My Dad wanted to come to the Thing With Eggy.

I told him he couldn't.

Now, I don't think I was being callous. Dad has Parkinson's, and turns 88 today. 🎉

Parkinson’s is no joke, and Dad had been getting less and less mobile; he shuffled, he teetered as he stood. Mom wanted him to use a cane (she had her own health issues mind you) and he would have none of it.

Dad went ahead and booked a 4 night stay at the Woodstock Inn.

I sent him a note:

I want to be super clear we really won’t be available for the weekend or around it. We will have 300 people there and are coordinating all sorts of logistics. We won’t be able to do meals or spend time together really.

It’s also going to be a bit of a complex event (getting there getting in traveling to/from, seating for you, etc). I can’t say I wouldn’t be worried about you all being safe.

I might ask that you hold off on rooms until we really understand how it could work for you both. Does that sound ok?

He accepted, begrudgingly. For the past few months he would tend to end our phone conversations with something of a plea: "We need help over here," he'd offer.

He seemed somewhat thankful to be let off the hook for The Thing with Eggy - but then demanded I spill every detail.

Who is coming? When does the band go on? Where will they play?

Dad made me go with him to the bank, to get my name added to the safety deposit box. It was a complete three ring circus as my parents tried to navigate; four different BOA employees had to be called to situate everything. While I'm sitting in the office waiting to sign my name to the forms my Dad opens his wallet, full of scribbled notes, or passwords maybe or hints to things.

He tries to ask me about crypto, but the question is about as unclear as crypto is itself.

The week before The Thing with Eggy, my Dad took a fall at home. Turns out he'd fallen just the day before but Mom had buttoned him all up, hid it from everyone, the always crutch to his relentless drive. This fall was different. Apparently he landed on the back of his head and pushed a brain bleed, or was it a stroke? Or both?

They gave him Haldol in the emergency room; when I mentioned this to his neurologist, he sounded truly despondent, "oh no oh no oh no," he cried.

Dad seems mostly catatonic, with occasional bright spots of lucidity, like when he tried to figure out why they put two goddamn remotes to the single tv in his hospital room.

After The Thing With Eggy he begged to hear how it went. His eyes wide like a child. His mouth choking, and the feeble outline of words of encouragement tumbled out.

Mostly he lies with his mouth agape, his body twitches; his eyes flutter, then stare. He wears two big white medical mitts the size of boxing gloves - because he keeps attempting to pull out his nose tube.

He doesn't know yet that his dog of 16 years just up and kicked the bucket all on its own.

They ask us to leave the room when he's being changed, because he has c.diff and his stomach isn't working. Recently he contracted Covid so they put him on Remdesivir. Covid will kick your ass and the same can be said for the medicine to treat it.

I want to tell them that my Dad is the best. He sent me to the outfield in 4th grade little league. He came to a Dead show or two and said he loved how Jerry played guitar like he was singing. He loaned me $30K to buy my first house.

He tells really dirty one line jokes. He seeks to work until the day he dies.

I hate feeling that I wish my Dad would Let Go. I hope he gets better, I do. But I feel he might not, and I'm begging this phase doesn't last long.

Because he should be allowed to have lived the life he did, without a terrible end to paint a pale over it all.