“Help him pull up his pants,” Mom instructed.  I responded that I would help Dad if Dad needed help, but I wasn’t going to stand there waiting for him to need me, standing and waiting for something bad to happen.  “I can’t just stand there waiting to see if he needs me, hovering, waiting, waiting, worrying for the next hard thing to happen.  I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t.”  Twenty minutes later, Dad finally needed help pulling up his pants, and I was there to help.  But I hadn’t hovered and waited and worried and worn myself out over it.  I have to say, I don’t care, which, of course, means I care a great deal, but am weary of the worry of caring.  After three accidents the next day, Dad admitted to me that he might have to start wearing a brief.  The only way he will wear a brief is if the brief idea is his idea.  I don’t bother suggesting.  “Whatever you think you need, Dad.”  So tired, I’m often in bed by 10 p.m., and often wake up at 11 or 12 feeling hungry, or I awaken for no apparent reason.  To get past the master bedroom, I must traverse the light field cast by the outlet night light, sending daddy-long-legs shadows into their room, and as Dad lies in bed rehearsing to Mom the family’s challenges and blessing, he never fails to detect my quick passage, calling out without fail, “There goes Roger down the stairs to get a snack,” and I roll my eyes in the dark.  Some nights I stand at light’s edge, wondering if the snack is worth being discovered and commented on, again.  This morning, Dad rose from bed and strained to stand at his walker, at 8:30, and he immediately collapsed to the floor, too weak to move.  Mom was in the shower.  When she discovered him lying on the floor, she put a blanket over him and waited for an hour for the CNA to arrive.  She phoned no one, not even me—she said Dad would not let her call.  Instead, she sat in her chair watching her husband immobile and paralyzed on the bedroom floor.  At 11 a neighbor texted me, “Hi, my wife mentioned that she saw some activity at your house this morning.”  Some activity?  What the hell did “some activity” mean?  “Some activity” meant an ambulance and a fire truck pulled up to the house with flashing lights.  The paramedics and firefighters—it took five of them—managed to hoist Dad off the floor.  Dad will sleep is his recliner tonight.  He is too weak to get himself to the chair lift.  I have set him up with large absorptive pads underneath him and on the floor, with a urinal, with a portable toilet that he likely is too weak to reach, with blankets, with his feet raised and his body laid back, and with the very real question in his mind of how he will get through the night.  Well, I can’t piss for him, or stand up for him, or walk for him.  I can just give him what he needs, or try to, and respond to whatever happens.