The Diesel Mechanic and Bobbie Burns...

[catnhatnh]

...After a tough 6 hours in my hot dog trailer today in a 90 degree ambient and interior temperatures exceeding 110, I ran out to purchase supplies for tomorrow and home to store them.It was 6 pm...before 6:45 I warmed a cup of cream of mushroom soup and a grilled ham and cheese sandwich from my food trailer and headed to the hospital to see Dad.
Dad is in the secure psychiatric ward at a local hospital having his medications "adjusted" preparatory to his placement in a nursing home. "Adjusted" means that the lucid periods he just recently had must be suppressed to kill off the paranoiac behavior that has recently surfaced.It is the nature of dementia. We often blame Alzheimer's but this is by definition "early onset dementia" and Dad is over 80-we should not be surprised...
I am a kid of the lower middle class.Most the guys I hung with were college aspirants and had parents whom could back them. Mine could not.If you went to college it would be a cheap one and you would work...I dropped out of high school and got a full time job...
...Dad graduated high school by an early out program in WW2 that let him cut the last half of his senior year and join the army air corp.After the war he got a girl pregnant,my family began and dreams of higher education died. He took a job and a wife and life went forward.
The quest for knowledge never died...the flight engineer loved his woman, worked his job, and raised us,his 4 children.On his own time he contemplated Elegies like Thomas Grey's and the Rubaiyat, and even the dialectic poetry of Scotland...
...So there lies the irretrievable debt-What can I say tomorrow to a man who taught me-an unrepentant prole to read the line "The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft aglee..." (the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray) and to recognize the ultimate truth thereof??? When the man seldom recognizes me?...
...Dad,you did alright...where I failed the failure was my own.From a hard time and hard circumstances you taught me the beauty of both language and thought.
...I just wish I had said it sooner.From me and in awe of your accomplishments with me,I will add from Maud Muller's stream the following:
Alas for the Maiden, Alas for the Judge,
Rich repiner and household drudge,
For of all sad words of tongue or pen-
the saddest are these "It might have been..."
Daddy,I'm sorry.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Are you a good person and a good son or daughter?

If so, then you have nothing, NOTHING to apologize for. Nothing.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Don't be sorry-- you did what you had to do, and...

you did it as well as you could.

And that's all that matters.

[catnhatnh]

3. This is merely my Mea Culpa...

A simple it's my fault for all I never said or did.Tommorrow and forever stuff I do will never matter to Dad.

[dweller]

4. it all matters

and you said it beautifully. The 3 or 4 or more that read your words will carry forth positive feelings for your Dad, for you and for us all, and that affects everything. All of us, today, tomorrow and with all we know and do.

peace catnhatnh.
dp

[catnhatnh]

5. Sorrows are guaranteed,

but regrets may be avoided.If you have something to say to your parents, do it quickly....