Administering the Meds

Translated…

“Your father’s running a high fever, but he refused the treatments of getting a drip, and refused to get the shots, or take the meds too, said that we should let him go, what do I do?”, my mother, who was waiting for my, anxiously outside the E.R., said this to me the moment she saw me.

I’d only not seen my father who was tall like the mountains, and strong like an ox for a few short months, he’d become, so weakened and frail, lying, in the hospital, he seemed like a totally different man, compared to how he would order people around, that professional soldier I’d known him to be! Before me, he’d become like this infant, throwing a temper tantrum, and refused to do as he was told, just like me when I got sick a long time ago too.

when you were a child…

That year, I’d refused to take my meds, I’d just, kept that capsule in my mouth, and not swallowed it down, but, the sugarcoating melted away, leaving that bitter center behind, I’d, spitted it back out into the porridge, refused to take another bite. My mother was at her wit’s end, asked my dad to stared me down, he’d pretended to get angry, but with his heart wrenching, held out the spoon, and promised that “I’ll give you candy afterwards, and managed to, make me finish that weird, awful tasting porridge up. It seemed like it was yesterday, and now, my childlike father before me, became the me that needed his comforting.

I’d told dad of this memory, he’d smiled shy smile, but used the trade-off of not getting intubated, and, finally, swallowed down the meds. We’d made an agreement, that after he got better, we will take a stroll in the courtyard of this beautiful hospital, that we will go on the swing sets at the park. But this time, I’ll be the one, taking his hands.

and now, your father became your child…

And so, this, is how the child reciprocated the kindness s/he had experienced in her/his childhood years with her/his father, and it was because the father had been kind and loving to the child, that, was why as the father grows older, the child was more than willing to stay by the father’s side as the father aged.