“My hands are shaky and my knees are weak
I can’t seem to stand on my own two feet…
Please don’t ask me what’s on my mind
I’m a little mixed up but I’m feeling fine…
My tongue get tied when I try to speak…”

 

By all rights, it should be Daddy singing this old Elvis Presley song tonight.  But he and his speech are too shaky to do it.   So at least he’s safe.  And safe without sound may be all we can ask for right now.    

Dad was caught near the busy road in front of his house this afternoon.  He was on a rescue and recovery mission to save his wandering dogs.  The dogs didn’t want rescuing.  But that’s beside the point.  At least in Daddy’s mind.  It was also beside the point that he’d left the house against Christi’s expressed wishes.  Daddy forgets he’s now house-bound….that he’s no longer mobile.   Even though his legs tell him every minute of his day.      

My cousins Mike and Judy were driving by on their way home.  And seeing Dad outside, they stopped to get him safely into the house.   Part-way there, Daddy’s shaky old legs ran out of steam.  Without warning, his knees buckled.   So they caught him a second time.  

Daddy sat in his recliner for three hours before he regained his small store of strength.  And while he was in recovery, the others were building a front-yard fence to keep the dogs (and Daddy)  corralled.  Christi says it won’t be pretty — but it may be a solution.   

How do you thank people who do out of love what others could not be paid to do?   They were tired themselves, ready to get home–they’d been up early with Mike’s mom (my Aunt Jo)– who had a heart procedure this morning.   And instead of relaxing, they were building a fence.  I know Daddy would thank them if he could string two words together.   I know Christi already has.

The fence may or may not be a solution.  And it may or may not be a beauty.  But I’ll always see it as one.  Because as the old Greek proverb goes — beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  And this beholder is beholden.  For the two who accepted our trouble as their own.      And did more than we could have asked or hoped.         

In spite of being tired and all shook up.