For those of you who are unaware, my mom is currently fighting ovarian cancer. This is sad and the physicality of what she’s had to put her body through is sad. But she seems to be on the other side of it, and is most likely going to be cancer free. However, my mom also has early-onset Alzheimer’s (or that was the preliminary diagnosis from the neurologist anyway). This has been creeping on over the past few years – we thought her short-term memory was being affected by pain medicine she was on, but now she is on nothing and she has the mental capacity of a child. My mother…MY MOTHER who made me vacuum backwards to avoid footprints and wipe out the shower every night has stopped cleaning and putting/throwing things away. It was small at first, clothes all over her room (well, she just has a lot of clothes, we thought) or Christmas decorations still out in March (well, she can’t move the boxes herself, we thought). But when she stopped being able to calculate how much insulin she should give herself based on her blood sugar and would truly not survive without constant care…in steps my dad.

Dad kissing my mom bye for the day.

Jess Babich wasn’t the best husband. I mean, he wasn’t bad, but faithful he was not. There were fights, bad fights, and they almost separated. I honestly have no idea why they didn’t. In fact, I vividly remember my mom saying to me at one point, ‘If I ever got sick I know your daddy would leave me.’ Well, sadly, she’s too far gone for me to say to her: ‘HA! YOU WAS WRONG!’ And man was she wrong. I’m sure you thought this post was about my poor mom – and yes, my poor mom, but this post is about my dad. My dad who I always knew was a superhero. My dad who picks up all the chips when they’re down for everyone and always has really. My dad who, despite encouragement from me, refuses to put my mom somewhere where she can have around-the-clock care, because that is what she needs. It’s literally like the scene in the notebook where the kids are like ‘Come home, Daddy.’ And he’s all, ‘That’s my sweetheart in there.’ He doesn’t work anymore, retired early. His ONLY break is every other weekend when I go sit with her while he plays golf. That’s it. The rest of the time he is taking care of her every need. They’ve been married for 40 years and I continue to be impressed with his patience with her.

I guess my point here is, you just never know about people. Someone can seem like a great person but crumble when the pressure is on. Or someone can hurt you and still end up being the one thing you can depend on in the end. I hope we all find that person. Even if it takes a few tries.