Update on Dad 5-23-10

Greetings, Everyone!

Well, Dad seems to be doing well. He told me tonight that he surprises himself with how well he's doing. When the aide was taking the phone to Dad, I overheard her telling him that it was his daughter on the phone. He said, "Oh, which one?" I thought that showed an amazing level of awareness. As always, he seemed to enjoy my stories, and sounded please to hear about our dear friends the Orams in England and hear a bit of news about them. His voice sounded good, and as always, he was cheerful and loving.

The nurse told me that my brother had just visited--I actually wasn't sure if it was my brother John or my brother-in-law Bob who often visits on Sunday. Dad couldn't remember, but that's not anything unusual.

Christie's son Jonathan Seppi visited Dad last week with his sister Maggie and John's daughter Lisa. Jonathan said he didn't think "Pappa Daddy"--as they call him in Christie's family--knew who he or Maggie were. They don't get to see him very often.) But Jonathan thought Dad knew who Lisa was. I think it was hard for Jonathan to see how much Dad's memory's declined.

However, I also spoke to Dad's wonderful home teacher in Springville recently, Fred Huff, and he had a different perspective. The family's been worried that Dad hasn't been getting enough visitors, so my assignment was to call Fred and see if he could arrange for different people in our ward to visit once a week.

For those of you who are not Mormon, you need to understand that home teachers are assigned to visit once a month--well, Fred told me he and his companion visit Dad twice a month, and Fred and his wife visit once or twice a month in addition! They just hadn't been writing their visits down in our visitors book, so the family hadn't realized Dad was being visited so often.

I also said to Fred that if anyone else visited, they'd probably need to be warned that they should plan on doing all the talking and that Dad couldn't really carry on a conversation. Fred said that they have good conversations when they visit, and Fred has known Dad for so many years that he can steer the conversation to things Dad can talk about more easily--like his great Navy stories. We appreciate Fred so much, and he's agreed to sign the visitors' log, so the family knows about the visits.

I also heard that my brother Alan's father-in-law, Darrell Robinette, and Darrell's friend Jeri Charlier visited Dad recently. They weren't sure he'd remember either of them, but when they got there, they were sure he recognized them both. Darrell said Dad couldn't remember something his Dad had told him, and he couldn't remember how many men were on one of the mine sweepers Dad served on in WWII, but those lapses seemed minor. They had a good visit and plan to visit again.

Christie's going to Utah next week for a visit and looking forward to seeing Dad. She's hoping to come up with a way to get a cell phone that can be used to call Dad.

As always, thanks so much to all of you for your interest and your love.