Dads

I know Mother's Day is this Sunday, but I want to blog about my dad. You see, he's in the hospital and it worries me. He helped my brother move about a week ago, and decided to stay with my sister for another week to help her around the house, to work on her "to-do" list (she's a single mom and does not have time to fix all the little things that go wrong in an old house). Well, while out visiting, he got sick with a sinus infection. Only he let it go and it turned into pneumonia. For most people, that would be bad but not too worrisome. For my dad, it can be a death sentence. He has emphysema.

Yes, he did get emphysema from smoking. He smoked for decades. No matter what we did, what we said, we couldn't get him to quit. Then he found out he was going to be a grandfather and a light went off in his head. He wanted to be around to see his grandson grow, to teach him all the bad habits that grandparents can since it's not their child. So he quit and hasn't smoked for almost 8 years.

When my son is around my dad or even just talking to him on the phone, the inevitable "silly Papa" will be spoken at least once, usually more often than that. Papa is the one who wears furniture arm protectors on his head like a hat; who plays tackle with his grandchildren; who insists that he is the young one, that Nana is the "old lady"; who willing walks through the woods to go "exploring" with his grandson. In fact, he has a list of things he's planning for when the little guy visits this summer.
I just hope he physically able to do everything he wants to do. My "fun" grandfather died when I was the same age as my son is now. To this day, I miss him. There are so many things in my life that I wish I could have shared with him. I don't want my son to have to go through that, not yet