Father's Day Weekend: Underdog in the Garden

“There’s no need to fear… Underdog is here!” 🎶

I heard Mom humming and asked, “What are you singing?”

She chuckled. “Oh, you wouldn’t know it — it’s before your time.”

Then she sang the line again, soft and playful, like she was letting me in on a secret.

I asked her what made that song pop into her head.

She smiled and leaned back like she was about to tell me a legend.

“It was supposed to be peaceful,” she said. “Just me — Polly — tending to my flowers. A quiet little day. I was humming to myself, fixing the gnome, minding my own business.”

She paused.

“But before I could even finish adjusting him… the garden was under siege.”

And just like that, the story took off.

Apparently, a gang of rogue squirrels had declared war. Tail-twitching, acorn-flinging chaos. They knocked over flowerpots, trampled daisies, dug up bulbs like they were prospecting for gold, and bulldozed any trace of order Mom had carefully built.

“I yelled just once,” she said. “‘Get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of here!’”

Then she lowered her voice.

“But I remembered… yelling might startle your dad.”

That’s the thing about dementia. You’re always aware of the ripple effect. Even in a squirrel emergency.

And that’s when it happened.

He heard her.

Like a true backyard superhero — no cape, just complete confidence — Dad came charging in.

Underdog.

He zigzagged past the birdbath, skidded across the lawn, arms pumping like he was in an Olympic final. He dove into the action with all the intensity of a man defending a kingdom.

The squirrels, frankly, were not prepared.

He somersaulted through the pansies. Crawled behind the rosebush like a garden commando. At some point he reemerged with binoculars — no one is quite sure from where — leaves in his mouth, mud on his pants, and a streak of dirt across his shirt like war paint.

Out of breath, he collapsed onto the porch.

“They nearly killed me…” he gasped dramatically. “But the begonias are safe, Mom.”

Mom just shook her head.

Half love. Half sarcasm.

She brushed a leaf from his ear and kissed his dirt-smudged forehead. The squirrels had retreated. The garden exhaled.

There they stood. The unlikely duo of backyard justice.

And if you’ve been in this caregiving life long enough, you know what I saw in that moment.

Not just comedy.

Not just chaos.

I saw instinct.

Because maybe he didn’t fully recall what started it. Maybe he couldn’t recount every detail five minutes later. Maybe tomorrow it would blur.

But he remembered her voice.

Her call.

Her urgency.

He heard her, and he responded.

That kind of knowing lives deeper than memory.

Dementia may loosen the grip on names and timelines. It may rearrange whole afternoons. But love? Love often moves to a more primal place. It becomes instinct. It becomes response. It becomes, “She needs me.”

And he showed up.

Yes, the flowers were a mess. The gnome? Stomped beyond recognition. Mulch in places mulch should never be. There will be replanting. There will be sweeping. There will likely be another squirrel uprising.

But when Mom looked at him — winded, proud, streaked in dirt — she didn’t see confusion.

She saw devotion.

Maybe he didn’t quite remember what he was saving.

Or why he ran like a man on fire.

But he remembered her.

And that was enough.

Even in real life, he shows up.

And she is still the reason.

That’s what I carry from this Father’s Day weekend. Not perfection. Not pristine flower beds. But a man who, even in the fog, responds to the voice he loves.

The begonias were bruised.

The battle was won.

And the hero — her hero — still remembered what mattered most.

Her.

No cape required.

Mom and Dad, thank you for letting us see the vulnerability. The messy middle. The humor tucked inside a hard journey. I’m sorry the day was challenging. And I’m grateful you found your way back to laughter.

“There’s no need to fear…”

Because sometimes, even now,

Underdog is here.