Easter then Dad DeGriselles

I get the awful feeling nobody reads these, but here goes. I wish each of you a good Easter day. I know there's candy and coloured eggs (we didn't do any this year!!!!), but remember the Saviour.

I spoke with Mom DeGriselles. Even she is now talking 24 hour care if Dad leaves the nursing home. She says he knows what's going an and is scared; but she also says there are many times when he simply stares, and seems unaware of his surroundings. I saw that myself when I was there a week ago, and she says he's really not any better now. Sometimes, with progressive amnesia, you almost wish the person goes sooner than later. Let me explain why I feel that way. (You may already know some of this, but indulge me.)

Dad DeGriselles has always been Superman. He served honorably in World War II and jumped out of planes in the old fashioned parachutes: the ones that dropped you at 32 feet per second. He had to be taught how to hit the ground and roll so he wouldn't break his legs in the fall. He had to be taught to automatically cross his arms and drop his head so he wouldn't be decapitated when the rip cord engaged. He never graduated from high school: there were too many kids, it was the depression, and everyone went to work. Thus, he was largely self taught. He worked his way up to management at Jewel Co. Inc., until newer management, college educated with a newer way of thinking, decided he didn't really fit in. He then went into furniture sales. By the end of the first week on the job, he didn't just know the prices: he knew how each piece of furniture was built, and what its strengths and weaknesses were, because he read up on all of it. He was a real salesman: he didn't feel he could sell it if he didn't know it. At the yearly family picnic (we attended a few when you older kids were really young), he would entertain everyone by taking a running leap and flying over the still loaded picnic table, without hitting anything, and landing on his feet. Back to the parachute business, I guess he'd told us he was a paratrooper in the war, but it never sank in until one day when I was on the outdoor porch on the second floor of the house in Detroit. Dad was on the roof of the detached, two door garage. The garage had a peaked roof. I saw Dad slip, I saw him fall backwards, and start to fall headfirst towards the pavement below. It's a worn out and trite phrase, but it's trite because it's true: but I felt my heart skip a beat. I then couldn't believe my eyes as he twisted his body mid air, hit the ground with his feet and rolled, and ended up in a standing position. He dusted himself off and went back up with nary a bruise. From that day on I realized he really had been a paratrooper. I still have a hard time believing what I saw that day as it was amazing.

So with that kind of thing in mind, perhaps you can better understand why seeing him so ill, so frail, and losing memory as well as motor skills, is a bit hard on your old man. I love my Dad. I wish him well. And I hope his illness is not overly prolonged.