Hello, and welcome! You’re listening to Song Stories, Quiet Stories, episode 18, Silver Curls. I’m your host, Carolyn Murset.

Every night for years, Tom, my father in law sat at the head of the dinner table. And every night after eating the last bite, he scraped the plate with a fork. And scraped. And scraped, until his wife Mary, who wore the pants in the family exclaimed, “Thomas! That’s enough!”

Even though one doctor had told him he was diabetic, he managed to eat a quart of vanilla ice cream every night at bedtime. He scraped and scraped that bowl clean, too. It was one of the few little things he did to..  delight her.

We often wondered how this diabetic could eat all of that without affecting his blood sugar. It never occurred to me that he never checked his blood sugar like my diabetic mom had to a couple of times a day. When I’d visit her, she’d insist on checking mine, too, just for fun. But was it fun, for me? No. I digress.

Then one day, his doctor retired or died, and Tom went to another physician, who after examining him declared, “You don’t have diabetes!” Miracles happen. And so does malpractice? And Tom continued with his nightly quart of vanilla. He needed those extra calories because he worked so hard during the day maintaining his Sherman Oaks, California apartment complexes on Woodman and  Moorpark.

He had a tan on his face and his arms and if you didn’t know that his parents were Swiss and Irish, you’d think he was from somewhere more mysterious and exotic, like the middle east.

His wavy hair was completely silver by the time he was twenty six. My husband inherited the waves and the gray tresses and started graying the day after we got married. He was twenty two. Hmmm.

At the beach at Santa Monica, or boating with the old Glaspar at the lake near our house, Tom wore a buttoned white terry cloth short jacket over his full set of clothing. Bath towels are made of terry cloth. He didn’t mind the heat.

In the late 1990’s his brain function began to decline. The Alzheimer’s disease frustrated him when the mental clarity came through on occasion. He’d often say, “I just don’t know what to do! I don’t know!”

Mary did all she could to take care of him herself. In 2002, she was determined to get away to Denver for five days to attend her granddaughter’s wedding, so my husband went to California and took care of his dad.

Mary was already so run down from the 24 hour a day caretaking, that while in Denver, she came down with pneumonia and was in the hospital in very serious condition for three weeks. She missed the wedding, but the granddaughter, Dana and her new husband, Ryan came to the hospital afterwards in their wedding gown and tuxedo so that Mary wouldn’t miss out on everything.

Once Rich and I saw that his mom wasn’t going to be coming home soon, he brought his dad home to live with us in southern Utah until he died nine months later.

It took all five of us who were at home to watch Tom 24 hours a day. I don’t know how Mary did it on her own and can easily see how she ended up so close to dying for so long.

After three months of being in our home, Tom’s insurance transferred and we took him to daycare at the rest home a few blocks away from us.  He’d eat a couple of meals there, make friends with the residents and staff and then we’d come and bring him home for the night.

Our youngest child, Megan was eight years old, and  very bashful. She’d memorized the entire musical soundtrack of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and entertained her grandpa by singing it and acting it out for him.

We were so happy to watch her make her grandpa happy that we encouraged her by buying  an Egyptian Pharaoh hat, a Carmen Miranda fruit hat and a camel mask.