I Hugged My Dad Today for the First Time in 3 1/2 Months

Today was a good day. For the first time in 3 1/2 months, I was able to hug my dad. 

In September, shortly after his 95th Birthday, my dad started to decline. Within a couple weeks of celebrating his Birthday, complete with an outdoor COVID-19 party, a trombone player, friends, family and tons of chocolate, he was headed to the ER. Three more visits to the ER in the next two months landed him in a rehab facility where he's been ever since. 

My dad is one of those 60's dads, he loves to hug and talk and talk and talk. For my entire life, almost every call we've had has ended with an, "I love you." I know how lucky I am. 

Now he can make me crazy, caring for him is not easy. He's stubborn and challenging, opinionated and controlling, but he's my dad, and I do love him. 

I have great childhood memories of time spent together, just the two of us. He taught me how to use a hammer and a saw, and how to hang a picture with a level. We climbed ladders and took down a hornets nest one summer and stood on the roof, up to our knees in snow, shoveling it down into the garden, my mother furious that he let me help. He came to every job I had as a kid and insisted on taking a picture of me, and when I moved away he'd clip stories from the paper and mail them to me, important parts underlined with little notes scribbled in the margins. 

When I got ready to leave I leaned in and hugged him, a little gentler than normal. He's frailer then I remember, smaller than I remember. 

"Oh, I have something for you," he said smiling as he pulled a small stack of newspaper clippings from his pocket. "I've been saving these for you," he said.