Talking With Daddy

Last night he started counting, each number taking one breath. He made it up to 19, and fell back to 11, 12, 13... Last I noticed he made it into the thirties. He had quite a quiet night, but I heard as I went to get him up and dressed that he was counting again. 21, 22, 23...

"Hi Daddy, what are you counting?"

"Counts."

"What?"

"Counts."

"Counts of what?"

He just looked at me as if I were the stupidest person in the world. Oh well. I dropped it. There were more important things to do.

* * * *

Last week he mentioned in passing that he was 100 years old. I couldn't resist. I should know better, but there's a slow learning curve. So I inquired politely whether he would be very disappointed to learn that he was only 97.

Well! He should know just how old he was! He "begged to differ." But he let me know at length and in detail just how polite and well mannered he was being in not pointing out my mistake to me.

So there!

* * * * *

Those were what passes for actual conversations, rarer than ever these days. When he's in the pattern of saying one word with each breath, it can take him long enough to finish a sentence that either the end has no relation to the beginning or he forgets where he was going with it and just lets it hang there.

It's not always words between breaths. Occasionally he hums, usually nothing you can recognize. One exception to that was "Rock of Ages."

Sometimes it's just noises. They manage to sound like cries for help, but if I ask him if something hurts or what he might need, there's no answer of anything that can be addressed. If he manages to understand the question, usually he claims nothing is wrong. Sometimes he even tells me if he makes too much noise, I should just tell him to shut up. I don't. He raised me not to be rude. I just turn the TV up or leave the room for a bit.

There aren't too many conversations at night any more where he yells at imaginary people who won't cooperate with him and take his orders. I have learned to tune those out so I can get some sleep. Mostly.

The other night though, he started calling for help. When I came in, all he wanted was to chat. I explained politely what the hour was ( being a work night, of course) and left to return to bed. Ten minutes later came, "I need help! I need help!" Once again there was nothing wrong. All he wanted was chatty company. Not a chance in hell he was going to get that! I got right in his face, explaining how I needed sleep to drive safely, explained the condensed version of the boy who cried wolf, scolded him for calling "help" when he didn't need it, explained the consequences - short version - and left again. When I got back to my room, I unplugged the baby monitor so I could sleep.

All the way back to my room I was mentally kicking myself for bothering to explain things to him, telling myself he couldn't understand, wouldn't remember, I was being mean to him, and I was wasting my breath.

Much of that is likely true.

But he hasn't pulled it again, either.