Ground Hog Day

The elderly couple whom l like to lovingly call My Fake Parents are both having some significant memory loss.

But they're lucky. They have a lovely condo, a housekeeper, and excellent home health care. Not to mention loads of friends and a devoted family.

And all of the above does not deter them from attending classes, going to church and movies and plays and eating out in fine restaurants three times a day which they'd done for the past 22 years.

The day before yesterday, early in the morning "Mom" called me.

"Did you know that 'Dad' is going in for surgery tomorrow?"

This got my attention. After a long, confusing conversation I made several other phone calls and made sure they would be safe the next day and have all of the attention they needed. (I was pretty sure it was not surgery - but a procedure.)

About noon I had another call.

"Did you know that 'Dad' is having surgery tomorrow?"

So we had the same conversation again.

Late that evening when I returned home from a meeting my boyfriend handed me the phone and said, "Guess who this is?"

She said, "Did you know that 'Dad' is having surgery tomorrow?"

Yesterday I finished up an afternoon meeting kind of early so thought I'd run by their condo to check on him - hoping he would have arrived home from the ordeal by then.

I was on the sidewalk when a car stopped beside me. It was the two of them. They didn't ask what I was doing in front of their building. They didn't offer any information about the procedure.

They said "Get in and go eat with us."

I declined and told them I would meet them as usual on Saturday morning - in the same restaurant I've been meeting them for the last 17 years. Except now sometimes they forget which one it is and I have to hunt them down.

Am I complaining? No. Every time I see them my heart flutters.



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