A visit from an old friend...

My sister Holly took her Father in Law with her today to visit Dad.  They have always enjoyed one another but have not seen one another since their grandson's (my sister's son) wedding mid May of last year.

Holly had her FIL wait on the patio.  She went in and found Dad in the dining room, with his back to her.  She told Dad she had a big surprise for him and wheeled him out to the patio.

When Dad saw him, his voice filled with joy as he called to him by name!  He even asked how his wife was! 

His friend remembered when Dad had showed him some flower seeds Dad wrapped in newspaper, had watered them and was so impressed with the resulting beautiful flowers. 

Dad smiled as he remembered too.

His friend went on to tell Dad how he had actually seen some similar product on TV for sale...

Dad told him he was not surprised...

My sister snapped a picture of both of them, and one of my Dad wearing his wrist alarm on his left arm.

Their conversation stayed fairly normal for some time, and then Dad became confused and began talking about the battle at Tarawa, where Dad fought during WW II, as a Marine.  Dad would switch from the War to living in Chicago as a child and traveling the world.

Both Dad and his friend are hard of hearing and Dad talks in a soft voice most of the time, unless he is excited.  I remember we all were laughing with them the last time we were together at the wedding.  Both of them were face to face talking a mile a minute but each of them hearing a different conversation than the one they were actually having.  We over heard the correct conversation and then the responses they each had to the wrong conversation.  It was funny...and they even laughed when one of us would help them out.

They visited about an hour and it was getting a bit warm outside.  They wheeled Dad back to the dining room where all the residents were having fun tossing a large, soft rubber, bouncy ball around to one another.  The ball bounced over to Dad and he whacked it hard, sending it across the table to another resident's lap.  He laughed and slapped it to another.  My sister said it was the most active she had ever seen all the residents.  It was like a scene out of Cocoon.