photo credit: robad0b

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.

— Luciano de Crescenzo

Happy New Year and welcome to 2010!  Whether we want it or not, the new year is here.  In the past, I’ve usually greeted the new year as an opportunity full of possibilities, I must confess that this New Year I am less than enthusiastic about the future.

You may have noticed (or maybe you didn’t) that for the last two weeks of December, Ellie was the lone voice writing here on BouncebackCafe.com.  Up to this point, through a combination of good planning and luck, we’d pretty much managed to balance out the writing assignments during good times and bad.  Thanks to Ellie for filling in during one of the busiest times of the year.

This post is the story of how my father was rescued from a potentially disastrous situation by the often unsung angels who watch out for us every day.

You Just Never Know…

My father had taken his annual December trip to visit my sister and her kids.  He goes to see the various Christmas shows in which his grandkids are “stars.”  Usually he is there for 4-5 days and then they all fly back to his city for Christmas.  We began this tradition when my mother was in the Alzheimers facility and she couldn’t travel for Christmas, so we all gathered in their locale.

Dad flew out on Tuesday and by Wednesday my sister had called to say that he was very confused and kept insisting that he had to go home (current home) or to his childhood home because he was expected and everyone would be disappointed if he didn’t show up.  (The people who were “expecting” him were his grandchildren, who he was already visiting, or his cousins – who were not expecting him.)  Because Dad was so agitated, his return flight was changed and he flew home on Friday.  …and everything was just fine – NOT!

When my brother picked him up from the airport, he seemed “just fine” – meaning that he was complaining constantly about having gone to my sister’s when he had told my brother that he didn’t want to go.  This was perfectly normal behavior for Dad, so my brother dropped him off at his car and sent him home.

Dad was hungry – as usual – and announced that he was going to Denny’s for “a bite”.  In typical Dad fashion, he had taken his cell phone charger to my sister’s with him and left his cell phone with my brother.  Result:  cell phone dead – and of course, no car charger – it costs extra.  Because, like many of us, Dad doesn’t necessarily know phone numbers, he only knows how to call from pre-loaded numbers, Dad had my brother write down his number for him – Good thing.

Marco ——— Polo?

The normal routine had been that Dad would call my brother when he arrived at home.  When my brother hadn’t heard from Dad an hour later, he called Dad’s house.  No answer.  Now what?  Before he could figure out what to do, Patrick called.  Dad had gotten lost while driving home and had stopped at the gas station by the entrance to my father’s housing development.  Patrick, the attendant, offered to lead Dad home if my brother would give him the address and maybe give him some directions.  It turned out that Patrick was actually familiar with Dad’s street.

Off they went, Patrick the Good Samaritan with my father following him.  They got to Dad’s street with Dad still following along.  Patrick turned in, pulled up to the house, and got out of his car.  Dad had disappeared.

Dad lived on a tiny street, three houses on a cul-de-sac.  Patrick immediately ran to the intersection to look for Dad, who was nowhere to be seen.  This is just an assumption, but we figure that by the time that Patrick turned onto Dad’s street, Dad had forgotten that he was following Patrick AND he didn’t recognize his street so he kept going.  So Patrick did the only thing he could, he called my brother to report that he was so sorry, but he had lost my Dad.

Send in the Cavalry!

If this were a movie, you could almost see the setup – Good Samaritan helps elderly man to get home and loses him.  Elderly man putters along at 5 MPH driving everyone around him crazy as he wanders looking for the right street.  I would never go see this movie, but it does have its “funny” moments.

What do you do when your father is driving around looking for his house?  You call in the cavalry.  And that’s exactly what my brother did.  He called the local sheriff’s station.  (Dad’s town doesn’t have a police force.)  The officer who answered the phone informed him that although they hadn’t found him yet, they were already looking for Dad as his vehicle had been reported as driving erratically.  (Just what we needed, a father on the Most Wanted List in his small town.)  We figured that he was trying to read street signs, looking for his street and paying no attention to his driving.

As part of their search for Dad, the sheriff went to the most logical place to check – Dad’s house.  When they rang the doorbell, the dog barked but no one answered the door.  They called my brother who explained that if there was no vehicle in the driveway, Dad wasn’t there.

While talking with the sheriff who was at the house, the Highway Patrol beeped in (one of the few occasions when call waiting is a good thing) and informed my brother that they had Dad.  He had been driving the wrong way down the highway.  No one had been hurt, but Dad was shaken up.  Not because he was going the wrong way – he hadn’t realized that – but because the Highway Patrol had pulled him over.

The Paramedics were called.  No apparent injury – just elevated pulse and blood pressure – clearly the result of sitting on the side of the road with three Highway Patrol cars with their lights flashing.  My brother caught up with them shortly after the Paramedics arrived.  The Highway Patrol helped him park Dad’s car in a safe spot for later retrieval and my brother took Dad to the hospital.

Thank Heavens for the Cavalry

It was a long night, especially for my brother – and it is just the beginning of the story.  What I learned most from that Friday night is that sometimes the stars align and angels appear to help do what is needed.  There is no way that we could have found Dad without the help and protection of the law enforcement agencies involved.  They were unfailingly kind and solicitous, always trying to be of service and not make the situation worse.

The Highway Patrol could have taken a hard line and insisted that Dad be booked for “driving under the influence” but they accepted my brother’s statement that Dad had never taken a drink in his life.  They agreed that Dad was just confused and they were even willing to let the incident pass.  (In my personal opinion, that was NOT a good thing.  I’ve had confused elder bodies driving straight at me going the wrong way on a divided street.)  It was my brother who insisted that they write up the incident so that he had a way to take away Dad’s car keys.  (Dad later explained that this had only happened once – No Big Deal!  HAH!)

For me, the moral of this part of the story is that for many of those who choose “To Protect and Serve,” they really do protect and serve.

Most of the time, we view the police as an inconvenience who are determined to spoil our fun.  For all our grousing about the traffic tickets or how they never see the gross violations of the law but they see us driving “5 miles” over the speed limit (uh huh!), we need to remember that every time they pull someone over the officer is faced with a potentially life threatening event.  We need to realize that there are times when all they do is find and help an elderly person – or a child – or you and I – and those situations rarely, if ever, get reported.

The holidays are particularly stressful.  We are often preoccupied and resentful if they “interrupt” our day.  Like our parents used to, they make us behave when we’re too undisciplined to do it ourselves.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a focus on thanking our military personnel and we do owe them a debt of gratitude.  We need to remember that at home, we also owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women who serve in the police and fire departments.  They are our angels.  They do their best to keep us safe – from others and from ourselves.

Thank you!