This morning, he was in his home (in California). He couldn't find his ashtray- the one he had in his lap, the one he had JUST set a lit cigarette down in. It had to be somewhere, but it just wasn't around. Never mind that hospitals don't generally allow smoking.

"Can you believe how many people there are in this house?" he asked. House? Yes, he wasn't in a hospital, he was at his home, relaxing.

He's obsessing on Diane Green. Yesterday morning, he was insistent that I call and cancel his flight out to New Jersey. At lunch, he told Jason to cancel Diane's flight to Minnesota. In the afternoon, he told me two stories- one of how Diane and Carol both visited him in the hospital, and that Diane stayed for a day... then later, he told how Diane's flight to Minnesota was cancelled midway, somewhere over Altoona, PA, and how she was miffed, having to take a bus with 17 people all the way back to New Jersey. This morning, he told me how thankful he was that he had flown out to New Jersey, and spent the week there with Diane.

I'm torn. I don't think I should contact Diane, because that is long since in his past. But I'm not sure... maybe she'd want to know. I know that I've spent the past couple of days calling his brothers and sister- family most of whom haven't made any effort at making contact for the past year and a half (and probably longer than that).

He thinks he's in California, circa 1991 (or maybe 1983). And he doesn't want to move to that "damn cold hell" - Minnesota.

I stroked his hair, and asked softly, "Do you want the bad news yet?"

Noone reads this, but should anyone come across it, my dad is back... extremely frail, damaged, and maybe not whole... but no longer empty.

And I don't know if this is a good thing or not.

Shells

The body that lays in the hospital bed is not my father. The tubes that pour life into that shell must be feeding and breathing someone else. That can't be him. I know my Dad. I feel my Dad. I see it in his smile, his eyes, his attitude, even in his gestures.

This unresponsive shell is empty- has nothing of the spark that is my father. This body doesn't fight back, it doesn't show the wry sarcastic bent. It is being watered and fertilized like a houseplant. My father would never allow himself to be treated like this. He would yell at the nurses simply because his feet were cold, and what sort of an institution would keep their rooms so cold. He'd blame Minnesota. He'd blame the black aides, who clearly have it out for him. If he were in California, he'd blame the Filipinos. Always someone else to blame, always something else to complain about.

Stick a pin in this shell, and a toe flinches slightly. That's not my dad.

Show me the MRI charts- maybe he's hiding somewhere in that digital data. Show me the EEG's- he likes to play up his sickness. He's got to be somewhere, but that shell in the bed doesn't have him. Give me the two pennies to put on those eyes... roll that corpse into the corner. Black humor when my father was contained in that shell. Now simply the best thing to do with that vacant body.

Want me to cry over that body? Anger, Bargaining, Depression... what were all those Kubler-Ross stages? None of them applicable, because that body isn't my dad. I've cried, to be sure, but not because of what I've seen. I cry because of what I don't see. My dad is gone, and it's only taking a while for that empty shell to realize. The priest asks if it's an emergency- do they need to perform the Last Rites within the hour? No, it's not, I answer. It can wait.

I don't tell him that it's already too late. My dad is already gone. They will only be anointing an empty shell.