There's a hole in my bucket..

I know I'm not alone with the whole lost in the madness of reality hit..but you don't get consumed in someone elses, do you..alongside maybe, but not in it..it's a private, lonely affair..

Then you have the reality of madness..which is where I'm at..or at least my Dad is..

Alzheimer's..the brain eating, thought twisting monster that torments his day-to-day living..I don't want to be his cousin Iris, or his sweetheart..any idea how it feels when your 86 year old Dad grabs you and tries to feverishly snog your face off while calling you the little devil that he should have married while your Mum looks on..?

He's been in that space for years..rambling out the same old war story again and again like every old bugger you meet who missed the action..it was everyday, bog standard normal..then he had to deal with something big..something majorly big..and those little tormentors in his head pushed full throttle..

A frantic 2am February call two years ago whacked the cherry on hard..he'd gone home because his dinner would be ready..Mum said she'd tried to stop him but he wasn't having it..she was in her nightie..he was out in freezing temperatures..I was 50 miles away..

The police couldn't find him..he'd got completely lost in the maze of council estate back alleys..all too familiar to me but he'd never stepped off the post office route..eventually found by a dog-walker with a mobile phone..he never forgot numbers..not even now..

The very next day he was sectioned..6 weeks later he was doomed to life in a big old house that would inevitably stink of piss, mothballs and cleaning fluid..

I so badly wanted to take responsibility for him but got slapped in the face with a big 'No Way'..3 kids, 2 of them small..I wasn't suitable to look after my own father..and my mother said she couldn't cope..the love was always missing..

I found him as nice a home as there are..I worked a few places years ago..some good, some horrific..this one is as good as it gets..and it's near me..and it mostly stinks of cleaning products..

Sometimes I visit every few days..sometimes I don't go for a month..those weighing scales with guilt on one end and the most painful heartache on the other are the bane of my days..his health is almost youthful..he's kicked off half a dozen or so chest infections in the last two years..is it wrong to hope that the next one will be the last?

What I wouldn't give to sit next to him in his old van, and sing 'There's a hole in my bucket, Dear Liza' just one more time..