When they fall and break their hip, that's when things start to slide downhill everyone told me. And I shook my head in agreement, because I'd heard that story over and over, and yes I knew it was true. The story of someone falling and breaking their hip is not a glamorous story, not a beach read, but it is one who many have experienced, many more will, and it's universal. I too may fall and break my hip someday, and one of my daughters may have to sit vigil at my bed listening to my moaning and mumbling as I sleep in an easy cloud of opiates.
Here's the thing. When they talk about the falls, and the decline, they're talking about old people, people who don't know what's happening, people who might even smell of hospital disinfectant already. But that's not my dad. As you can see in this photo of us, he is young and vibrant. Actually this photograph was taken about 28 years ago, but to me, he looks the same.
Here is the only picture I have of him in the hospital with the second hip break. He is insisting on breathing into his pulseoxmeter, as if it is a breathing treatment. I try to take it out of his mouth, but he insists and puts it back in, and I give up because he is, after all, my Daddy. The nurses rush in and scold him, as they do when the old folk become the infants, and I just shrug, my adultness falling off of me like a heavy cloak. I'm glad to be rid of it, to take the scolding with my Dad, to giggle a little at the rebel still in there, to be his childish partner in this crime.
