I used to avoid being anywhere nearby when my dad was eating.  Dad drove steam trains and he sounds like one when he eats, all puff and chug.  His dentures rattle and clack.  I used to surreptitiously cover an ear, the one closest to him, in the vain hope it’d block out the racket.  He didn’t like me mentioning it.

But now, now as I sit beside his hospital bed each night I wouldn’t care if he ate loud enough to drown out thunder.

He seems to have been in hospital more than out over the past few years.  Diabetes has taken his legs, one below the knee and the other above.  This time, though, he’s struggling.  He wants to get home, but he’s not strong enough.  He’s not strong enough partly because he’s not eating enough.  He can make all the noise he wants, I won’t care.

This is rich coming from me, who gets irrationally irritated by the least little thing every day of my life, but the traits you find intolerable in others now could well be the ones you cling to later.