Especially for Daughter – want to try and raise a smile about ‘toileting’
Not sure if this subject is ‘off-limits’ – promise nothing rude!
By the way, are we supposed to keep to the original thread?! Will I get my ‘virtual’ wrists slapped for going off on a tangent…..? Is that a worse sin than hijacking? (Should this be a PM?) Should I have posted in another thread? Do I know anything anymore?????
Anyway….
Your post about visiting your dad reminded me of a time I took my dad to Old Trafford – when I probably shouldn’t have done – he was too ill – but he’d taken me to see ManU so many times over the years, we’d somehow got tickets and I was determined to do it (as was he!)
By then he was registered ‘disabled’ but even the car parking spot we secured seemed a million miles away from the ground and I’d forgotten how many steps there were to climb. I was quite proud of myself… swapped seats with another ‘couple’ so dad had the least amount of walking to do rather than get to our allocated ones, dug in my Women’s Lib heels (showing my age!) to queue for Bovril and pies for him at half-time (talk about role-reversal!).
I thought I had it all planned and was doing really well until, just before the end of the match, the dreaded: ‘I need the loo’. Hadn’t even considered that one!
What was I thinking about? Selfish me! Just wanted to share some precious time with him doing what I had for so many years previously when he was well and able and fully mobile…. Hadn’t thought about him needing an ‘escort’ into those sort of places….
I remember a kindly steward looking at me and dad shuffling along, ‘Need some ‘elp, mate?’ Dad just smiled and carried on.
I retreated a few yards back as the game ended and it seemed like the whole 50,000 crowd poured down the same steps and towards the ‘gents’ where I knew dad was having to ‘manage on his own’.……
talk about ‘heart turning over’.
A few minutes later (seemed like hours) same kindly steward had ‘sussed’ the situation and I found him escorting dad from the exit and to my standpoint.
Dad always told me ‘there are a lot more good people than bad’ – that steward certainly proved his point that day – or was he just concerned at what a woman of my age was doing loitering around men’s public toilets?????!!!!!
Your post reminded me of that great anxiety at the time. All I am trying to illustrate is that I can look back now at what seemed a ‘minor crisis’ with nothing but love and affection, appreciation of human nature and humour – and especially learning to laugh at myself! (And no, I have NOT become known for hanging around men's toilets!!!!
)
What YOU have helped ME to see is that I need to apply my own philosophy about what I have learnt from dad to my current situation with mum!!!
Thank you, love, Tender Face