When Are We Going to Panama?

It's back. My father called me tonight to tell me to make arrangements for us to go to Panama. The Panama Canal, the thing I've heard of all my life. That's where he was stationed during WWII. Please note that it wasn't bombed or destroyed, so he obviously did a good job of protecting it.

He's always wanted to go back and renewed his passport when he hit 92, but didn't have time to go then. He says that if we schedule it around the things that are growing in his garden (such as the 150 tomato plants for a man who lives in assisted living, gets three meals a day and doesn't like tomatoes), he can go in the next few months. I'm to go with him, as is anyone else who wants to go.

What a happy fantasy! I would love to go with him. I'd love him to show me where he was stationed, ride through the locks with him and let him explain how they work -- and what's changed. I've even gotten him to agree to go on a cruise ship, not some little boat and go hiking through the jungle to find his old camp.

Now he can't walk from his room to my mother's without stopping three times to rest. He can't go anywhere without his oxygen. I called him the other night and he fell trying to answer the phone. He uses a cane, sometimes uses a walker and is always supposed to use a wheelchair. He can't button his own shirts, but he can strip the leaves off of baby tomato plants and hand them to Ike to be planted.

Except for grandiose expectations for what he can do, he's as sharp as ever. I'll go through the motions of planning the trip. I'll give him options. We'll talk about it. Maybe this fantasy will be good therapy for both of us.

Too bad we didn't do it decades ago. I doubt he can leave Mama for that long. And I doubt it would be responsible of me to take him (plus driving him to church and back is grueling -- not sure about a week on a ship).

Would an airline even take somebody way past worn out? I have a feeling that cruise ships would, because I've seen their rickety old passengers. And if it's too much for him, well, at least he was doing what he wanted to do. Or, what if it is too much and he is miserable and scared the whole time and it makes him worse without giving him a good experience?

He'll be 96 in August. He wasn't expected to live until July 2007 (he doesn't know this). He's squeezing every drop he can out of life. Maybe he'll make it to Panama. Maybe he'll even make it back. But then what?

Comments

[Angry]

Oh Anne, you really are a gifted writer but even more so, a wonderful daughter.

[Liza's Eyeview]

Looking forward to that PANAMA trip will keep him going.... Make plans! Yes, go!

[Chris]

> Maybe he'll make it to Panama. Maybe he'll even make it back. But then what?

I think upon return he'll go back to planting tomatoes!