a final favor

In October, 2014, I got a call from my father. He needed a favor. Could I take my mom to the dentist in a couple days?

At that point, they were spending their summers "in the country" -- at a house they had in upstate New York -- and summer, as far as they were concerned was ending in a week with their flight to Florida. But in that last week before they went south, my mom had an appointment with their dentist in Manhattan. A visit to the dentist was, when you considered travel time, an all-day affair. Normally he would have driven her, but he wasn't feeling well. He'd been having some dizziness that he couldn't shake -- the doctors told him that was a normal after-effect of some procedure (I forget what) that he'd undergone. At any rate, he wasn't confident that he'd be up for the round trip drive.

So I drove up the evening before the appointment, and got to their house well after they were both asleep. In the morning I had breakfast with mom -- dad was sleeping late and took her down to Manhattan. After the dentist and some lunch we headed back up. I went inside to say hello to dad. He was awake, but still in bed. He sat up, and winced at a wave of dizziness. We exchanged some chit chat, but he wasn't up for conversation. Despite the fact that he had spent the entire day in bed, he wanted to get back to sleep. So I left, saying we'd talk more when he was feeling better.

He never did feel better. He made it to Florida, but was in the hospital almost immediately after he got there. He passed away four years ago today without having regained full lucidity.

There are many things that, regretfully, will forever go unsaid. But at least I was able to do that last favor my father asked of me.