Feeling...and Being Mortal

I've already had one of those days...and it's still early afternoon.

I can barely, just barely, hold my eyes open right now.  My wife is primarily responsible for seeing to her father's care and comfort these days.  The man will be 90 in four weeks and he lives 125 miles from us, so that is not always the easiest thing to do.  I assume the same responsibilities for my own father, who lives six miles from us; he turns 93 in exactly three weeks.

She is with her father right now, seeing to some things that need handling this week.  In the meantime, I am at home taking care of all of the routine things that we do here every week.  That routine includes the semi-regular overnight sleepover of a grandson (whom I tutor) on the nights when his homework runs late enough to make it impractical for him to spend the night at home in his own bed.  That happened last night.

So about three this morning, what happens?  A wrong number that forces me out of a deep sleep to answer it.  I finally did get back to sleep, only to receive a phone call at 6:45 from a local hospital emergency room that my father was waiting to be discharged from there, and that I needed to come over immediately to claim him.  Say what?  No one bothered to tell me that he had been there since two a.m. 

So.  Now I am scrambling around trying to get my grandson up and dressed (but not fed), myself in the same condition, all the while hoping that I can get him taken care of until the school bus arrives at 8:30.  Somehow, it all came together, but by then it was 7:20 and the ER people had called twice more (three different callers) wanting to know when I was  going to get there.

He was released to me about 8:00, I had him resting comfortably in his apartment at the Center by 8:30, and then I headed straight to the office for my normal Tuesday half-day of less-than-stimulating work at the office.  Now, after a quick lunch and a little reading time, I am in some kind of stupor - and the pace of my day is about to pick up again.  I'm off to pick up my granddaughter at the high school - and two hours later I'll be in full-tutor mode again.

Oh, the joys of "retirement."

P.S.  My few minutes of reading today have allowed me to finish, of all books, Atul Gawande's Being Mortal.  The only way the reading could have been a better match to my day is if the book were entitled "Feeling and Being Mortal."  

Someone wake me up in 45 minutes...