Chapter 3: My Father's Apocalypse "A Child Shall Lead Them"

July 2009

            My daughter came to visit last week. They just left today. She brought my nineteen month old granddaughter, Miley, with her. When they arrived Mom and Dad were sitting on my front porch. Miley ran up to my dad and put her little arms around his neck, and said, “Poppi”. My daddy’s face glowed. A little while later, they were sitting together on the front porch swing. Dad had his finger looped through the back of Miley’s shirt to prevent her from falling. They glided back and forth while Miley ate a peppermint stick.

            I tore myself away from the conversation buzzing around me. My mom, daughter, and my husband, Jim, were scattered around on various spots on the porch. I glanced over where dad and Miley were sitting, tuned out the chatter surrounding me, and started watching my dad with Miley. They were encapsulated in their own little world. Miley, intent on her peppermint stick, and tired from the long trip from Florida, had mentally removed herself from the world surrounding her. My dad sat, enraptured by her. He watched her with undisguised adoration.  Every once in a while Miley would offer him a taste of her peppermint stick. Neither of them knew that anyone else even existed. Dad, with his diminishing ability to communicate, and my granddaughter, with her ever growing ability to communicate, didn’t need words. Their eyes and smiles spoke far more of that moment than any words could have conveyed. I want to remember that moment. I am going to lock it away in that small secret place inside myself. Years from now I want to be able to take it out and relive what I felt that day as I watched my dad and my granddaughter reach out to one another, and as my dad fell even more in love with his great- granddaughter.