Long Grass

Monday 31st January

Day 285

I push open the door very gently in case my father is still asleep in his chair.

‘I’ve just woken up,’ he says.

‘How are you?’ I ask.

‘Well, I’m dogged by that things-left-undone feeling,’ he says.

He’s fretting about a long form he thinks he has to fill in to apply for a Blue Badge. So that we can park in the disability space when we take him to the hospital. He’s forgotten that my sister has already completed the form. But I recognise that feeling - guilt, procrastination, more guilt. I reassure him there is plenty of time.

‘But you know me,’ he says,’ I don’t like to let the grass grow under my feet.’

Which is why, among other things, he has many book titles to his name, and another with his editor. I notice how I'm still wandering through the long grasses of my own meadow.