouldn't hear me.

And at the height of one very loud, very messy argument - I told them both to shut up and said the words that changed everything:
"Call me Father."

This is not a medical textbook. I wouldn't understand one anyway.

This is a diary. Raw, honest, sometimes darkly funny - written by someone who is figuring this out one exhausting day at a time.

If you are a caregiver who feels completely alone in this - you are not. Pull up a chair. I saved one for you.

New entries regularly. No expertise. Just truth.