It was the Air Force talk that snapped him back to lucidity.

As my uncle and brother-in-law swapped USAF stories and acronyms, something…slid into place for my father. I watched him go from quiet and withdrawn to actively participating. Listening, talking, laughing, remembering.

That lasted about an hour.

This is the same man who was my hero for years. Who knew a little about everything, whose library contained all manner of books; military strategy, nature, Black history. Who was at his happiest being outdoors, mowing his lawn or walking his property, even as I couldn’t get a hold of him because cell phones were yet to be a reliable leash to the people you loved.

But now we reached a new chapter. His care isn’t cheap, and to try to deal with his affairs from 1000 miles away is not working out for my sister or me.

But he’s taught us a lot, most importantly two things. Take care of your business: fill out a will, talk with your family about what you want and how. No one likes to talk about death, but it’s coming. It’s gonna happen, and you might as well prepare the people you love for it, emotionally and legally.

Secondly, is to LIVE. I can boast about how long my dad worked in the plant and how much blood, sweat, and tears he game for the Company, but in the scheme of things? That don’t mean shit. What wisdom did he impart? What funny stories do I have of him? Instead, I have three closets of never-opened suits, shirts, ties, and shoes to try to pass on to people who will wear them. He was prepared for a retirement of travel, and every day he was retired and didn’t go anywhere was to his detriment. He thought he’d be able to catch himself, to know when the curtain came down on his show, and he wasn’t.

And now he’s in the cruelest timeline. Scattered memories, doesn’t know where he is, confused. When I’ve shown up, he remembers who I am for now. He’s called my sister the names of his sisters. And he leaves a mess of land ownership that has taken us the better part of three years to get straight.

Physically, he’s in great shape for a man of his age. Men in my family live into their 90s if they can make it past their 70s, and he’s on that trajectory. But to live that long in a universe with constant shifts, where the faces are changing, where the short term memory of when you last ate or showered is obliterated 20 seconds afterwards, is its own unique brand of hell on earth.

In the meantime, we just keep him comfortable and safe and healthy. That’s all we can do.

The man whose name I bear is no more, but his physical form sits there, quiet and absorbed, and he’s thankfully forgotten by now that I told him I was going to go use the bathroom and never came back when we dropped him at the facility. Otherwise, he’d have wanted to follow me out, to “go home” to a house he’s never going back to, a home he built in the woods of Arkansas where he could be recluse all he wanted.

Life is a series of choices, but you’re not the only one who has to live with the choices. Be mindful of that.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep my father going for as long as he can, in a world of his own.