Waiting to Go Home

I have been building fires for my father this winter. I have also been doing portraits of my dad as he sits and watches the fires. He is living and leaving this life with Alzheimer’s disease. The painting sessions last about two hours a day. He sits with his feet up under a cozy blanket in his den of thirty-three years but does not recognize it as his house. Every once in a while he asks my mom, "When are we gonna go home?”

--Tom III