2 weeks Ago
Dad and I traveled to Waco this past Saturday for the Baylor/Oklahoma State football game. My wife bought us tickets to celebrate my 51st birthday. I’m an Oklahoma State fan.
I spent three years on their women’s basketball staff and fell in love with the school. Unfortunately, we didn’t win enough games and the school I loved sent me and the rest of the staff into the unemployment line. Dad and I have made innumerable road trips in search of the next basketball game, or track meet, or football game.
He was a basketball coach in small schools across West Texas for most of my childhood, so sports dominated our lives. I followed suit and spent 25 years coaching girls’ basketball, before hanging up the whistle and picking up a golf club. Today, I am the assistant golf coach at NBHS (a pretty good gig if you can get it).
When I was coaching basketball, mom and dad came to most of my games and eventually, our two boys (their grandsons) ran high school and college track, so dad and I drove miles and miles across the state to watch Jacob and Bobby run. To make a long story short, we’ve gone on many road trips in pursuit of sporting events through the years. Dad is 78 now and has been living with Parkinson’s disease for about 20 years.
He’s luckier than many with the disease. The effects have been slow and gradual and only within the last few years has he started using a cane. And so, with cane in hand, we walked the long route around Baylor’s McLane Stadium and up the stairs to our seats high in the third deck.
While the temperature at ground level was 92 degrees, I think our proximity to the sun put the temperature somewhere near 120. At least that’s what the “real feel” was as the sweat dripped from our face. To quote dad, “Getting old is hell,” and the trip to Baylor was draining.
We left New Braunfels at 9 a.m. and got home 12 hours later.
A long day for anyone, but if I called him up for another road trip tomorrow, he’d be waiting on his front porch for me to pick him up and he would have googled where we might eat when we get there. He would be great at hosting “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.” Dad is in a fight.
A fight that many of us are facing, or will face in the future. A fight that is lonely and hard. It’s a fight that we cannot win.
We can only draw it out. Dad has the scars to prove he’s battle-tested. He falls occasionally and carries a small bag with different types of bandages to try and patch the wounds that the fight inflicts.
He’s become quite adept at treating his own injuries. He’s doing everything he can not to give in. He, like many others, are fighting to keep the old man out.
There’s nothing graceful about it, so I’m not sure where the idea of “aging gracefully” came from. Presumably, some writer trying to piece together a clever sentence came up with it, though he totally missed the mark. Every day is a battle; from lifting something heavy, to remembering a password, or figuring out how to watch the Unicorn game over the internet.
The world is changing as he slows down and he knows it. That makes it all the more difficult. Watching him age is tough.
I worry about the falls, the occasional forgetfulness, and the shaky hands. He asks for help around the house more than before when it used to be me asking him for help with a home project that I was tasked with completing. Although, currently his yard is full of holes as he digs up his sprinkler system and prepares to put in artificial grass (I think he’s hiring someone for that part of the job, thank God).
I’m not sure how he digs up sprinkler heads while using a cane, but he gets the job done, as he always has. I know that the number of future road trips with dad are fewer in number than the number of road trips in our collective past, but that’s OK. I have a good memory, and I’ve been blessed with a lot already.
Besides, I’m betting dad has already been looking for some ballgame to go see in the next month, or maybe a good local band to go watch. Because he’s a long way from giving up the fight. They say, “Aging is not for the faint of heart.
” Fortunately, being faint of heart has never been one of his character flaws. So, this is for my dad and everyone else in the midst of the fight. A fight to keep the old man out.
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