I’m in Elgin. Without my kids or husband. I’m staying in my teenage bedroom where I’m trying to work while I care for my dad.

Mom hasn’t actually left yet — she leaves in the pre-dawn hours for a well-deserved trip to Alaska with some of her good friends– so I don’t really know how this is going to play out.

My father has a form of dementia. In some ways he is a child again. He steals things he covets, cigarettes and soda pop, from people he knows (and in some cases, doesn’t know) . He’s grown a mustache – totally white except for some brown in the middle – which could be leftover food or some brown hairs or a skin condition.

When my mother told me about this trip, one of my first thoughts was, “What about Dad?”. My husband suggested I offer to take care of him while she went to Alaska. Because I’d already thought of it, I agreed.

So here I am. Today I purchased the makings of several of his favorite meals and will cook them for him. He goes to bed early, so dinner for us will be around noon. Not a bad idea since the house is not air conditioned at the moment. Cooking a roast beef at 10 am might be better than heating up the house in the afternoon on hot days.

We will see how it goes.