[Mo_Gearhead]

Springtime in Missouri. We can open the windows now and hear the birds and squirrels chirp and chatter. A renewal of life. The house has a new sound also. The steady hummm …of a oxygen machine. It’s not a really loud or offensive sound, just relentless. A soft hum, interrupted with the occasional soft ‘burp‘, like a valve or diaphragm closing/opening somewhere inside the gray plastic box that is about the size of my first Lincoln welder. A long, thin, clear hose runs across the floor to the occupant of a electro/mechanical, Hospice provided bed.

He’s ninety-two now and frail. A man who was once vibrant and a man-of-the-soil (farmer) ...now reduced to wearing Depends and being lifted to his wheel chair for the trips to the dinner table. He still, surprisingly, has quite an appetite, and nutrition is important now as ever. We weigh him every day. He was steady for months, varying from about 136-140 lbs. for several weeks, but the slipping away has begun …122 lbs. this morning.

His nights are full of dreams. Talking to strangers, brothers, relatives, his wife …all that have passed before. He was picking corn in a recent dream, and tying to get the attention of two young women in the field, asking them if they live near by. They both were wearing white blouses. They didn’t answer him. His dreams are very vivid and real to him. A few nights ago we heard him cry out, and discovered him on the floor reaching under his bed - convinced his wife was trapped under there. Even with the side rails up, he managed to somehow get out. Last night he thought it rained all night and was concerned that “the boys” had put all the machinery into the barn.

His eyes have become very sensitive to light. We keep the room in shadow and he has to wear those large, dark sunglasses when we roll him out onto the deck for some fresh air. His hearing is mostly gone. You have to speak loudly into his “good ear” for him to understand. The bedrooms at our home are upstairs and would isolate him. He can’t cope with stairs anyway, so we re-arranged the furniture in the living room, his space is now with us …close at hand.

For several years he was able to live alone (after his wife of over 50 years passed in 2003) in a condo and then onto a Assisted Living facility near us. But although his mind is relatively ‘here’ (during daylight hours), his body is failing him. He began to fall, often. His leg muscles reduced to a shadow of their former size and strength. And those type of facilities are not geared to the type of constant assistance he now needs. It was time - we had to bring him home to us.

He was about twenty-one when the “Day of Infamy” occurred. He was living in California at the time and he found work as a machinist for one of the aircraft makers ( McDonald Douglas I believe). After the war he returned to his birthplace (Missouri) and bought a farm, married and raised five children. He farmed, taught school for a time, worked in a steel plant and also ran a rural mail route. For a few years he worked at another aircraft firm in St. Louis. He drove (5 hours ) home on Friday nights, then left again on Sunday evening for work on Monday.

I met his eldest daughter a few months after I returned from the service. A friend/fellow vet. introduced us. On our first meeting, she fell asleep on my couch as we watched Monday Night Football. She snored. We got married in 1976. Thirty-five years now. She was an over-worked LPN then - later to become an over-worked RN , but her profession has certainly helped in these life-assisting situations.

My mother was with us at the end - exactly like this, in 2002. Same corner of the living room, same type bed. She never needed the oxygen machine. Cancer was her final nemesis. But she knew we were there - as does he.

Enjoy life and your family every day gentlemen. Time - it’s relentless …and not always kind.