I flew home to Memphis as soon as I got the call from Dad’s friend, John.  Thank God for John.  He is about my age and he befriended Dad at church.  I guess he needed a surrogate father, and Dad sure needed him. John drove him around after Dad’s vision no longer made it possible for him to drive. John’s wife did Dad’s paper work and his son kept his computer running.  They also called to check up on him, brought him home cooked meals and frequently took him out to lunch, although Dad always picked up the tab.

I was at the laundromat, because my clothes dryer had broken down with a full load of towels, when I got the call. John had taken Dad to visit the farm, a trip they made every couple of weeks. Dad was like a kid in a candy store when he visited the farm, so John was particularly concerned when Dad didn’t show his usual enthusiasm. He slept during the hour and a half drive, instead of engaging in the nonstop conversation that both he and John are prone to. He barely ate any of the food at the Cotton Inn where they always stopped for the buffet. And, he didn’t interact much with our farmer, Tim, as they drove around looking at the crops.  
John called me as soon as he got home and said some thing’s wrong with your Dad.  I think he’s had a stroke. Now, I’m no doctor.  In fact, I’m the only one in my family who’s not a doctor.  But even I knew that it was far more likely that Dad’s lung cancer had metastasized to his brain. I sent texts to my brother and sister and I hopped on a plane.

When I got to Memphis, Dad’s speech was already impaired. I asked myself the usual questions.  How did I not seen this coming? The past couple of months Dad would find some reason to get off the phone minutes after I called. I had gotten into a fight with Dad’s girlfriend and I thought he just wasn’t interested in talking to me.  My family has a long history of not speaking when we’re mad. We don’t do conflict resolution, we just walk away. My grandmother and my Aunt Mavis were not on speaking terms when Aunt Mavis died suddenly at 44 years of age.  My mother and my Aunt Opal were also not  speaking when Aunt Opal died.  Don’t you just love these old timey names? But I digress….

Anyway, I would come to find out that Bonnie, Dad’s girlfriend, had been keeping Dad’s condition from us.  He had actually fallen a couple of times and he convinced her not to tell us.  This just gave me more reason not to like her, and I didn’t need much.

If it weren’t so tragic, Dad’s speech would have been kind of funny.  He used made up words, incorrect words or just flat out gobble de gook.  The cadence was correct, though, and I could usually make out what he was trying to say. I could tell it was frustrating for him.  He could, however, carry on a normal conversation for about 3 minutes if he put all of his energy and focus into it. Thus, the short phone calls.

We hit the ground running. Dad was a trooper.  I dragged him around from doctor to doctor. Then we had business to take care of.  There were meetings with the banks, medical directives and power of attorneys to be verified, household information to be gathered.  We finally stopped for lunch.

While we were sitting in the booth at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, Dad looked at me and he said, “who do you like better, your mom or Bonnie.”  I kid you not.  That is what he said.  This man who had never uttered a personal word to me in my entire life just asked me who I liked more, my own mother or his current girlfriend, who Melisse and I referred to as TBB (that bitch Bonnie).  

After the initial shock, I thought, hmmmm, what other subjects might I broach now that tumors in Dad’s left frontal lobe have unlocked some primal inhibition.  Instead, I asked him why he would ask me such a question and he said because Bonnie was so unpopular. Duh.

So, I thought it over for a moment and decided to answer him truthfully.  I said, “Mom was a lot smarter and a lot funnier but she was mean.”  He said, “Bonnie’s mean too.” I couldn’t wait to call Melisse and tell her. At that point in time, Melisse disliked Bonnie more than I did.  Little did I know how things would unfold.  Don’t get me wrong, Dad was crazy about her and she relieved him of the suffocating loneliness he felt after Mom died.  But she did indeed have a mean side and it intensified as Dad’s health deteriorated. The thing is, I am my mother’s daughter, and in the end, Bonnie had no idea what she was up against.