Yesterday (Sat.) and today (Sun.) my father appeared energized.  I believe that it was the anticipation of seeing my brother Joe that caused my father to gather his faltering life energy and begin to talk and eat again.  He even fed himself.  He talked to his visiting friends.

Today he was not as talkative and was confused at times, asking me if he was in his own bed, saying he wanted to go home, hallucinating ("There is a woman's limb coming out of Jerry's mouth") and attempting to get out of bed.  He said he was "going upstairs" to find a poetry book.  We searched in vain for a book of poems by Thomas Moore because he wanted to hear me read a certain poem.  I ended up reading him some other poems, asking if he remembered reading them to me when I was very young.  He seemed pleased by my reading of "I wandered lonely as a cloud" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."  We also listened to Tristan und Isolde.  I'm not sure how much of his mind is still operating.  I suspect that it comes and goes like the sun appearing and then disappearing behind the clouds, as it was doing all day today.

Amazingly, he is still sharp as a tack at identifying poets.  Joe was testing him by reading poems at random from the Norton Anthology.  He got it right every time.  His love and vast knowledge of poetry still shines through the increasing fogginess of his other mental capacities.

I am going to stay another day and will revisit him tomorrow.  I am afraid to leave lest he die after I go.  Joe will stay with him indefinitely, which may keep him going for a while.
Meanwhile, my aunt Joan has a fever of 102 and won't go to the hospital.  Uncle Buddy is also unwell and I worry that no one is caring for them.  They are in Florida and I can't intervene.

Getting old, ill, and dying are inevitable and part of life, but I can't get used to it.
The one exception to the law of the excluded middle in logic is that we are all simultaneously living and dying.  My father is still living, although he is also dying.  Even people on the brink of sixty like myself and my brother are heading slowly toward death, though no one would describe us as dying.  It's not meant to be understood.  It just is.