Thanks for the well wishes and prayers. The visit was like no other time I've ever spent with my step father in 50+ years. Maybe it is the fact that he has had 8 therapy sessions with hospice, the only counseling in his lifetime, and he is a Korean war vet? He was very reasonable, and the only argument we had was based on me bringing up a topic about pre-pay for cremation, I brought it up with bad timing. He said he was changed, he said he learned about compassion and understanding. I put my iPod to his ears and played Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" and he had tears in his eyes and said that's how he felt (I didn't tell him it was MJ until after). We took my mother (in the wheelchair) to Penny's where they have a bra fitting specialist, and there was a bigger fitting room with drapes and upholstered benches for her frail fanny, and softer lighting, and the fitter said her own mother had died from Alzheimer's. Dad just waited for an hour or so, then I wheeled Mom into another dressing room to try on pants. I used to get very nervous because he would give me a task and then hover over me and tell me how to do it, and now I just tell him to get lost, like, "hey Dad, don't you have something better to do than watch me wash dishes like I've been doing it since I was 8?" Once when he asked me last week why I could not sit still and relax I told him, "Because you growed me up to make myself useful." That's what he would say, "Do something. Make yourself useful." He was quiet when I dared to repeat his words back at him. What is amazing is that he has let go of his fantasy of a fanciful retirement with Mom. Going back 50 years ago, when I was 5, he wanted my mother. He lusted for her, helped broke up a marriage, she got pregnant. He got what he wanted. And her first kids to go with, the ones he said "children should be seen and not heard." It is remarkable that he has moved from the bitterness and resentment he had the last decade, that his final years with her are not going his way. Greater than that, he is contributing to making her years peaceful as possible with her mind vacant with Alzheimers and her body choked with cancer. He has accepted that this is the challenge of a lifetime and he has been charged with her care in her last years/months. I happen to think it's profound. I thank God for the many ways prayers can be answered. Thank you for your kind sweet wonderful thoughtful sincere contributions. Lynn
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