josh anderson

Memphis. 2012. Josh Anderson

http://uphilldownhill.tumblr.com/post/20932366177

http://uphilldownhill.tumblr.com/post/20932193212

http://uphilldownhill.tumblr.com/post/20931921088

goodbye. i love you. very much.

I found $10 on the ground in the parking lot of the grocery store in the affluent neighborhood that my parents live in. 2-3 weeks ago maybe? I decided that the money wasn’t for me but that I had to figure out who it was for. I found it as I was locking my bike up to a cart return. Had I not rode my bike and drove instead, I would not have found the bill wedged between the curb and the metal frame of the return.

This morning around 7am, my mother and I were woke up by a phone call saying that my father had fallen in the night at the rehab center he’s in and had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance. His oxygen levels were dangerously low and things looked grim.

After spending all day in the hospital thinking it would be the last day I would see my father alive, he stabilized. He’s still in ICU, but may make it through the night now. My mother and I decide to come home to take a shower before going back. While Im getting ready, the doorbell rings. Its Trevon from the local youth boxing league. He’s going door to door holding a little notepad with xeroxed pictures of him and kids from the league, boxing. He’s collecting money. He asks if the sweet older man with white hair is home. He says every year he comes by and he would sit outside and talk with him, and he would give a couple bucks. I tell Trevon that the man, my dad, isn’t doing very well and is in the hospital. Trevon says he’s sorry and quickly puts his pad down. He doesn’t care about the donation he just wants to know if my dad is okay. I tell him he’ll be fine, then remember the $10 still in my wallet. I give him the $10. He says thanks.

I tell my mom the story and she says, “I never talk to those kids.”

My dad is now in hospice care. Just give him what he wants because its only a matter of time. My mother and I had to find a nursing home for him today.

There’s no way to make it through all of this so lets just make life comfortable for each other, and mean something from now until the end. Its only a matter of time.