I cannot help...

...but compare my dad to a needy cat. I know that sounds sad, but as I sat there with him in the emergency room, it's all I could think. Dad left NY when I was a pre-teen. His parents arranged for me to fly down to Florida to see him once when I was a sophomore in college (he was visiting them from Alaska). He flew we three sisters and my nephew Josh out for separate visits when we (his children) were in our thirties. He came out seven years ago to provide us all with his will (we are sure then he knew he had Alzheimers) and he gave me away at my wedding in 2000. Then in 2005, after 30 years and four visits, we learned Dad was in the intermediate stages of Alzheimers, and his wonderful sister, with whom he had lived since moving to Alaska, could no longer care for him. Dad was coming back to NYS.

He's a very kind person. Thank goodness. He is not impatient, or angry, or overly fretful. The horror stories they spread about Alzheimers...he has not been one of them. Well, of course he has. He has lost himself. But at least he has not lost his kindness.

He just wasn't cut out to be a father. And it appears I'm not cut out to be a daughter. I love my father for the kind person he is...not because he's my father. Because he wasn't, you know. He has always been a very kind stranger to me. When the hospital staff kept referring to me as his daughter, I kept thinking "No, daughters would be crying right now. They would be arguing about care. Asking countless questions. He's just a kind man, and I'm the kind woman he gave life to. That's all." They must have wondered why I was so calm.

I am also lucky (and so is he) that my two sisters also care and look in on him, and worry about him. It would be easy to be angry or turn away. But no one has. Not one person. On one hand he is very lucky. On the other hand, he has been incredibly unlucky. No one deserves Alzheimer's. (No one deserves cancar. No one deserves to be involved in car accident). But everyone cares. I don't know how much that helps him, but I do know how much it helps me. When I started out this morning, Mark offered to come with me. Just something like that, one sentence, is like a gift. You know?

As I was holding Dad's hands, seeing him lost in the disease, but still kind, still able to say "yes" and "no" to be able to express his preferences and needs (but, for the first time, I don't think he knew me) all I could think about were the lost cats that come into our lives that it would be thoughtless and cruel to turn away. His hands are very soft but still strong, and I could not but think of those cats who smack at you...and never use their claws. As I fed him chicken soup with a spoon, and encouraged him to drink apple juice with a straw, I could not help but think of kittens I've bottlefed. "Oh, you only want a little? That's OK. We'll try again in a minute or two, and it will be alright..."

I've never had kids, so providing physical care for a human is new to me. When the nurse came by and said "I'll bring you some soup and juice for you to feed to him" I very nearly panicked. But he was easy to care for in that small way. Far too easy.

And I thought, when I drove to the hospital--just as I think when I drive out to help in a response to help kittens running around some forsaken place in the snow---that I don't want him to suffer. I don't want him to be scared. And that is something you sometimes can't fix. Creatures suffer. Creatures are afraid. Humans as well as animals.

Dad is shut away in a nice place, like my cats are shut away in their little cat facility. It's nice enough. The food is good. There are kind people. Every care is attended to. But it's not home. And the people who are there are not people who love you as a special individual.

It's not home.

It's just not home.