This Body is Bullshit

The Biggest Man in the Room

My dad grew up in a tiny town in central Illinois that nobody’s ever heard of. His dad was a state representative and a farmer. His mom was a teacher. He wrestled at Southern Illinois University, flew little planes, sold designer suits, and had a NASCAR champion as one of his best friends. He rode Harleys. He got into fights — the kind that ended badly for the other guy. He was funny and took up every inch of whatever room he walked into.

And then there’s the citizen’s arrest.

He handcuffed an attorney he felt had screwed him over, put him in his car in Carbondale, and drove him all the way to Chicago. Made the front page of the Sun-Times. Was on the evening news. My mom was mortified and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t surprised at all — he told me he was going to do it weeks before. That was my dad. Absolutely certain he was right, completely unbothered by what anyone thought about it, and somehow charming enough that you couldn’t even be mad.

That’s the man I grew up idolizing.

He’s smaller now. Still has the mustache. Still has those enormous eyebrows. Still wants to make everyone laugh — that part hasn’t changed, and honestly I hope it never does. But he’s slipping. Slowly, quietly, in ways that are hard to watch and harder to talk about.

He knows something is off. He’ll tell you himself that he forgets things. But the minute you try to have a real conversation about how bad it’s getting, the walls go up. He deflects. Gets frustrated. Blames it on bad directions or construction or someone else’s mistake. I’ve learned to say “turned around” instead of “lost” — softer words for a proud man — but it doesn’t really help. He still shuts down. He still gets agitated. And I still drive home scared.

The hardest part is that he can’t understand what’s happening well enough to let us help him. And I can’t explain it in a way that sticks. I’ve tried logic. I’ve tried gentleness. I’ve tried humor. Nothing lands the way I need it to. The social worker told us to stop trying to explain — that we have to adjust because he can’t. I understand that. I’m just not ready to stop trying.

Kathy carries most of this. She lives with it every single day — the repetition, the confusion, the moments where he’s completely himself and the moments where he’s not. He’s obsessed with her, always has been, and while it’s genuinely sweet, it’s also exhausting for her in ways I can only partly imagine. I try to help. I take him for ice cream. I sit with him. I give her breaks when I can. But I don’t live inside it the way she does, and I know that.

He still carries dog treats in his pockets everywhere he goes. Every dog within a hundred feet finds him immediately — like they know. He still lights up when he sees me, every single time, like it’s been months even if I was just there last week. He’s still a die-hard Democrat who will absolutely lose his mind talking about Donald Trump if you give him an opening. Some things are stubborn in the best way.

But watching him fade — this man who once seemed like the biggest person in any room — is a specific kind of heartbreak I wasn’t prepared for. It’s not sudden. It’s slow. It’s a Tuesday where something’s a little more off than last Tuesday. It’s a conversation that circles back on itself. It’s the look on his face when he’s trying to find a word that used to come easy.

I just hope he always knows who I am.

That’s the thing I can’t say out loud to him — so I’m saying it here instead.