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The first snowfall of the season has Dad mesmerized. He’s been staring at it for half an hour. I’ve stayed quiet and let him enjoy it.

Though November was cold, no snow fell, but now, two weeks from Christmas, we’re being treated to a blanketing of white enchantment that is quickly covering everything in sight.

We’ve rearranged the furniture to accommodate the Christmas tree. Dad is on the sofa, facing the large floor-to-ceiling windows offering an unobstructed view of the snow-topped mountain peaks. Since the sofa is now turned away from the TV, we’ve been watching less of it and listening to Christmas music. Dad’s very favorite Christmas song is “A Christmas Prayer,” by Marty Robbins. He’s delighted to learn that I can, with the push of a button, play that song any time he wants to hear it. Which is a lot.

I’m sitting on the other end of the sofa, reading a book, and Nick lies between Dad and me. David is in the kitchen chopping vegetables for a soup he’s putting together for our dinner. Though he’s staying busy with his new job, he’s finding reasons to stay home with us more often, rather than making the trip to the office the developers provided in one of their buildings.

Things are slowing down with the infrastructure phase of the development now that the earth is frozen. From what he tells me, the hardest and most important part of the work has been done, and things should quickly move to completion once spring arrives.

He’s lining up subcontractors for the other jobs that will be required, and he’s happy to be using his real estate knowledge and negotiating skills to move the project forward. What makes him happiest is the promise that the project will create much-needed jobs in the area.

Christmas carols playing, Dad watching the snow come down, Nick lying in between me and Dad, my husband cooking an aromatic dinner . . . I’m feeling mighty blessed. On top of that, we’re looking forward to going to Debra and Charles’s home for Christmas.

Dad dozes off—his favorite pastime on days like this. Come to think of it, he’s been dozing a lot more, and for longer periods. I think back to when I first noticed this, and recall it was the week after Thanksgiving. I put it down to exhaustion from the hectic activities of that long holiday weekend. But it’s been more than two weeks now, and he should have recovered.

Wait, wait, wait. Why do I always expect him to recover to a previous state of energy and health? He’s on the decline—constantly and unabatedly, every single day. Why do I find it so hard to reconcile myself to that reality?

After the long, hard days and nights of taking care of Mother for the last six months of her life, I felt I had aged a few years, and wondered if I’d ever return to the place I was before. Yet I did. It took a while, but I got caught up on my rest at some point. I’m thinking Dad should be doing the same.

I look at the gentle rise and fall of his chest and have a desire to reach out and grab onto every breath he exhales and stuff it back into him for recycling, so that his life is prolonged. Every breath that escapes is one less breath he will draw in the future. That’s true for all of us, but it is more meaningful for an old person with serious afflictions.

In the meantime, Nick has found further relief for his arthritic hip with the Adequan injections I’m now giving him. It’s only been six months since he first showed symptoms of pain and started on the glucosamine. Poor Nick has been on quite a journey to find relief—from glucosamine to Rimadyl to Tramadol, and now Adequan. Tramadol in itself just wasn’t enough to control his pain, since it’s not an anti-inflammatory. But with the addition of Adequan, which stimulates cartilage repair processes and diminishes joint damage while reducing the pain caused by osteoarthritis, we seem to have found the magic combination.

When I asked Dr. Froman why she didn’t prescribe it earlier, she told me Adequan was the last effective treatment for what Nick has. She wanted to give the others a try, because once we began the Adequan injections, there was no further treatment.

She gave him the first two injections, but now I’m giving them to him. It saves time and money, and Dr. Froman was kind enough to give me a prescription for the Adequan and a lesson in giving the intramuscular injection.

I’ve given Nick two injections this week, for a total of four now, and I can already see an encouraging change in his comfort level. I’ve also replaced his beds with new and better-quality memory foam beds. The main one in the kitchen even has a heating pad built in. Although Dr. Froman told me it would take at least a month to see improvement with the Adequan, I think all of these things have helped already. He’s definitely moving around with more ease.

But he’s sleeping more these days also. I think about what I’ve learned in researching symptoms and treatments: A dog who sleeps and doesn't move around and eat is very sick. A dog who sleeps a lot and still eats and seems social is aging.

That pretty much describes both my dog and my dad.