Foolish no more...

APRIL FOOL - Is how I feel today. It's a feeling that I am slowly trying to get away from. Six years ago my father passed away; the day after April first, the day I had come back home from visiting him in the hospital. For two weeks I was a constant presence and fixture of the ICU waiting room. Camping out: sleeping alone in a freezing room, cushions lined on a floor, eating out of vending machines and bird baths from a restroom sink, and unshaved. But I was there. I was there visiting my dying father in the Abilene ICU Hospital for two weeks hoping beyond hope. Those last few years was the closest my father and I ever came to having a real relationship of sharing ideas and understanding.
Yet... I went home to take care of some paper work for FMLA, the day after April 1st 2008, I got word he was "gone".  I'm beginning to feel less "foolish" but I still miss him greatly. He told me once that he was proud of me, and then again in the hospital just days before... I... I... know I haven't lived up to his high standard, but I see his face in the mirror every time I shave.

Still in the Hospital...

   Alice continues in the hospital.  A heat rash in tenderly personal areas developed into some serious bacterial infections that oral antibiotics alone couldn't easily resolve. After three days of IVs and observational treatments she's "turned a good corner".
   For some reason, though the hospital is only a year old we were told they were shutting a wing down; she was moved in her bed to two then three other rooms.  Staff were moved about as well.  LOL crazy.
   Now waiting, probably, until after the Independence Holiday - she'll be able to go home.  I went to the apartment to pick up some items and check on our pets, but with all the things in the world we've collected about ourselves it didn't feel like home with Alice not being there. As bad and the food, small the area, and lacking of personal effects - the hospital felt like "home" because of her presence.