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.

That Night

My first thought was "Now I've done it. I've finally done it." 

It was similar to the feeling I had at age 16 when I totaled the family car while making a right turn on red. That time, despite having crushed my parents' Vega to half its size, I was able to walk away uninjured ("Get out of the car! Get out of the car!" people were screaming.) This time, I could only acquiesce.

My second thought was "I have no idea what happened, but I appear to be in extremely competent hands." 

I remember the flashing lights of an ambulance and many hands on me and being on a stretcher, but I'm not entirely sure which of those memories took place on the street, which were in the ambulance, and which were of being unloaded at the emergency room. As things started to come together more, I knew I was in the ER.

By this time, I must have figured out I'd been in a bicycle accident. The last thing I remembered—as "memory" itself haltingly reformed—was leaving the office with my bike, walking it across L Street, and turning onto the bicycle lane. Or maybe it came back to me later. But that's the extent of the events preceding the accident that ever have come back.

I remember having a neck brace put on me and being reassured by someone that it was just a precaution, that I didn't appear to have a spinal injury. I was asked if there was someone they could call. I don't remember saying the words, but I apparently came up with my brother's land line, a number he'd had for more than 20 years (and that he's since changed; I do not know his new number by heart).

At some point, as medical personnel started stopping by, I found out I'd fractured my right elbow (I always say "fractured" instead of "broke" because that was the word first used in my presence), knocked out a tooth and maybe damaged more, and cut up my face. 

An ENT (again, who introduced himself as such, so I'll never forget his specialty) stitched up my face—two gashes around my right eye, one on my upper lip where a tooth or teeth went through. I'd never had stitches before (at age 52, never been treated in an ER, never spent a single night as a patient in a hospital). The sensationless sensation of thread being pulled through tissue and tugged was new to me; at the same time, it reminded me of numbed dental work—that impression of major construction going on not quite here but in a room next door, the mysterious vibrations and structural manipulations of space felt all too viscerally.

My brother arrived in the emergency room and told me D was on his way. I was calm (drugged), probably apologetic, definitely immobile, and appreciative of what felt like order around me. 

I'd be spending the night (no kidding), and we were waiting for a room.

My brother manned iPhone central at the foot of my bed in the ER, communicating with our sisters and with his wife. At some point, D arrived, smiling, tender. My brother, D, and me—the trio who'd been with my father when he'd died at age 92 a year and a half before. This was the first time just the three of us were together since that day in July 2012, though I wasn't thinking that then. (I'm thinking it now.)

My injured right arm rested painless and immobile in a splint or brace across my chest. At some point, I met the orthopedist who would operate the next day. A young guy in his thirties, as young as my regular doctor, whom I'd seen just a few days before for a checkup at which all was well.

All evening long, I listened to gentle information and was ministered to—my first experience with the utter surrender of control entailed in the receipt of trauma care. Somewhere down deep, grief and sadness awaited their entrance, as did patience and fortitude, Sharks and Jets on opposite wings. But for now, the only thing required of me was to wait.

Later that night, when I was settled (oddly content) in my hospital room and my brother and D had left for the night, I was near-dozing when another doctor came into the darkened space—a dentist (dental surgeon, it turned out), closer to my age than the young orthopedist. He was nice, had grown up in Washington like me, and we talked about the high schools we'd gone to. All evening at the hospital, despite having no idea what had happened to me on the bike lane, I'd been able to converse relatively lucidly with anyone who came up to my bed.

He touched my shoulder in a comforting way. He examined my mouth and told me a tooth next to the one that had been knocked out was compromised and would have to come out as well. I thought he was referring to an upcoming procedure, but he started jiggling the tooth right then with his bare hand. I said, "You're going to pull it out now?" Saying it was already crumbing in his fingers, he tugged, as if removing a splinter, and it was out, leaving the root behind.

He said, "We'll take care of you." Then he touched my shoulder again and said goodnight.

Un-Ordinary

A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from N., the daughter of longtime friends of my parents'. She had come across an essay I'd written about my family, prompting her to track me down. N. is about a dozen years older than me, and I never knew her well, largely because of the age difference, which made her an adult while I was still a kid, but I did know her parents. 

Her father and mine had met in college in the 1940s, then my father helped get her dad a job in Washington and they remained colleagues and friends for decades, even after their retirement from the government, when they both worked for a private firm for another 20 years or so. Our mothers were also close. I remember luncheons Mom would host for small groups of women friends, mostly wives of my father's colleagues, including N.'s mother. The menu might include vichyssoise or chicken in aspic or something prettily sliced like stuffed flank steak. Dessert could be plum kuchen or individual caramel custards.

I learned from Mom how to be hospitable, the value and satisfaction of welcoming people into your home and making delicious things for them to enjoy. (So why don't I do it more often?)

As N.'s parents, then mine, succumbed to the trials and diminishments of age, they fell out of touch. Her dad died in 1999, her mother in 2012, the same year my father passed away. All were in assisted living.

My mother, as I've written before, is still alive and in "memory care." I've also written here of a long-ago teaching colleague of hers who connected with me through the same essay of mine that N. read and who continues to visit Mom after more than two years. But N. is the first person to share with me in such detail the impression my mother made. Here's an excerpt from her note:

I was always fond of your parents, but I adored your mother. She was beautiful, stylish, talented, cultured, creative, articulate, and a wonderful cook. I still own and cherish some things she made for me—a knitted tea cozy, accompanied by a poem that she wrote, a patchwork hot pad, badly faded 40 years later, but still treasured, and a little collection of handwritten menus with recipes I still use.  Once she gave me a pretty glass jar filled with potpourri she had harvested from her garden.  Your mother was so un-ordinary, and I wish I had kept in closer touch with her. . . .  

Sometime in the mid-'60s, your parents gave a 12th Night party one winter afternoon after Christmas, and children were invited. Do you remember that? I can see exactly what your mother wore in my mind's eye—a gorgeous, long emerald-green hostess dress, which she told me your father had given her for Christmas. (I'm pretty sure I'm remembering that correctly.)  It was a wonderful party—lots of delicious homemade things, including candied grapefruit, which I'd never had before. 

Your mother never took the easy way out. If something was worth doing, it was worth doing to perfection. Once on my mother's birthday, your mom invited her over for lunch. My mother came home with lovely birthday gifts your mother had made—including homemade croissants in a basket with a beautiful embroidered cloth. By the way, I recall that your kitchen was all pink. Was it still pink when you sold the house?

I was sitting at my desk at work practically in tears at these lovely, unasked-for reminiscences—all, I might add, accurate. I do remember the 12th Night party. It was an open house—come anytime between, say, 3 and 6—and it became sort of legendary in the family. Mom would often say, "We should have another 12th Night party." But for all the other entertaining she did over the years—and she was essentially a shy person, a tough thing to reconcile with an inclination toward graciousness—we never had another bash like that.

I remember the green hostess dress, too—if you'd asked me what she wore to that party nearly 50 years ago, I couldn't have said, but N. helped me recall.

What I've realized reading and rereading N.'s e-mail (and we've continued the correspondence over the last two weeks) is that she has idealized Mom—and I love that she has. I think it's great.

I knew all of the same traits of my mother's that she describes, along with the more human side that everyone knows of a parent: the misunderstandings, the bathrobes, the TV dinners, the workaday. But N. saw her from a remove; maybe she even admired things that were different from her own mother (I didn't know her mom well enough to say). But what she has captured in those sentences is true—all of it. There are so few people in the world whom I have access to anymore, outside family, who cherished the beautiful things Mom brought to the world. The fact that N. went to the trouble to tell me was a real gift.

And no, the kitchen was no longer pink.

Before I was born.

Same front porch eight years later (me on the right).

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.

Fake and True

Dog walk, November 13

Walking Patsy on these autumn-dark evenings, I’ve already seen two Christmas trees in windows—the first on Monday, November 12, the second on Tuesday. Nothing last night, though Au Bon Pain was playing Christmas music yesterday at lunchtime. Tomorrow, November 16 (I checked), that radio station will start playing my least favorite kind of holiday music 24/7 through December 25. Just hear those sleigh bells ringin’.

There’s still some gold and rust and green jittering on the trees this afternoon, and the sky has unfurled a tightly woven blanket over the sun. I biked to work today despite the turn toward cold. It’s not even late fall, let alone Christmas—it’s just fall.

On Saturday my brother and sister and some of their family members will come for dinner at D’s house, as he and I will be in London next week. (Fortuitously enough, I happened upon a vegan restaurant hosting a Thanksgiving dinner on the 22nd—who knew?—so that's where you'll find us.) 

Saturday's party here will be our Fakesgiving—a term I learned yesterday, and love—with veggie pot pies, baby-kale salad, baked apples with mincemeat, and some other surprises in the works. This will be the first Thanksgiving since Dad’s death, and though he hadn’t attended in at least a couple of years anyway, I wanted to facilitate some sort of coming-together of kin. It’s a chance to say, in a way that in fact can be more celebratory than mournful: This is what it’s like now.

Christmas-creep is the opposite of now. 

 

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.

Five Cents, Please

I think this will be the first Thanksgiving ever that each "unit" of my family will celebrate separately—which is to say the first when nobody is having our parents over. My local sister, who has usually hosted dinner for whoever is available, may stop by their assisted-living facility (where now are both in memory care), may bring them a bit of turkey or pie, but she'll have her own celebration, like each of the rest of us. (D. and I are going to see friends of his in Lynchburg, Virginia.)

Dad moved into memory care about two and a half weeks ago, and neither he nor Mom even remembers that it's Thanksgiving or much cares (I mentioned it to him tonight, to little response). They'll be served a holiday dinner by staff, and after that Dad will go to bed and Mom will sit up in the common room with her neighbors. She's up most of the night, I'm told (one of the caregivers has her sit beside her and help with her "paperwork"), catching up on sleep during the day.

We've been reading Dad Winnie-the-Pooh, and he seems to enjoy it. (He's actually doing remarkably well in general under the circumstances.) The other day I bought him a book of Peanuts comics, which I thought would be interesting and possible for him to read on his own. Tonight I couldn't find it.

***Lucy: "Follow me. I want to show you something. See the horizon over there? See how big this world is? See how much room there is for everybody? Have you ever seen any other worlds?"
Charlie Brown: "No."
Lucy: "As far as you know, this is the only world there is, right?"
Charlie Brown: "Right."
Lucy: "There are no other worlds for you to live in, right?"
Charlie Brown: "Right."
Lucy: "You were born to live in this world, right?"
Charlie Brown: "Right."
Lucy: "WELL LIVE IN IT THEN! Five cents please."

Fragments, a Return

This weekend my siblings and I started hospice for Dad.

It's been almost a year since I wrote in this blog (I'm a little shocked but not totally surprised to see). In that year, my mother's condition has remained mostly stable, which is to say that 13 years of dementia quietly rolled into 14, with no major changes from one to the next. Tonight when I was talking to D. and my brother and sister, I described her conversation as a bagful of disconnected words, sentence fragments, gestures, expressions, questions, phrases, and moods all shaken up and spilled out. I just ride the wave of what emerges— "Oh, no—not that!" "Really?" "I know." "Yeah, I'm Billy." "Don't cry—be happy." "Want to sing a song?" When I'm with her these days, I rarely feel anything but loved.

On Friday, we got a report that Dad was drooling and going in and out of consciousness at lunch. There was more to it, but that was the most alarming development. Most likely, in retrospect, he was probably having an ischemic attack, one more of the stealth mini-strokes that both he and Mom have experienced over the years, she for a much longer time.

He has declined markedly in the last four to six weeks, sleeps most of the day when left to his own devices, eats little and irregularly, and rarely converses at all except in single words. We'd already been taking the initial steps of moving him into memory care (the wing where Mom has lived for the last year and a half), but this turn of events sealed the deal. Among other benefits will be better monitoring of his diet and hydration, although the accompanying loss of independence makes me sad.

Hospice quickly entered the picture, and at this stage it seems essentially just another level of care, one that's more sensitively attuned to his weakened condition and making him more comfortable. It will start out at least once a week but will probably increase somewhat from that according to his needs as the hospice personnel get to know him and us. Nowhere near round the clock . . . yet.

As D. put it recently, my father is winding down. It's very hard for me to look full on at what that means.

When D. and I were falling asleep and talking about Dad last night, D. said, "I'll miss him." That brought tears to my eyes because I really believed him—he's been a great friend to my father—and it made me think about how much I'll miss him, too.

Do You Remember?

D. and I went out for our weekly Silver Diner dinner with my father tonight, Thursday, because we'll be away in Provincetown this weekend. Dad was very quiet, but I didn't have any reason to think he was unhappy. In the car on the way there, I asked him if he had any New Year's resolutions, and he said he couldn't think of any. Then later at dinner, D. asked him again, and Dad said, not with irritation but with a small, shy chuckle, "You asked me that before—I can't think of any." (I can't either!) It's sometimes surprising what he remembers from moment to moment.

After we said good night to him, we popped in to say hi to Mom in the memory-care wing. We weren't sure she'd be up, as it was 8:30, but we found her poking around the hall in her nightie and slippers. We took her back to her room and turned on a CD to get her relaxed. It took only a few minutes to coax her into bed as the music played. We kissed her good night; D. said "I love you" and told her we'd see her in the morning—a lie but a benign one. I had told her I'd see her "in the daylight," unnecessarily staying on the factual side of the fence. We will see her in the daylight, just not tomorrow's.

Here's a picture of me and my father tonight in our tissue-paper crowns after opening some British "Christmas crackers" D. had brought.


And here's what we left playing when we said good night to Mom:

Dearie, do you remember when we
Waltzed to the Sousa band?
My, wasn't the music grand?
Chowder parties down by the seashore
Every Fourth of July . . .

Dearie, life was cheery
In the good old days gone by
Do you remember?
If you remember,
Then Dearie, you're much older than I.

Only This

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

This weekend, I hand-delivered a card bearing the image at left to my 90-year-old father. Inside were small notes from D. and me. It was part of a little project I began at the start of my 50th year about two weeks ago involving getting back to writing to people on paper—not directly related to my feelings about Facebook, but you could say there's a connection. (I might write more about the project in a future post.)

This print is "Circle Raven" by Yoshiko Yamamoto— one of many beautiful letterpress designs from the Arts and Crafts Press.

The card got Dad and D. and me talking about ravens and crows and their ilk. My father has always had a curious mind, to say the least, but these days there's more curiosity than retention, more silence than response—you often have to simply trust that he's taking information in and let go of expectations about to what use his mind may be putting it.

I had recently bought him a large-print book of poems because his eyesight is bad and he's so bored and he used to be someone who cared about poetry. I don't think he's read much of the book, so given what we were talking about, I decided to read Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" aloud to him.

I have to say I absorbed only about half of it myself—it was the first time I'd read it in at least 35 years—but the rhythms were a blast to feel on my tongue and vocal chords, a tour de force of language offered to a man whose world was once nothing but language. (He is—was—a polyglot linguist whose specialty was Russian.)

As I read, Dad leaned forward, appearing to listen intently. Every time I got to the refrain "Nevermore," which ends the last four stanzas, he looked up and joined in with heart—"Nevermore!"—finding, it seemed, a place of memory within him still. A place where a single familiar, archaic word was stored from adolescence, or childhood, or even deeper back, a place where words themselves originate, where he would have found me at that moment as well.

"Good Night, Prosecutor": Ten Good Things

As I slowly resurface . . . ten good things since late March, the point at which my life reached overload:

1. Riding the Vamoose bus back from NYC on a Sunday night in April, D. and I eating still-warm H&H bagels with vegan cream cheese and scallions from, of all places, Zabar's (who knew?) and doing the Times crossword. As D. said, speaking for me, "It doesn't get better than that."

2. Please Give.

3. Finding four perfect-condition Stangl "Fruit and Flowers" teacups and saucers with a creamer and sugar bowl for only $26 at the Bethesda Op Shop, my first pieces in that pattern. The fact that I found them not in an antiques shop but in a mostly junky thrift store—and on a day when I was actually thinking I probably shouldn't even bother going in because this place only has junk—was a sign that I should get them. So now I seem to be collecting two patterns—I already had a Bachelor Button coffee service. D. has an almost complete set of Thistle. Though he introduced me to the line, I was the first to buy, last summer in Provincetown. I said to him, "It's the only thing we're competitive about."

4. Great Sage.

5. Taking Dad to a real barbershop for a haircut (instead of waiting for the next time someone comes around to cut hair at his assisted-living facility), putting an extra cushion we brought with us on the seat, telling the barber how to cut his hair . . . and remembering that about 45 years ago he he did much the same thing for me. And seeing what a pleasure it could be, amid his daily existence of mostly tedium and dozing, for him to be out in the world surrounded by male voices and be matter-of-factly yet expertly groomed.

6. The trip to New York itself.

7. During a mostly agonizingly dull eight weeks of grand jury duty, volunteering one day to read the role of the prosecutor when we were hearing the transcript of previous testimony in a case we were considering (the actual prosecutor read the role of the witness), and not only enjoying the heck out of it but receiving numerous compliments from fellow jurors. "Good night, prosecutor," one said to me at the end of the day. It reminded me that several years ago I thought about volunteering for an organization that records books and articles for the blind. Maybe I'll revisit that when things calm down more.

8. Slice some onion, sauté it in olive oil till it's soft, add some chopped green cabbage, cook it some more till the cabbage is softened to your liking but still a little crisp (in other words, nowhere near sauerkraut soft), season with salt and pepper, and stir in a little Dijon mustard and a sprinkling of fennel seed. Improvisation transformed into inspiration.
9. For the first time, on one of my days off from grand jury duty (to which I was committed three days a week), coming into work on an intense deadline day when I was just barely keeping up and saying to a colleague, "It's good to be here"—and meaning it.

10. One thing that never changed: that hour or two between Patsy's early-morning walk (usually between 5 and 6 am) and the time I have to get up for work, when the two of us get back in bed and breathe together—even better when D. is there, breathing along—knowing we have just a finite time in that peaceful state, but not yet willing to start the day.

Transmission

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone.
-- John Keats, "Hyperion"

I'm killing time at D.'s house, on a Monday when I normally would be at work, waiting for a tow truck to come take my 1995 Saturn, which I'm donating to a public-radio station. The clutch gave out in late November, and because my father's 2002 Saturn (with fewer than 18,000 miles) was waiting for a new home, I decided not to have my car (with nearly 110,000) fixed, as it would cost at least half of what the car was worth. But I couldn't find the title, so I had to order a replacement, which turned into a nearly three-month ordeal with DC's Department of Motor Vehicles. The car has been sitting in front of D.'s house the whole time. Now I have the title, the donation has been arranged, and it's time to say goodbye to a good, mostly reliable car that I've owned since 1998.

Meanwhile, I bought Dad's car. But last week, before I'd even made all the payments to my sister, I punched a hole in the front of it while trying to turn my way out of the narrow entrance of a downtown parking garage that was, at the time, attendant-less. The attendant, of course, appeared as soon as I drove off in frustrated rage -- at myself. (No other car was involved.) So now I have to get body work done on the new Saturn (manufactured by a company that, as of a few months ago, no longer exists) as soon as my other -- frankly, beloved -- car is donated and on its way.

I helped Dad buy this car, aided by Saturn's no-haggle policy, and he himself put a couple dents in it during the relatively short time he drove it (all since repaired). I realize that the material things we own have no expectations of us. And my father doesn't know about my accident, let alone remember that I've bought the car (he continues to think I borrow it, with his blessing). But I can't help feeling I've already failed at my stewardship of this object entrusted to me, corporate orphan that it is: a vehicle in need of greater care, cooler emotions, a gentler hand shifting it into drive.

Winter Weekend

I didn't have to do any digging out during the snowstorm, because I'd taken my car in for service Friday morning and was allowed to leave it there after the work was done (though how and when I'll be able to get it home from the suburbs and find a space to park in my neighborhood, I'm not sure). Others in my condo beat me to the shoveling on and around our property (about which I feel somewhat guilty). My ventures outside have been mainly to walk the dog -- multiple times a day -- so I've seen the snow's nature, in the air and on the ground, change over the last two days, like a a body blooming, coming into its own, slowing down, then yielding to the onslaught of footprint and tire.

I baked and cooked -- pancakes, muffins, bread, pasta with avocado and tomatoes, Irish oatmeal with apples and cranberries. And I ate.

D. and I have been apart, separated by the weather, like lovers on separate continents, though we're only a handful of miles away. He's finally on his way over as I type, having braved the roads, the Metro, and the icy streets.

Mom and Dad's phone service and cable -- their only connections to the outside world unless one of us is visiting -- were out for a time, but they're back up. This weekend I had a good excuse to have no obligations to them, other than checking in (when it was possible). So I had that rare thing: a weekend at home, where I got to walk and sit and doze through full cycles of sunlight and dark; scents of breakfast, lunch, dinner; the intermittent scrape of shovels on pavement, like an animal's insistent pawing to be let inside.

Děkuji

In November I went on vacation to Prague. This was my first time in continental Europe in 27 years and my first ever in the Czech Republic (or that country's previous incarnation).

Have you noticed how many times I refer to my time in Europe in 1981-82? I think it's safe to say it was a seminal and memorable time in my life. Though I've traveled to some interesting and beautiful places since then, it's not too surprising that none of them have have triggered the level of discovery and growth that living on a foreign continent can afford a 20-year-old.

En route to meet D. in Prague, I had five hours in the Frankfurt airport, which was fun, though I was shy about using my German. On top of simply being very rusty, it turns out I still suffer from a form of the same affliction I did all those years ago: not speaking until I'm sure that just the right vocabulary will come out perfectly grammatical and syntactically correct. Which, in the end, is the same as not speaking very much except to buy postcards and ask where the nearest mailbox is.

In the Czech Republic (a country where I have roots on my mother's side), I eventually screwed up my courage to say dobrý den (hello) and děkuji (thank you) in shops and restaurants.

Before the trip, my 89-year-old linguist father, whose memory fades more every day, had helped me with some pronunciations. We sat in the courtyard of his assisted-living facility with a not-very-clear phrase book from the Communist era. Russian was the main language Dad used in his career, and he knows at least bits of countless languages, so his lips formed the Czech words with an ease that didn't come as naturally to me.

My mother, whose maternal grandparents were Czech and who studied and taught many languages herself (Latin primarily), virtually all of which she's forgotten, sat silently by, enjoying the breeze of a warm October day.

Here's a picture of me looking out over the breathtaking city of Prague. I might be thinking about my Czech ancestors I never knew, or about the fumbling American boy in Europe I once was, or about my parents and their disappearing words. Or I could just be taking it all in, for a day when I'll look back and wish I could do it all over again.