I have always loved Saturdays. There’s no church, no work, no place one has to be on Saturdays. I’ve always loved Saturdays. Coffee at leisure, read email, shower late. Until recently. Now, I go see my Father every Saturday. I talk to him during the week and if he needs me to, I go over to his house. But, since last summer, I go over to his house every Saturday.

It might sound strange that I equate not loving Saturdays with going to see Dad. The challenge is that he’s become so demented and confused that it’s tough to deal with and hey, we were never close when I was young. My Father was very absent from my life. He crawled into a bottle of beer on Friday evenings and didn’t usually emerge until Monday morning for work. He’d come home Monday thru Thursday and sit behind the news paper (always the Tribune) until dinner where we would all eat together. Then, he’d be back to the living room with the paper or TV, but rarely interact with me.

So, he was absent despite “being” in our house most evenings. On the weekends, he’d interact more but that was due to the beer. If he drank something other than beer, he’d get mean, so we’d pretty much stay away.

So, now my Saturday mornings are spent with him and his wife paying their bills, calling in prescriptions, reminding them of doctor appointments and telling Dad 4 or 5 times what each pile of papers was and where they need to go, etc. The doctor told him last week that he shouldn’t drive, so we talked about that again today. He got very angry again and then managed to reign it in a bit. I worry for Lyla since she is there all the time and probably gets the brunt of his anger. I’ve only seen him get physical when angry when he was drinking hard liquor, but I am concerned about her. In a way, it might be harder for me to do this if I’d been very close to him as a child. It would have been very difficult to see my Mother (whom I loved dearly) become so forgetful. I am not sure what will happen when he no longer knows who I am.

So, Saturdays are very different now. I am sure I don’t like them as well as I used to. I do feel selfish for feeling this way. My Father has 5 children but 3 live in other states. The other one, well I do wonder why he isn’t helping so much but I do tend to be pretty controlling. What’s so hard is there is no “fixing” Dad. This is the beginning of the end and He doesn’t know Jesus and has never lived for anything but himself. That’s so hard and so far from what God intended for His children!

Funny, when I started this post, I was thinking of an absolutely wonderful lunch Mark and I just had with Fr. Patrick and Christina, not whining about Dad. We talked and shared and cried (just Mark and I) and really look forward to becoming part of the St. Peter’s body. Mark and I monopolized the conversation so we have much to learn about Fr. Patrick and Christina. May God grant us many years to get to know them!