The real bad news today: about my Daddy

Earlier, I posted news about my denied raise. Because I know how to process that. But it’s not at all the worst news of the day.
(And there have been five contenders for that title.)

My Daddy–my grandfather who raised me for several years when my mother couldn’t–has been officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

And he doesn’t know yet because my mom doesn’t want to tell him yet even though she told me I’d better tell her if it happens . . .
Anyway, I just can’t really write about this yet.
I can cry in my chiropractor’s office, but that’s different.

While I’m processing a bit, here’s a poem about him. I wrote it many years ago when he went in for heart surgery.

Atlas Has Surgery

They do tests
stress tests
which we joke about.
They schedule the time
and so you move
unfamiliarly
away from the burden
taking no relief
in the respite
of a short forced sleep.
This too is a burden
if you don’t do it,
you can’t get back to work.
You leave the earth to hold itself.
I don’t know if you trust it to stay
if you’ve read the physics;
even if you have
there may be little comfort;
Newton and Einstein are at odds;
better to do it yourself
so it’s done right.
Newton says we fall because of
weight and mass;
Einstein says we fall because of
the curve of time and space.
Either way, we start to shift
imperceptibly.
The issue is not the fall
but the landing.
In a picture of our fried egg shaped universe,
we do not think of above and below
we fall off the edge of the page;
in a diorama—the bottom of the box;
in a middle school science fair project—
we simply land on the table.
This is where most end up—
on a table
our gravity sinking hard
onto a surface
that does not yield
as your shoulders
sometimes do.