Fifty-three

On this day in 1952, my parents were married.

Today will be like any other day. Mom will get Dad up around mid-morning, spend over an hour getting him cleaned up and dressed (a home health care aide bathes him a few days a week), and shortly before noon they'll have breakfast. For about two hours after that, Mom will run errands or do housework while Dad sits in his easy chair and reads the newspaper. Early in the afternoon, Mom will slide him into his wheelchair and take him to lunch. Then it's back to the easy chair for a few more hours of contemplation. Early in the evening, there's dinner, followed by over an hour of news programming. Shortly thereafter is the ritual of putting Dad to bed.

Someone in the family comes nearly every day. (Yours truly is the exception, as the only one to leave the Cincinnati area. I guess that makes me "the lost child," huh?) Once a week in the summer, one of the grandsons comes out to mow the lawn. I offered to buy Mom one of those robotic lawnmowers, but she is content with the current arrangement. I even offered to get a radio-control variety, so they could all stay indoors and make some sport out of it. She has proven unyielding.

This is just the stuff I can mention without getting my @$$ chewed out.