Brought my 97 year old Dad to the ER, 102° fever, double pneumonia, COVID positive, 4/14. We weren't allowed to stay with him or visit.

Shouted "Love you, Dad" as they wheeled him away.

Touch and go for a few days. It was hard to get the same doctor twice. Every time we called, it was like calling a war zone.

Four days later a doctor picked up the phone and said: "Come get him!"

His fever had settled and his double-pneumonia faded away.

We brought him home with instructions to keep him hydrated and have him receive 1,200 calories a day.

He has his own apartment across our hall. I checked on him every 30 minutes. Mostly he slept like a log. He woke slightly and drank juice or water when I coached him.

He barely ate. A few bites of a great variety of home-cooked meals. We bought a case of Ensure, and he said he enjoyed the chocolate shakes.

Yesterday, I brought Ensure at 8:30 a.m.; he was in a deep sleep

I went back at 9:30 a.m.; he was still in a deep sleep

Its rare that I let him sleep w/o hydrating him, but this time I just felt it would be good to let him sleep.

I resolved that at 11:00 a.m. I would wake him.

At 11:00 a.m., I opened his door. He was dressed, standing in the bathroom, shaving off his 20-day old beard from his illness.

"What's for breakfast!" he asked, in his loud old voice.

Then he put on his shoes and we walked around the block.

Obviously, we're not out of the woods yet.

I can't say he's "beaten COVID", but this morning was good too.

If you don't know my Dad, Tony Vaccaro, you should know he was/is one hell of a photographer.

He survived D-Day, and has 2,000 award-winning photographs he took during WWII. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited Germany, he was her driver and translator for a week.

Look and Flair hired him after the Stars and Stripes, and he spent 25 years doing the best photo assignments imaginable.

Look sent him for weeks at a time to cover some of the 20th century's most influential people.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Kennedy, Nixon, and even Obama, are among subjects he lived with.

In 2015 he told me of horseback riding with the Shah of Iran mornings from the Presidential Palace in Tehran.

I said "No way."

He showed me this:

He's actually the oldest living member of the International Photography Hall-of-Fame.

So we're thrilled he survived this so far. His grand sons can't wait to see him.

Each day is a gift.