Aging with Parents: The Price is Right edition

April 13, 2022. St. Elizabeth's Care Center, Burbank, CA. 

His eyes twinkled when I walked into the sparsely furnished, but bright-with-daylight room. The TV was off, the fake mahogany tray table held a fresh cup of water. "Oh, honey, you're here. You must have gotten out of school early. How was the drive up? Which route did you take?" 

I assured Dad the drive was smooth, without mentioning that I had long ago finished high school and was living in Spokane, Washington, now, not San Diego. His recent move to St. Elizabeth's Care Center was meant to be temporary, to regain mobility in a broken hip that was surgically repaired after a late evening fall in his driveway, leftovers from his favorite restaurant splattering across the sidewalk. In the three days since I had arrived in the Los Angeles area, Dad's rather slowly progressing dementia had shifted into hyperdrive. 

I settled into the folding chair at his bedside and we chatted for the next several hours. Taking time in between memories about Gramma's house and the boat Dad had when I was in elementary school to watch The Price is Right. "You know, they've done alright. They've kept the show going pretty well." 

"I don't know, Dad, Drew Carey is still so flat." 

"Yeah, well ..." My ever loyal dad drifted off, not wanting to disparage the show he had spent 35 of his 55 years in television filming from behind camera 3. For years he swore he was going to retire when Bob Barker decided to hang up his distinct, thin-handled game show host microphone, but Martin "Marty" Wagner stayed for several more years to help the new guy adjust. Ultimately, he didn't hang his headset on the camera handle for the last time until he was 75 years old.  

About mid-day, Dad gazed rather cheerily at the ceiling and remarked, "This is so neat, this family vacation we have been able to take. And this is a nice library room we are in right now." 

This is us now. Some moments he is pretty darn clear about where we are and what we are noodling over, other times he has me squarely set in San Diego, still in school and living with my mom, or working at my first job post-college as a newspaper reporter. 

I'm Marty's only child and while he mostly thinks of me as somewhere between 16 and 22, I can't help but feel like this chapter is aging me right alongside him.