Happy Christmas, Dad

What changes a year, this year, have brought to your life, to our lives.  We would, as a family, say that none of them have been good, all of them sad, but that's not true. At least this Christmas, I know now that you are getting your medicine regularly, daily, and none of us has to argue with you that you are not taking it when you believed you were. We are no longer making you angry on a daily basis. This Christmas, I know you are getting three meals a day, at least two of them hot and all of them well-balanced, even if you don't eat them all. You are not surviving anymore on peanut butter sandwiches, and Lean Cuisine frozen microwave meals. No more will you break my heart by eating a burger at
McDonalds sitting all by yourself - you are surrounded by people for your meals and your days.  No longer do I have to worry about you driving and hurting yourself, or someone else, or getting lost and not being able to find your way home.  No longer do I worry that something terrible might happen to you in the middle of the night, or the middle of the day, and you can't reach the phone and no one would know for far too long.  I know that living in a nursing home is NOT how you would have wished this year, or any, to be for yourself. It is not how any of us would have wished it, either, Dad. I wanted nothing more than for you to come live with me, and let me take care of you as best as I could, but I also know that nothing was more important to you than holding on to your complete independence as long as you possibly could, and you did.  Right up through the very end of last year. Beginning early last January, this year brought many changes, MOSTof them sad, but not all.  Most of all, this Christmas, I still have you here on earth with me, and that is more important than ANY of the changes that come about from one winter to the next.
Merry Christmas, Dad. I love you.