My Father Is Not The Man He Used to Be

But then, who is?

There was a time when, if I heard that my father no longer enjoyed reading science fiction, that he now found bizarre images and concepts disturbing, I would have said that this man simply couldn't be my father. But I have learned to be more tolerant of the idea that people do change, and not always for the worse. Or anyway, not entirely for the worse.

The other day, I sat with him while Mom was out with her sister, and he stared out the window at the clouds. I had noticed him commenting on clouds quite often lately, but hadn't really paid it much attention. But as I listened to his continued and attentive description of the clouds as they rolled by, I understood that he had an appreciation for the patterns they formed and re-formed which most people never have the patience to develop.

It reminded me, in fact, of a scene I had read in a story years ago, in which a man sees what the reader is clearly meant to recognize as the Beatific Vision, although the culture he comes from doesn't have that concept. The man was entranced by the ever-changing image (which, again, the reader will understand better than the character, because his culture also doesn't have the technology to create false-color images of the photosphere of the Sun), but eventually becomes just a tiny bit bored. It is a tribute to the writer's skill that it is clear that the fault lies with the viewer and not with the vision -- if his mind were better prepared, it is implied, he would be content to gaze upon that ever-changing sight eternally.

So, in spite of the pain and tragedy of my father's decline, and in spite of the inconvenience and heartache that the entire family is feeling, there are some bright spots, good experiences that he could not have had otherwise. No, it doesn't make up for what he has lost, not even close. But he is as he is, and things are as they are, and the wise thing to do is to take things as we find them and appreciate the good things when we see them.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Once a man was being chased through a forest by a tiger, and scrambled up a sheer cliff to try to escape. As he reached the top, he saw above him a second tiger. He looked at the tiger above him, and the tiger below him, and then he felt the root he was clinging to begin to give way. Then he looked to his right and saw, clinging to the cliff, a strawberry bush, with a single ripe strawberry growing on it. He reached out and picked the berry and ate it, and said, 'Oh. That's delicious'."\\