It’s been two weeks since the several days my dad spent wandering up and down the halls of his nursing home searching for where he left his car.

He couldn’t tell me which car he was looking for, but he “knew” it had been parked downstairs. He was sure that he had driven it that same morning.

Then for most of the last two weeks, he retreated to bed, sleeping most of the day and, when awake, was either in a fog or a very different time and place.

But when I visited on Monday afternoon, he was relatively alert. That was a change. He greeted me immediately by name, always a good sign. It was the first time he hasn’t been groggy in several visits. I quickly took advantage of the moment to show the first of several old photos, printed from negatives I found among his papers.

It’s a multi-step process. First, find his glasses. They are usually in a little pack strapped to his walker. Usually, but not always. Sometimes they are in his pocket, forgotten. Sometimes in a drawer next to the bed. Sometimes I just trust that they’ll be found later.

Today they were in the zippered pack. I slide them on, balanced the lenses on his nose, slide the frame onto his ears. If left to his own devices, he often looks at the glasses and hands them back to me (“do you want your glasses?” he asks), or simply doesn’t know what to do with them.

Then I pick up the file folder and pull out the first photo. It is his family together outside their home in Long Beach, California, some time in the early 1930s. John, Tom, Bill, Janet, and their parents. He recognized them almost immediately, after his eyes adjusted to the glasses, and warmly commented that it was a good picture of his parents. He held the photo up, feeling it, looking at the back. He wondered if I could blow up just the section with his parents. Of course, I promise.

Then he moved on, quickly identifying the car in the next photo as his father’s 1919 Studebaker.

“He bought it brand new,” he said, fingering the image.

He held the photo up within inches of his face, peering into it, then held it out to me, finger pointing. “The upholstery is brand new,” he said, although I don’t know if I could see anything in the shadows where his finger traced a path.

My sister, Bonnie, thinks the photo was taken in Berkeley, which I guess means before the family moved down the coast to Long Beach. The girl could be my dad’s sister, Grace, who died of a childhood disease, but I don’t know those dates and can’t tell if that version fits with a timeline of family events.

Then I tried a photo of two women on the beach. My sister and I agree that the shorter one looks like our grandmother, my dad’s mother.

But he looks at the photo, turns it over looking for clues, then back to the image.

He doesn’t say anything.

I try prompting. “Is that your mom?”

He holds it up inches from his face. Still says nothing. Hands it back to me.

I think that means he doesn’t know if it’s her or not.

Finally I get to a picture I’m curious about. It shows a well-dressed young woman sitting on the steps of a house, smiling at the camera, holding what looks like a fox on her lap. There’s a leash draped casually off to the side.

He takes a long time with this photo. Looking at the image, then looking off into the distance of memory, then drawn back again to the photo. He shakes his head, starts to give it back to me.

Then he pulls it back, as he pulls a memory from a hidden recess.

“Eleanor,” he says slowly, the name sounding like it’s been squeezed from a tube of times past. “Eleanor…something, I think she lived near by,” he finally says.

He relaxes, sinks back into his pillows, just as his dinner is delivered on a tray. I retrieve the photos, arrange them back in the folder, and explain that I’ll leave them for him. Then I retrieve his glasses, putting them carefully back into the little fanny pack, zip up the pocket.

Finally, as I prepare to leave, I set up the meal in front of him. Take the cover off the bowl with the main dish, a scoop of rice with what looks like creamed chicken. There’s a cup of orange slices, cut up into bite size pieces. A small can of a protein drink. A glass of milk. Was there a cup of coffee? I don’t remember.

He takes a bite, then looks up. I’m standing up to leave, and he’s smiling, eyes bright.

“Funny thing,” he says. “This was the day I was going to get up, get out of bed, take a shower, and then go out for a run. Not a long run, just around the block,” he says. I’m listening, leaning against the walker which he uses, with assistance, to get around the 3rd floor of the nursing home.

“But I never got around to it because it’s been so busy, people visiting all day!”

My sister had visited right before me, but I don’t think he had any other visitors all day, but that doesn’t matter right now.

My dad ran a pretty fast mile for the track team in high school, and the memories of running must be strong.

I’m trying to keep a casual look on my face, nodding about the interruption of guests, but I’m actually thinking about the penultimate scene in Garth Stein’s book, The Art of Racing in the Rain, in which the aging dog, Enzo, crippled with age, transitions from this world, suddenly free to make a joyous run across an endless field filled with grass, flowers, and familiar childhood scents.

I cried when I read this part of the book. Now I’m caught between images of my dad and Enzo, trying to keep a poker face.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I say as I head for the door. “Maybe you can run tomorrow.”