It happened again. Driving home from my niece’s wedding reception, I received a call that Dad was missing from the Board and Care facility. They had been looking for him for over an hour, so we called the police, and tried to get home as quickly as possible.

As I prayed for Dad’s safety, I felt a strange calm, an inner reassurance that he was okay. I have spent enough time with Dad that I knew how his mind worked. I knew he was headed south (his preferred direction of escape), and I knew we would find him. Eventually.

Minutes later, we received a phone call from a kind stranger who had picked Dad up. The stranger found him two towns over. How Dad got that far was anyone’s guess. The stranger realized Dad wasn’t “quite right” and found a slip of paper in his coat pocket that had some identifying info on it. He took Dad for a coke and waited for us to arrive. The police were there, too, waiting for me to identify my father.

Dad was fine. Happy to see us. Eight cops, four caregivers, one family…were all less than happy about the situation. Ah, Alzheimer’s disease. Cruel for the inflicted individual, cruel for his family.

There are many good and kind people out there, we’ve discovered.

On a lighter note, check out this review site for a great review on Copper Fire:

http://titletrakk.com/