His Inside World

"Do you see that?" Dad points outside his nursing home window.

I get up from my chair and stand in front of the window, squinting. At 93 his eyes are still much better than mine.

"What do you see, Dad?"

"I don't know. There. On top of that house. That thing. What is it?"

I squint. Seriously. The house is across the field. I see a metal something on top of the roof.

"I see something metal, Dad."

"No. No metal. It's a mouse."

I turn around slowly. "Dad - have you seen mice anywhere else?"

"Sometimes. There's one right now, running on the ceiling. Do you see it?"

I walk over to where he's pointing and stop, pointing up at the ceiling. "Is it here?"

He directs me until I'm right by the bathroom door.

"There," he says. "There's the mouse, scurrying into the bathroom."

I reach up one more time and start petting the air.

"So you DO see it?"

"No, Dad. But if there are going to be mice in your room, I want to make sure they're friendly."

"Am I out of my mind?"

I will stop my story at this point to tell you something. My father was one of the most intelligent, sane, creative people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. His mind was everything to him. When the rest of his body had failed him, he would lie for 24 hours a day and think. And plan. And dream. A week before his death and he was still reciting Shakespeare sonnets and poetry about eagles and crags. Two weeks before his death I lay my cello on top of him after my "concert" and he started plucking out his beloved Swedish folksong.

So I carefully speak my next words. "Just because I don't see it doesn't mean you don't, Dad. It's all real to you in your inside world. I'm here in your outside world. There are all sorts of things that happen in our inside worlds that no one else sees. Our thoughts, our dreams, our daydreams, our fears."

He nods. Sometimes he thinks he's in a different room, or a different country. Sometimes he thinks people are trying to harm him. After Mom died I think Dad would've died, he was so lost without her. So he made the decision to live on, and create a new life with new memories. He married his wife's nurse. I think he thought that would turn out differently. As the smug philosophists say "it is what it is," and we've all walked on as mindfully as possible. At the end of his life he is lying in a nursing home, seeing mice on the ceiling, thinking about the book he and I are writing, about the end of the world and how we make it off the planet.

He loves me. I am confident of that. He trusts me. I've been there in the trenches with him from the beginning. So I know what my next words needs to be: "Dad - just know that when you are in your inside world, I am always here in your outside world, protecting you, watching out for you. I won't let anyone or anything ever hurt you."

I take a deep breath. I look at him, looking so frail and vulnerable there in the hospital bed. The tears start.

"And Dad - another thing. I've lived my entire life seeing and hearing things that others haven't seen or heard. So if anyone believes in the reality of an inside world, it's me. Okay?"

He smiles. And nods. And we sit and hold hands for a while until he closes his eyes and falls asleep.