Home Forever

My bed is empty for the first time in two months.  Yes, I'm sleeping alone again.  (Not that there were any real, long stretches of time in my life that my bed was shared with someone special... but the past two months have been comfortingly cozy.)  However, tonight, Jenny snuggles under my Dad's arm, in his bed.  I didn't have to coax her there, I didn't have to urge her in knowing Dad needed a little unconditional love - no no, this snuggle bug automatically leaped into Dad's nook the moment he crawled into his big, comfy bed.  I can only imagine how wonderful that feels after two months of sleeping on a tiny ass twin mattress in a cold, secluded room far off in B.F.E Bakersfield.  I hate that town.  I hate everything about it.  It's so damn depressing.  And I'm SO glad I NEVER have to go back.  I couldn't blog last Sunday and relive the depressing experience that day was.  I could indulge on the palpable, dirty, lonely, boring, smelly, feeling that permeates through the air as you kill time in that town -- but why look back on the past?  What's done is done.  We took all the roads we thought possible were in the best interests of my father, even if that road lead to a two-month stint in hell, but it's over now -- and we can only look ahead.  

I felt calm today.  Nervous... but calm.  What else can I be?  We have to stay incredibly even-keeled and steadfast for my father.  He has been a perpetual waterfall of tears for the past week... nonstop.  My mom said the past 48 hours she was in Bakersfield - minus going to dinner where Dad always rises to the occasion for good food - were a constant sobfest.  Flowing tears, with an ongoing mantra of "help me... help me..."  We can't even tell him we are helping him anymore.  He doesn't believe it.  I don't blame him.  He trusted us -- and we allowed him to get himself into the scary situation that was Bakersfield - taken away by a team of people in starched blue blouses and forced to live in a tiny apartment with strangers.  Now he lives with fear -- his confusion was challenged and expanded.  Rather than "shocking him into sense"  which was my greatest hope for this situation... it was an overwhelming displacement out of his control.  I ache for him more.  Time will heal.  I know it will.  He'll accept our trust again.  And hopefully, in the future, he'll accept his reality.  But for now we take it day by day, we'll try and appease the tears - or at least just change the subject.  And at least there's always a nice dinner or a furry friend under his arm to bring him moments of joy and comfort.

It's a new journey.  It's not all bad, and it's much better than where we've been, but it feels more official now.  This Dad of mine is home for good, for better, for worse, and for best.