Yesterday, for Father’s Day, my parents took me to the 849 Restaurant & Lounge in Palm Springs. The decor was all white with old-fashioned wooden chairs and tables. They gave my mother a miniature coat rack for her to hang her purse and sweater on. I ate fried chicken with a biscuit and mashed potatoes. My father ate Chicken Milanese, while my mother ate Scottish Salmon with rice cakes. It was the best dinner I’d had in months.

We got to talking about old age. My father is seventy-eight. He doesn’t think he’ll live for another ten years. My mother didn’t say anything about that. She must agree.

They’re going to a funeral today. They have to drive three and a half hours out of town to attend it. The person who died was a family friend, and he was ninety-four years old. I saw him at the Greek church celebration a few weeks ago. He was in a wheelchair, missing teeth. He’d known me since I was a child, but when I asked if he remembered me, he said no. His daughter used to babysit me, so we were closer at one point in my life. A lot has happened since then. His wife had dementia, and she’s been dead for over ten years.

I’m turning forty-seven next week, and my mother will turn seventy-eight in August. Birthdays aren’t what they used to be. That’s for sure.

One of their friends baked me a raspberry cheesecake with a graham cracker crust. Last night, I helped myself to two and a half slices and couldn’t stop eating it. My parents and I sat on the couch in my apartment and didn’t have much to say.

“You need to make friends,” my father said to me. “That’ll get your mind off work.”

I couldn’t agree with him more.

“I’m seeing a neurologist this week because of this pain in my head,” he said.

“Your father bumped it twice on a golf cart,” Mom said.

He can’t remember people and places like he used to. He gets names wrong. It worries my mother, and it worries me, too. He used to be pretty sharp, but those times have passed. We have to remind him of things. Who knows where he’ll be in five years? The same for me. It’s difficult to think about, and I would rather not think about what will happen to me once they leave. Age catches up to us all. What else can we do but have friends to grow old with?