March 4

Mom died on the 4th,
held in her children’s embrace, 
and for nine months since. 

Sometimes at Night

Sometimes at night, I'll mentally enumerate the face-to-face interactions I had, even passing ones, over the previous 12 hours, just to reassure myself I didn't spend the entire day in task-focused isolation. I don't, but it often feels I have. Thus . . .

Today I chatted for a few minutes with S., who came by to tell me an amusing addendum to a story of her ongoing househunt that we'd talked about the day before. 

Our IT guy showed me how to solve a problem that comes up every month but that I never think of forestalling till it's too late. Now I can take care of it myself without bothering him.

I had a brief exchange with an intern about a fact-checking issue, and one or two with the intern supervisor. 

An ex-coworker who's now a freelancer appeared out of the blue as I was stepping out for a walk, and we had a nice five-minute conversation. (When he worked here, we had a more fraught relationship; we get along a lot better now.) I used my witty line of the moment, which I also used yesterday on a colleague while killing time on the sidewalk during a fire drill (witty lines are so rare for me, I have to recycle them): I told both of them I shaved my facial scruff the other day because Harvey Weinstein had forever ruined facial scruff for me. 

The boss swung by a couple times about this and that. A few other short exchanges with other people, both business-related and small talk.

Oh, and I had a phone conversation with a local novelist of some reputation (in fact, the author of a book I remember extremely fondly, though I didn't mention it) who has a piece in the upcoming issue. He was very pleasant and down to earth. A decade or more ago, when my job was very different, my day was filled with calls like that.

Why am I writing all this? I'm trying to get back in the habit of putting sentences together. My muscles are slack, my mind a Ping-Pong ball, and a rather dinged one at that. 

This year I had cataract surgery at age 55. My mother died. (We laid her ashes to rest just last week, four and a half months after her death. I placed them in the niche with my father's, alone there for the last five years.) 

This summer, I got my ear pierced again, the third time for that particular ear, something I've been wanting to do ever since my earring was taken out at the ER after my bike accident three years ago and was never returned.

The other evening, I shaved the scruff. My face is my father's, my brother's (my mother's?), my own.  I've missed it.

It's a start.

Adjust

About six weeks from now, at age 55, I'm having cataract surgery—a procedure more common among people in their seventies and eighties. 

It's further fallout from my bike accident almost three years ago. Turns out that successful retina-reattachment surgery—which I had to repair the detachment that occurred a couple of months after my spill in the bike lane—results in a cataract, because the gas injected into the eye to reattach the retina compromises the lens; it seems that going two whole years before developing a cataract is very, very good. 

Both of my eye doctors kind of "buried the lede," as they say in journalism: All of my careful adherence to the recovery regimen after the retina surgery (sleeping only on my left side—not my right, not my back or stomach—for the first week or two and, during the day, holding my head down to my chest for 50 minutes out of every hour for a week and a half, then 30 minutes every hour for several more days), which I was told repeatedly was to "avoid a cataract," was, come to find out, to avoid an immediate cataract. Until a few months ago, no one informed me it was inevitable that I'd develop a cataract within a year or two.

So. 

From the bewildering menu of surgical options and expenses, I've chosen to have my  severely nearsighted vision in both eyes changed to only slightly nearsighted in my right (the one with the cataract) and slightly farsighted in my left. I'll basically use one eye for reading and the other for distance. The result should be that I won't need glasses for most tasks. (The reason to have both lenses replaced is that if I had only my right done, the discrepancy between the vision in my two eyes would be, my ophthalmologist—also my brother-in-law—says, "unbearable.")

When I told my surgeon that the idea made my head spin, he said, "Well, you're basically seeing out of one eye now." Touché. The blurring in my right eye has gotten so bad that do indeed I favor my left by far.

"Your brain will adjust," both doctors reassure me. Even my sister (not the one married to my ophthalmologist) texted me: "I was going to get contacts like that, one near, one far. They say your brain just fills in the blanks, as long as the two eyes aren't wildly different."

In this same text exchange, she and I talked about our mother, who has entered hospice now for the third time in the last year and a half—Mom regains strength, stabilizes, and is "released" from hospice after a few months, even as she can't speak, walk, or feed herself. 

"I feel kind of sad and afraid that when she's gone we'll all be disconnected because so much of our getting together is Mom this, Mom that," my sister, who lives in another city, said. 

"We will have to build a new relationship with each other," I said. "That's what my therapist is always telling me. We can do it!"

She replied: "What your therapist says just made me cry because it sounds so hard."

"I think it will be like my new split vision," I found myself typing. "Our brains will adjust."

I'm not sure I convinced her. It was late, she'd just flown back home after a visit for our mother's 97th birthday (like funerals, sometimes birthdays are more for the celebrants than for the honoree), along with all the attendant caregiving, errand-running, and emotional surge-protecting. She was exhausted. 

But I actually do think we four, we survivors, will learn to see each other anew, perhaps more sharply, and forgivingly—after all, I might end up needing glasses for some things, such as long periods of heavy reading or driving at night. 

Confidence isn't always my strong suit, but in this case I really believe we'll make the compensations our brains and eyes and hearts require and keep going through the darkness, through the light.

Take Good Care of My Baby

As my mother's life slowly winds down (not to say with certainty that the end is imminent, though yesterday, four days before her 97th birthday, my siblings and I raced to her side, thinking it was), I find myself haunted by the doctor who delivered me.

Having recently fixed on his name at the bottom of my 1961 birth certificate from the US Army Hospital in Munich, Germany, I've discovered, among other things—thanks to Google and Ancestry.com—pictures of his wedding and of his gravesite in Quantico, Virginia, a scant hour from where I live. 

Yes, the doctor who delivered me died—in 1968 at age 35, in the Panama Canal Zone (of what cause I don't know), seven years after bringing me into the world in a hospital where my mother always said the American nurses were brusque and impatient, even rude, so unlike the German hospitals where friends of hers had given birth, with weeklong stays, feather beds, and geraniums on the windowsills.

Was Dr. V., this blond 28-year-old Army captain, equally cold? How did he comport himself as he pulled me from my mother? I experienced the touch of his hands before I did hers. 

She has known me for 55 years—knows mainly the touch of my hand now and the sound of my voice. Does she recognize my face in those fleeting moments when our eyes lock, when her eyes are even open?

As it happens, Dr. V. came back to America on the same ship my family returned on, a year and a half after we did. I know this because I found a photo of him and his wife and two children onboard. It was the SS United States, the fastest ocean liner ever to cross the Atlantic. 

SS United States today

Today that enormous vessel sits empty and rusted at a dock in Philadelphia, but still hanging on 47 years after its final crossing in 1969, awaiting its hoped-for second life, an effort I've contributed money to. Save the SS United States! If you've driven along I-95 through Philly, you've passed it. You've also seen it, from above, if you've watched the opening credits of West Side Story, released a month after Dr. V. cupped his hands around my slippery head for the first and probably only time. 

Bobby Vee

Another coincidence: Several weeks ago, I read the obituary of singer Bobby Vee, who recently died. His biggest hit was "Take Good Care of My Baby," a song I've always liked. After reading the article, I did some additional research out of curiosity and learned that "Take Good Care of My Baby" reached number one in the US on September 21, 1961, the day I was born—not in the US but across the Atlantic, into the hands of an intimate stranger who transferred me, kindly or officiously, into the arms (or not) of my exhausted mother. 

These are the pieces of a story I seek.

My family (left half of group) and the SS United States, 1963

The Way You've Changed My Life

Today I spent several hours with my 95-year-old mother, who has been in hospice care for a

Mom and I doing some leg lifts last summer.

little over a week. We don't know how long she has, but as D. once so aptly said about my father in the weeks before he passed away, she's winding down. 

Ten days ago, as her frail yet strangely resilient and willful body was jostled onto a stretcher (with great care but jostled nonetheless) for the trip from the hospital back to her assisted-living facility—where we would initiate hospice and 24-hour aides—I thought: You'll never have to go anywhere again. This was good news for her, but it made me sad.

These are the words that came out of my mouth to D. yesterday: "She was my first friend, my first love, and my first ally." 

The person I am today is more due to her than anyone else in the world.

This afternoon, as my sister dashed home to attend to some pastries rising in her kitchen and the aide stepped out for a break, I held hands with Mom—lying in her bed, her feet lightly moving under the sheet—while a CD of old musical numbers played. This song filled the silence like a chest expanding:

The way you wear your hat.
The way you sip your tea.
The memory of all that—
No, no, they can't take that away from me.

The way your smile just beams.
The way you sing off-key.
The way you haunt my dreams.
No, no, they can't take that away from me.

We may never, never meet again
On that bumpy road to love
Still I'll always,
Always keep the memory of . . .

The way you hold your knife.
The way we danced until three.
The way you've changed my life.
No, no - they can't take that away from me.
No, they can't take that away from me. 

Are You Alright?

On Friday, July 6, of last year, I got the news from a hospice nurse that my almost 92-year-old father probably wouldn't live through the weekend. I left work and made the 40-minute drive with my brother from the city to Dad's assisted-living facility in the suburbs.

I'd made that journey countless times in the preceding four years, and before that to the house in another suburb where he and my mother had lived for half a century: to deliver prescriptions, figure out why the cable wasn't working, bring a meatloaf, take him to the doctor, take him to physical therapy, take him to McDonald's, shovel the sidewalk, have a cup of tea, try to cheer both of them up or run interference—just be there.

Now, I realized, this might actually be the last time I'd make that drive for him. (Mom was still very much alive, though in the grip of dementia.) Each time I visited, there was less of him there. His small, thin body curled in bed or slumped in a wheelchair, the ever-shortening sentences of this linguist, this man of words.

I'd been slowly saying goodbye for years.

In the car, my brother and I knew, there was little left to talk about. What do you say when all of life has been lived, all measures taken, all opportunities for denial or solutions exhausted? So we awkwardly chatted about our jobs, our health, the weather—I don't even know what. My brother manned the text messages—to his wife, our two sisters (both out of town), his office—as I drove. We made more small talk, then were quiet for a long stretch.

I don't remember if the radio was already playing or if I turned it on at that point. But into the silence came a familiar voice. 

Are you alright?
All of a sudden you went away.
Are you alright?
I hope you come back around someday.

Are you alright?
I haven't seen you in a real long time.
Are you alright?
Could you give me some kind of sign?

Lucinda Williams. I'd never heard this particular song, though I used to follow her avidly. As we drove on, I gazed out the window listening to her unmistakable car-wheels-on-a-gravel-road voice, full of the ragged strength of survival and the fragility of longing. I felt as if a piece of music I didn't even know had flown out of my heart, giving voice to my worry and anticipated loss. 

Are you alright?
I looked around me and you were gone.
Are you alright?
I feel like there must be something wrong.
Are you alright?
'Cause it seems like you disappeared.
Are you alright?
'Cause I been feeling a little scared.
Are you alright? 

But it wasn't only the words. It was the timing of it, the mind-reading. 

I begged the silence to continue till the end of the song, then directed the sentiment to my brother: Please don't start talking, I thought. Please. Let's just listen. 

And this, underlying it all, directed to someone else: Don't go before we get there.

Are you sleeping through the night?
Do you have someone to hold you tight?
Do you have someone to hang out with?
Do you have someone to hug and kiss you,
Hug and kiss you, hug and kiss you?
Are you alright? 

We made it through almost the entire song, were less than a mile away from our destination, when my brother spoke. 

"Are you a Lucinda Williams fan?"

I flinched and for an instant didn't want to say anything in reply. He'd broken the spell, intercepted the message. But I answered anyway. I couldn't hold it against him.

"I am," I said, "but I've kind of lost touch with her."

Are you alright?
Is there something been bothering you?
Are you alright?
I wish you'd give me a little clue.
Are you alright?
Is there something you wanna say?
Are you alright?
Just tell me that you're okay . . . . 

I'd seen Lucinda live, had several of her albums. But after 2001's Essence, which a friend gave my ex and me when we were living together, I never bought another. No particular reason—like friendships, sometimes musical relationships wane or go on hiatus, through no one's fault. Here she was again.

The song finally ended, and my brother and I were there. 

For the next 13 hours, we sat with Dad, my partner, D., joining us for most of that time. We brought Mom in for a short while—a chance for our parents to complete a circle, even though neither was fully aware. It gave us peace of mind.

Just around midnight, he died. And another long silence descended.

Sometime after that day, I put the song on my iPod. I haven't listened to it too often, and I haven't yet bought any more of Lucinda's music. But I know it's there, waiting.

Green Day

For my dog P. and me, the last couple of weeks have been an odyssey of symptoms, vet appointments, emergency-room visits, and long-distance communication with her other dad, with whom I've shared custody of her for the last decade (we broke up exactly ten years ago this month) and who has been traveling in the Far East for the last 16 days.

Long story, but what initially looked like kidney failure has transmogrified into a likely slipped disk in P.'s neck that is probably treatable with rest and "heavy duty" pain medication. Her kidney values, the cause of so much initial alarm, have "resolved." She's spending her second night in the hospital tonight to get her fever under control, but I have high hopes she'll come home tomorrow. 

Mysteries remain (why the apparent incontinence episodes? why the fever? how could we not have noticed a neck injury?), but the situation now seems manageable and not so dire.

As I send S. lengthy e-mails with the details of each communication with a doctor (several  have been involved, as her regular vet practice is also a 24-hour hospital), I admit there's  satisfaction, even enjoyment, in feeling so . . . competent.

Part of my sensation of being in control has to do with my ex being 10,000 miles away—a situation that I know is not fun for him, as he is deeply attached to P. There has been little disagreement, no phone calls with the two of us talking over each other or being self-consciously cordial. He has thanked me more than once for taking care of things, and I have acknowledged how hard it is for him to be so far away when P. is ill.

But I'm also aware, or became so this evening, that—at this particular time—it probably feels fulfilling for me on some level to be a caretaker again. What I mean is that I'm realizing what may be going on: that is, I've missed feeling that someone relies on me in such a vulnerable way. 

I've always cared about—and for—P.; doing so now is nothing new. But she is "old-old" (15 or 16), and this stage of her life, particularly this recent crisis, has a familiarity to it—not only because of this week's anniversary but because of other animals in my life I've helped see through to the end. 

My relation to P. has undeniably deepened in the last few weeks—I feel her preciousness more acutely. For now—rather, when she returns home—there is this: taking in the breezes, together, on a warm, green day.

Father and Son

Today is the official anniversary of my father's death, at least according to the doctor's declaration in the early morning hours of July 7, 2012. But the day before was when I sat by Dad's bedside with my brother and D. for 13 hours and said a final goodbye just as the clock's hand approached midnight. 

So yesterday was the day I visited his "niche" in the columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery. It was only the third time I'd been there since his inurnment in September. I went there with my sister and brother-in-law on Christmas Eve (amazed to see every single grave in the cemetery decorated with a wreath); the three of us returned on Father's Day last month with D., the first time we saw his name plate in place (it had taken some months to complete).

Yesterday I went alone, sitting across from him in the shade of a blazing late afternoon. My father's name carries such power for me—almost like seeing his face, the letters forming a physical embodiment of who he was: the first name he was given, the middle name he chose (it was his confirmation name; he didn't have a middle name), the last name that resounds with the Irish ancestry he was so proud of.

Shortly before leaving, I used the "spin" function on the Poetry Foundation's app to find something to honor of the poetry lover Dad was. I didn't read it aloud but silently to myself, and to him.

The poem, which was new to me, reminds me of his last years, when we forged a closeness we hadn't had before—characterized by, among other things, a physical intimacy, born of medical necessity and his weakening body, that was far different from hugs and kisses. (It's apt that the poet turns out to be a physician, who also turns out to have won the Nobel Prize in 1902.)

The Father 

By Sir Ronald Ross

  Come with me then, my son;

       Thine eyes are wide for truth:

And I will give thee memories,

       And thou shalt give me youth.

The lake laps in silver,

       The streamlet leaps her length:

And I will give thee wisdom,

       And thou shalt give me strength.

The mist is on the moorland,

       The rain roughs the reed:

And I will give thee patience,

       And thou shalt give me speed.

When lightnings lash the skyline

       Then thou shalt learn thy part:

And when the heav’ns are direst,

       For thee to give me heart.

Forthrightness I will teach thee;

       The vision and the scope;

To hold the hand of honour:—

       And thou shalt give me hope;

And when the heav’ns are deepest

       And stars most bright above;

May God then teach thee duty;

       And thou shalt teach me love.

Alma Mater

The weekend before last, I met a former teaching colleague of my mother's for coffee. But the story isn't as straightforward as that.

In 1968, when I was in second grade, my mother went back to teaching Latin part-time at a girls' school. She loved teaching, especially girls. (She had taught at two other girls' schools before she was married.) She worked at this school well into the 1970s, continuing even as she pursued a master's in medieval Latin, which she completed while I was in high school. I remember doing my own Latin and algebra and English homework at the same dining-room table where she'd be typing her thesis—a translation of a manuscript about gardening (another passion of hers)—on a turquoise manual Olivetti. Both of my parents loved language. Words were the stuff of dinner conversations—not just the means of talking but so often the subject itself.

The school where Mom worked eventually stopped requiring Latin, and she left for a time, returned briefly, then for a number of years tutored students from there and other schools. Her last students were in the mid-to-late '90s, just as signs of as her dementia started setting in. I seem to remember a rather abrupt end to her final tutoring job, instigated by the boy's mother for unclear reasons. I think Mom was beginning to get confused about appointments and the like, and who knows how much repetition or forgetfulness might have been going on during the sessions themselves?

A year and a half ago, I published an essay about my siblings' and my experience selling our parents' house—the home we had grown up in, where Mom and Dad had lived for 50 years before moving into assisted living (by this time, in Mom's case, "memory care"). In the essay, I mentioned the school where my mother had taught. After the article appeared, I received an e-mail:

Dear Billy:

I was reading your piece when suddenly I made a connection. On reaching the paragraph where you mentioned where your mom had taught, I glanced up to check your name to see if I recognized it. Of course—Florence!

I taught French in the Upper School from 1971 until 2003 and remember when your mother joined the foreign-language department. More coincidentally, however, I saw your mom at  S______ [her assisted-living facility] earlier this year. I had gone there with a friend and former math teacher, Susan, to visit yet another longtime former colleague and English teacher, Miriam. Miriam no longer speaks and probably does not recognize us, but Susan and I visit her and make conversation about the school and the past. 

On our last visit, Susan's attention kept being drawn to a woman nearby, and she finally asked me if I recognized her, someone who perhaps had been at the school at some point. She looked familiar, but I really couldn't place her. An attendant told us her last name, and then I knew immediately. It's Florence!

I went over to talk to her, as she seemed likely to be able to visit a little, and I told her who I was, what the connection was. Her eyes lit up and we spoke for several minutes. Of course, her speech is garbled and difficult to follow and I imagine that she didn't know who I was, but she did know we were talking about her teaching Latin there, and I believe she mentioned A.D., who had been headmistress. I remembered that she had several children and I asked her about that, and she talked at some length about you all, but again it was garbled. We pointed out Miriam to her and told her that they had been at the Upper School at the same time, but that did not register. 

It was a bittersweet discovery for Susan and me, both retirees, to find her there, and we were so glad that we had been able to recognize her. It has become more and more sad for us to visit Miriam, who has been in a steady decline after a diagnosis an early-onset dementia about ten years ago. There is a group of former teachers who visit Miriam, although much less frequently now that she is unable to know what is going on. Susan and I will go this September and we will be sure to look up your mom. 

Your mother is still a lovely person, gracious and kindly. I remember her despairing at times over some of the more difficult students, but she was a smart lady and persevered. Anyone willing to teach Latin to adolescent young women has got to have some steeliness as well. 

Thank you for reading this and I send you my best,
Tessa G.

I was deeply touched by this surprise e-mail and replied immediately. I remembered my mother talking about Tessa often; she was definitely fond of her, even though they fell out of touch when Mom stopped her classroom teaching.

Since that e-mail, Tessa has continued to visit the assisted-living facility every couple of months and to send me reports. ("I saw your mom this morning. She was napping in her chair, but she woke up and I chatted with her. At one point she asked me very clearly what my name was, but I am not sure if my response meant anything to her. She looked well dressed, and I told her that she looked ready to teach.")

Tessa's friend Miriam died just two months ago, and she has since been back just to visit Mom—someone she knew half a lifetime ago, far less well than her now-deceased friend. Yet she continues to go.

Other than Tessa, my mother doesn't see anyone outside of immediate family, caregivers, and medical staff. Tessa, her long-ago colleague, knew her as a working, intellectually engaged, professional woman, and she now graciously honors that person my mother was by listening to her  mostly incomprehensible words, touching her hand, speaking to her of memories and people they knew.

After wanting to thank Tessa in person for more than a year—and simply wanting to meet her—I finally arranged for us to get together for coffee. One of my sisters joined us, as did Tessa's husband.

The occasion uplifted me in a way that I'm having trouble finding words for. Both she and her husband are warm and funny. They were easy to talk to, even interested in the rest of my family. We talked about the house in France they own, their own kids and grandkids. A bit about the school where she'd taught with Mom, but the conversation didn't linger long in that area. Maybe next time.

I hope there will be another time. But I don't know. I don't even know for sure if she'll continue to visit Mom as often as she saw her friend Miriam. She may, probably will—but then again, the visits may also taper off. And I couldn't blame her if they did. She's given a lot of herself already.

I've been thinking I wanted to find out more about those years when Mom was teaching, what my mother was like, from someone who saw her in an environment I didn't. Then I realized: As much as I'd like to hear these stories, I'm the one who knew Mom better. There's probably not much Tessa could tell me that I don't know.

My father died last summer. Mom greets visitors with a smile and a tender touch and an almost unceasing commentary of words that curl and wisp into a kind of music, yet are as hard to grasp as candle smoke. Yes, there's a "steeliness" within her—not the first word I'd think of to describe a person who has always been characterized more, in my experience, by sensitivity and emotion. But someone who knew her a very long ago reminded me that it's an essential part of her. My mother endures.

Colors of the Day

Friday evening, I completed a two-month refinancing process, something I'd been dragging my feet on, simply because of the pain-in-the-neck of it, but D. helped me get on it through his gentle prodding. I'll save a lot of money and now have only one monthly payment instead of two.

It's just a few days past six years since I moved into my condo—the time has gone fast. I still can scarcely believe I own my own home. 

Truthfully, it's not only mine but also a living gift from my father in his final, fading years, guided to write a check by my sister, who with her husband made two contributions as well, unbidden. And D.—whom I didn't know when I bought the place but met within months—has also has helped me make it what it is, generously facilitating a kitchen renovation two years ago and celebrating with me every day the things of beauty or usefulness—new, from my family, antiques from strangers' pasts—that have come to fill its spaces.

There's so much I have yet to live into here. I can't make time slow down, but on a quiet Sunday like this, I can look around and appreciate what I have.

We have seen a million stones lying by the water,
You have climbed the hills with me
To the mountain shelter.
Taken off the days, one by one, 
Setting them to breathe in the sun.

—Judy Collins, "Since You've Asked"  

— 

(Wow, my walls are really not yellow like that!)

This Life

André Kertész, "Fork, Paris," 1928

I was listening to a podcast of This American Life as I went for a run in the park tonight, and on this one segment the guy being interviewed was saying that when we finally get it together to confront our parents about past hurts or mistakes years after the fact, we suddenly realize that they're no longer the same people who once hurt or slighted us or whatever. They're just these old, loving, gentle people. So the confrontation isn't at all satisfying.

There's nothing I really feel the need to confront my parents about anymore, even if they were capable of understanding me. I really can't think of anything about Mom (not that she was perfect, but any failing seems minor in retrospect); I can think of two or three biggies about Dad, but I let go of those years ago. Truly, if anything makes me feel grown-up (and lots of things are still capable of making me feel not grown-up at age 50, believe me), it's that these particular things just haven't mattered for so long.

This past Sunday, I sat at one table in the memory-care dining room feeding Mom while my sister sat ten feet away at another feeding Dad. In both their cases, sometimes my parents are able to get the food on a fork or spoon and into their mouths on their own, but usually they're not, whether because of arthritis, dementia, jitters, fatigue, distraction, or any number of other factors. Most nights, when I'm not there, I assume a caregiver assists them. (One evening when I arrived, Dad had eaten all of his dessert but hadn't touched the main course; as soon as I started helping him, he ate every bite.)

If you'd asked me a couple of years ago how I thought it would feel to be spoon-feeding my parents, I couldn't have found the words to describe the fear and anticipated sorrow. Now that the time has arrived, it feels surprisingly easy.

Who doesn't know how to feed someone? Turns out that's something we learn very well without even trying.

Somewhere Where Deep Down Inside of Me I Don't Want to Be

Tonight my brother and sisters and I met to start talking about some of the logistics of arranging a funeral for our father, who has not died yet but is steadily fading. It might be this year, it might be later.

One of his younger brothers passed away a few months ago from Alzheimer's (at 91, Dad is the eldest of eight, and three have died). My two sisters went to the funeral in Buffalo, and when they asked our cousin—whose father was the deceased—how she and her brother had pulled such a nice ceremony together in such a short time, our cousin said, "We didn't. We planned it." That's when my sisters realized we should start thinking about how we'd like to honor both of our parents when the time comes.                                   

Tonight's discussion was a productive one over pizza. I won't go into the details here, but for a conversation I was dreading, it went surprisingly well, even with some laughs.

Last night, I was reading letters Dad wrote to me when I was in college. He didn't write as often as my mother did, but he corresponded throughout my four years away from home, often just a postcard from a museum, sometimes a single-spaced typewritten letter of a page or two.

Here is an excerpt from what appears to be the first full letter I ever received from him, dated September 11, 1979, within the first couple of weeks I was away at college, feeling miserably lonely and out of place. At this point, I'd had more than one tearful phone call with both him and my mother. This letter from Dad exemplifies so much of what made him who he was—the formal language, the highbrow mixed with low, the offering of memories from his own life, the encouragement and generosity, the kid-like interest in the modest pleasures of the world. The rest falls away.

Dear Billy,

Your feelings about finding it hard to adjust sound exactly the way I felt when I first got into the army air force. But it is bound to get better. It is not knowing when that makes it bad. . . .

I found in my own life, adjusting to these unfamiliar and indeed alien situations, that the difference between liking and not liking usually was somehow or other allied to finding a friend or two who bit by bit contributed to removing the alien-ness of the atmosphere. Actually it doesn't have to be a friend—they are rare enough. It can just be a pleasant acquaintance. . . . If it is possible to do so, Philadelphia has many fascinating museums. The Benjamin Franklin Museum is world famous and on a par with the Smithsonian. Give it a try if you can spare the time. Of course it has been a long time since I was there, but I remember with pleasure that they have a little movie house there where for a pittance you could see classic black and white films of historical note. Call them up and ask. . . . 

I noticed that on the back of the Grape Nuts Flakes box there is an offer for a "Yogurt Machine" that looks pretty nice. Would you like that for a gift? It would be a good hobby and you could make your own without a lot of fuss. Things like that fascinate me. As you know. There is an old joke about Philadelphia that W.C. Fields was supposed to have originated. There was a contest in which first prize was a week in Philadelphia. The 2nd prize was two weeks in Philadelphia. I am sure it's not really fair. Sounds like the things people used to say about Buffalo. There is something good and interesting about every place. I used to determine that I would find something to do at some real holes where I was on TDY (federalese for temporary duty) and would read a Baedeker or other travel guide and find that there was a Roman ruin, or an old cathedral, or a dinosaur dig or whatever. That is what I would do to put some fabric in my life, and of course it is a useful surrogate for providing the feeling for having a purpose for being somewhere where deep down inside of you you don't want to be.

Love, Dad

Branches

I went to the wake of a distant relative yesterday. Well, I suppose not all that distant, as distant goes, but not close. He was my father’s second cousin. What I found out from some research my sister did before I went is that their fathers were first cousins, and those men’s fathers were brothers.

My father always referred to him simply as his cousin Denny. I don’t think I ever met him, even though he and his wife lived just outside DC in Virginia (I grew up in the Maryland suburbs). What I knew of him was that, for as long as I can remember, he’d call my father on the occasional Saturday or Sunday afternoon, usually to talk about genealogy—some new fact he’d uncovered, or a question that my father, who also dabbled in family history, might know the answer to. But he had a tendency to go on and on, and inevitably Dad would be rolling his eyes or mock-dramatically shaking his fist at whoever had handed the phone to him. These calls could, it seems now, last an hour or more.

Denny and Dad's contact was mostly by phone. But sometime in the last 10 or 15 years, Dad went to an anniversary party for Denny and his wife—I remember because it was in a distant Virginia suburb and involved a combination of driving and the subway and walking, plus bringing my mother, who was already showing signs of dementia. An ordeal, in other words, from Dad’s perspective.

Denny continued to call after my father moved into assisted living. The last time I remember him phoning was probably close to a year ago, when I happened to be visiting. At this point, no one called my father anymore outside of his kids—it was just too hard to carry on a conversation. But Denny did. I don’t even remember what they were talking about (inasmuch as I could make any of it out from Dad’s side). All I recall was hearing Dad repeat the same questions over and over and over again, creating a circular conversation that Denny—with many years of experience in keeping someone on the line—stuck with until it was time to say goodbye.

At the wake yesterday, I met Denny’s wife. She was charming and sharp and remembered my parents well—I should have realized they had a whole social history, dating back 50 or more years, long before the genealogy phone calls began. I told her how much my father enjoyed the calls—which I actually think he did, despite the eye rolls—and how we as a family especially appreciated Denny’s contact in later years.

Also at the wake were several of Denny’s nephews and nieces and their spouses (he didn’t have kids of his own), all of them about my age or a bit older. We talked about my tenuous relationship to their uncle, how I wanted to be there in Dad’s place to pay my respects because he's in "memory care" now (with no phone at all) and isn’t able to get out. We small-talked about our  traditional Catholic names (Michael, Patrick, William, Matthew, Katherine, etc.) and how different young people’s names today are. They were very friendly and welcoming, but I was so nervous—my hairline was dripping with sweat in that way it has, and I don’t even have hair anymore! I was at the wake for a total of about 30 minutes, then I had to get back to work.

On the Metro, it struck me all at once that I was related by blood to probably half of the dozen or so strangers in that small room, and the realization practically took my breath away.

If It All Fell to Pieces Tomorrow, Would You Still Be Mine?

Last weekend, D. and I took a drive up to Adamstown, Pennsylvania -- Antiques Capital U.S.A., I'll have you know -- and as we were wandering through one antiques mall, "Take It to the Limit" came on over the sound system (antiques malls play '60s and '70s Top 40 more than any other genre of music), and I realized that that song evokes the 1970s -- not just the decade but my experience of the decade, whose latter half corresponded exactly with my adolescence -- more than any other song, period.

One of my sisters, my next-oldest sibling, loved the Eagles, so I heard a lot of them then. "Take It to the Limit," besides being a great radio sing-along when you're alone in the car, takes me back in an instant to the winter of 1976. (To confirm that my memory was placing it correctly, I Googled it just now, and indeed it was released as a single in November 1975.)

Nothing momentous happened. I was a high-school freshman in a Catholic boys' school. My sister and I were the only ones at home; our older brother and sister were away at college. It was a time of puffy down jackets, hair parted down the middle for guys, velour shirts. When you're 14, the shy youngest of four, you spend a lot of time observing your siblings, hearing about their dates, their friends, the concerts they went to (Jackson Browne, Little Feat), the movies they saw (Love and Death, Barry Lyndon), the parties, the summer jobs and the trips to the beach. Sometimes you fantasize about a time when you'll do all of those things -- see an R-rated film, have a girlfriend, get a down jacket or a velour shirt of your own.

You spend years learning about desire.

Next thing you know you're a fortysomething man wandering through an antiques mall in Amish country with your fiftysomething boyfriend -- surveying the Depression glass, the Stangl dishware, the back issues of Life magazine in plastic sleeves, the tchotchkes of way more generations than your own -- and a '70s pop song full of unabashed falsetto urgency comes on from somewhere unknown and fills you with an unaccountable longing, followed hard by a strange kind of pure satisfaction that where you are is just good enough.