Sid's Time to Shine

This is a chapter with a happy ending. It’s been an emotional and exhausting week. With a 60-day self-imposed timeline after my mother’s death, on day 59 my father moved into the retirement community that held an apartment for him despite a waiting list. My brother Dan and his good buddy Scott flew out from New York to help with the many errands and “trash and dash” runs. The moving truck showed up on time on Monday and nothing in the load broke. When Dad entered the lobby of his new residence on Tuesday, Ida, my mother’s friend for 30 years, was there to welcome him. I got to see the look of pleasure and amazement on his face when he realized that I re-created his home, albeit on a smaller scale, down to the pictures on his refrigerator and shelves above his desk (minus the garage full of tools).

Sid is making friends, he’s learning how to use a laptop with high-speed internet, he signed up for a group outing to see community theatre. He has new doctors sensitized to geriatric issues and he is slowly recovering from the infections and surgeries over the last month. Blue haired ladies are flirting with him. He chatted with the maintenance crew to make sure they knew he was supervising their work. He stole food from the dining room by sneaking rolls into his sweatshirt. He’s finally safe.

For some perspective: When I was 4 years old in 1960, I was attacked by a neighbor kid wielding a baseball bat. Due to a skull concussion I was hospitalized. My father went to the local authorities to register a complaint. He was told that the parent of the kid was “an anti-Semite and a lodge brother,” and that the police had no power to protect his family. He was advised to relocate as quickly as possible – which he did. We moved to a new town, he took time off from his job, he sacrificed for a happy future for his children.

Quid pro quo. We simply returned the favor.