I have almost finished destroying and rebuilding the big living room in my home. I have taken the room down to a shell and then insulated and rebuilt the walls. The eight windows that were in the room have been replaced with two new, tilt-in vinyl windows and openings for two more. I haven’t had the time to install those last two yet, but I hope to get them in by the end of the week. They are waiting patiently by the sliding glass doors, right where I left them when I first carried them inside.

But I had other things on my mind. I had some bad news last week about my father as well. He has taken another infection of one sort or another and had to be hospitalized in the Veterans Administration facility in Salem, Va. The nurse tried to tell me about it, but I wasn’t able to understand.

I drove up to see him on Sunday, leaving fairly early in the morning and not arriving there for more than three hours after my mother helped me with the directions. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when to turn,” she told me.

I saw a sign that said, “Salem” and asked, “Why does that one say Salem and the hospital is in Salem and we’re not turning there?”

To which she replied, “That was the turn. You’ll have to turn around and go back.”

Well, you can’t turn around and go back on the Interstate, I explained. So we took the next exit and she then decided that was another way to get to the same place. After we slipped along several city streets and even through a church parking lot and a defunct muffler business, I instead opted to go into the gas station and get directions.

The first place I stopped, the clerk didn’t look like someone who I wanted directions from. So I bought a bottle of water and left out, asking a customer there for tips. He told me to head down the road, turn left at the first light and then right at the third light. After I did that, my mother informed me that she now knew where we were. “You need to turn left here,” she said. I did and soon found myself wishing I hadn’t. After stopping at yet another service station, I learned that I needed to go back to where I started and then go another direction. “Everywhere you’ve told me to turn so far has been wrong,” I chided her with a smile.

I love my mother very much, but next time, I’m bringing my own directions.

When we arrived at the hospital, my father was sleeping in a chair in front of television showing an NFL football game. He doesn’t really like football, hence the fact that he was sleeping. He said he watches television in the hospital to “keep his mind busy.”

I can see it getting pretty boring sitting in a room all alone for several hours at a stretch. Of course, he always has my mother’s daily visits (when she can find the hospital).

That reminds me of a joke where the little old woman is crying on the bench and another lady walks up and asks, “What’s wrong dear?”

“I have a young husband who waits on me hand and foot, a big house and a fancy car. I have a butler, a maid and a yacht,” she sobbed.

“Then why are you crying?,” asked the other woman, puzzled. “Because I can’t remember where I live,” came the reply.

After that car trip, I can say that I got it honest. I can get lost on the way home from the grocery store. When I got back in the car from the second stop at a gas station, I relayed the directions so I would have another set of ears hearing them.

“We should have turned left at that first light instead of right and then went straight,” she said.

“Mom, let’s just follow the directions, please,” I said. Of course, I never was very good at doing that either. Although we did finally get there, it turned into a very tiring journey instead of a two-and-a-half hour, 113 mile trip, I ended up on a four-hour sojourn into unknown territory.

Maybe I should just learn to go with the flow. After all, an indirect route can take you to the same place as a direct route. It’s just a bit longer and a bit more scenic. But it’s much easier to appreciate when you aren’t lost.

At the hospital, my father was feeling some better he said. He noted that the care he receives there is excellent. His color looked good and he was breathing well, for a man with emphysema and chronic bronchitis and several other ailments I can’t remember well enough to tell you about.

I helped him cut up the pressed beef and gravy and mashed his baked potato up a little for him. He is still on a salt-free diet, so I suppose a baked potato wasn’t exactly all that good. But he did get a little butter and sour cream to go with it and some mystery seasonings. Nonetheless, he seemed in good spirits and was able to communicate with all of us. Sometimes, just being there is more important than talking anyway. He was released from the hospital again on Tuesday and is at home doing fine.

I suppose we all have one gift that we really never appreciate: our health. After the passing of several people lately with whom I was well acquainted and my father’s decline, I hope I remember to appreciate my own health more. If I did, I might take better care of it.

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