Dad, also, experienced a void in his day with Mom at home. Mom seemed to have a calming effect upon him, and coupled with her innate optimism, her presence buffered his reactive temperament. I worried about Dad; Mom seemed always to have something to divert her attention, he had only the daily newspaper, occasional stints in front of the television, and his frequent strolls through the hospital corridors. Apart from the routine of his job, and the countless repairs of a home and car, and now stripped of his wife and companion as well, I could easily understand his restlessness. With the noon hour, Dad would take his leave of me, and lunch in a nearby cafe. He soon found a favorite restaurant, which served freshly baked pies daily; this treat was better eaten at noon, for procrastination resulted in thorough disappointment. . . often all the pie would be gone by the time the thought of supper struck a pleasing note in one's stomach. When he had finished lunch, his next priority was a walk, which grew quite lengthy on certain days; this was an indulgence which I never thought to impede or discourage, for he needed a reprieve from anxiety much more than I. It was always a great exasperation to me when I would see a patient, whether he was a child or an adult, deny his family members of their need for space and a sense of normalcy. Simply because a patient feels caged by his hospitalization is no reason to expect a constant bedside companion, thereby imprisoning his loved one with a greater sentence than that on which he himself felt imposed; the patient is better able to withstand the hours of boredom, for he is ill, but the relative, having his usual amount of energy cannot bear the strain of worry coupled with a patient's demand for vigilance. Occasional loneliness is far easier to overcome than emotional fatigue. I entertained myself when Dad was on his walk; it was easy to do. Often I daydreamed in the midst of a television program, or stared at the pages of a magazine, never having read them at all. I rarely read magazines, although I enjoyed them heartily; most of their appeal derived from the photos, imprinting them in my mind and drawing hours of fantasy from the images alone.