"The fruit is divine," my father says to me. "Do you need a small envelope?"
I smile, grip his hand a bit tighter and say, "No, I'm fine."
He frowns, gives me a wry grimace that means he knows he's been out in la-la land, and heads right back out to sea.
The next time he opens his eyes he looks worried, perhaps even a bit frightened.
"The street is still very violent," he says.
I rub his arm. "I know. But there is nothing we can do about it now," I say. "Don't worry, we are safe in here. I'll send Cop Martha to deal with them."
But Dad is gone again. His eyes are open but he is staring into places I can't see.
Sharon the Hospice Nurse came in this morning. "He's having bad dreams," I say. "He's twitching and his limbs jerk. Becky thinks it's too much morphine."
Sharon's eyes catch and hold mine. "No," she says softly. "He's dying."
I nod...like I really and truly knew this...only I didn't.
"Becky is anxious," Sharon says. "She thinks he should be more 'with it.'"
"She wants to keep him here," I murmur. "It's her denial."
Becky is big on denial, she'll tell you that herself.
"What you're seeing is his body's response to the lack of oxygen. It's shutting down. The things he's seeing and dreaming are in part anoxia- his brain not getting enough oxygen-and part morphine. This happens to everyone when they die."
Becky is taking a shower. She comes out of the bathroom in a slip, her hair wrapped in a huge purple towel. She is frowning when Sharon tells her what is going on, unwilling to believe that what she thinks isn't right. With the towel wrapped at such an odd angle, Becky looks like an angry sheik transported into Dad's bedroom from the deserts of a long-ago movie.
"He has to have the morphine every two hours or he will feel breathless," Sharon continues. "Your father told me he didn't want to feel that way, that he wanted to be out of it when it got down to this phase."
I know he did. I was there when he told her.
I look at my sister, the purple sheik of Arabee and say, "He really does not want to feel this. I was there when he said so."
Becky isn't so sure. She wants to debate the issue. For a brief second I see a flash of anger, quickly covered in ice..."Go to the kitchen and get him some ice chips," she tells me.
I tell her Sharon said to use swabs.
"He likes the ice chips."
"He could choke on them now," I insist.
She walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. We back to being our little kid, sister- selves again, reduced to this by our pain and fatigue...Each of us thinking we know what is best, each grasping at straws and trying to control what is uncontrollable.
I tap on the bathroom door. "I'm sorry," I tell her. "I didn't mean to say I wouldn't go get ice chips..."
Becky says, "I told Mona the housekeeper I feel like my name should be NASA because I want his launch to be perfect."
Becky wants to be Mission Control...Only you can't be Miss In-Control when your father is dying and your heart is breaking.
Later, as she sits by his bedside, spooning ice chips into Dad's mouth, I walk up to stand beside her. I reach out and slowly rub circles across the tight muscles of her shoulders.
We have started the countdown, my sister and I. T-minus who knows? And counting.
9/20/2006
Ignoring the Wisdom of the Universe...And Doing the Right Thing Anyway
Yesterday I was clearly delusional.
For some reason it made sense to me to drive 200 miles from New Bern to Greensboro, despite the fact that my father was rapidly worsening and most probably really dying this time.
He's hardly eating. His breathing is labored and his kidneys are shutting down. And I think I can leave town and go to work for 2 days and he'll still be there when I return?
The little voice inside my gut said, "Idiot!"
When I didn't listen to my instincts, the Universe decided to intervene. Torrential rains. Lightning. Flash flooding. Did I listen then?
Nope. That just made me stop at McDonald's for comfort food. I mean, if you're about to die in Noah's Ark, The Sequel, a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is just what you need to have in your right hand while you hydroplane.
The hospice nurse calls. She's away at a conference and won't be back until tomorrow. She's worried she won't make it back in time, but I think I've got all the time in the world.
"I don't know why I'm doing this," I tell her. "I just feel like I need to tag home base and then turn right back around...Only I should go to work. I've got patients who need me."
"Maybe you just need a break," Sharon says. "You've been on duty so much."
I feel like a coward. I remember my best friend's death. I was 23 and terrified, but I hung in there, sitting by her bedside, listening when her husband and sons couldn't allow her to say goodbye. And then, for no reason I could understand, I'd up and disappear for two days at a time. I would flee to my little house in the country, burrow down under my covers and "forget" that Hazel was dying.
At the very end, I was there. Her husband was in the waiting room crying "I can't go in there! I can't handle it!" One son was standing, stone-faced at the far end of her hospital room while the other whined over the phone, "Are you really sure she's dying this time? I mean, People keep saying she's dying and she doesn't and well, I'm at the Columbia tennis semi-finals and..."
I promised myself I would kill him as soon as his mother was gone.
And then I called Dad.
"I'm scared," I told him. "I've never seen anyone die. I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going to happen. What if I can't do it?"
I told him that one of my friends said helping someone die unafraid and at peace was the greatest gift one friend could give to another. I believed this, but knowing that didn't make my promise any easier to keep.
Dad listened. He didn't try and take the fear away. He didn't make my decision into a moral value of my self-worth as Hazel's friend. He just said, "I know you're scared but you can do this."
I walked back into the room where this woman who was a second mom to me lay in a coma. Her two oldest friends, both nurses, were on either side of her, holding her in their arms. They beckoned me close. "Tell her it's okay to go now," Louise said. "She needs to know it's all right."
But Hazel always was stubborn. She waited, skating on the brink of death, until her spoiled eldest son arrived. Her respirations were down to only a few breaths per minute. Her heart was slowly stopping. She had been in a coma for two days. And yet, less than a minute after Phillip arrived, she opened her eyes, raised up and looked around the room at the assembled group of friends and family.
"I love you," she said. And died.
Twenty-seven years later, I am on the road again, running away from my father's bedside. And even this memory of Hazel is not enough to stop me.
"You just need a good night's sleep," Sharon tells me.
She obviously doesn't know my snoring, up-at-all-hours dogs.
The Universe is very patient with me and decides to try again. This time in the form of Rose, one of my former nursing home patients who's made it out and now lives with her daughter.
Rose grew up in South Boston. She got married when she was 15 and had a very hard life. Her husband was her sole beacon of hope. When he died, he broke her heart...And pissed her off big time.
Four years later, Rose finally saved up enough money to rent four vans and cart her children and herself back to Boston to bury the man's ashes. "We're a big family, Nance," she explained. "There wasn't one of us under 350 pounds at the time. That's why it took so many vans."
Rose pulled out a photo album and had me turn to the last page. It was a photograph of a card table covered in a paper "Bon Voyage" tablecloth. The table was sitting on a lush, green square of grass. A sheet cake with a picture of an ocean-liner and the words "Have a Great Trip!" sat in the center of the table. A skinny rectangular object flanked the cake's right side while a small bottle stood on its left.
"I told that son of a bitch, if you die and leave me first, I'm gonna pay you back! I'm gonna bury you with the TV remote only I ain't gonna put no batteries in it. And I'm gonna put in a bingo dauber only I ain't gonna put no ink in it! That Russ loved his bingo!"
Rose knows the importance of love. She knows how to be fully present in the important moments of her life. She also loves the buddies she left behind at the nursing home.
She called when I was halfway to Greensboro.
"You're driving home? What the hell for? What's the matter with you! You don't gotta see them people in the nursing home! They know you'll be back and they sure as hell ain't goin' nowhere! Your father needs you, Nancy. Them others, they'll understand, and if they don't, the hell with 'em!"
But I am too tired now to turn around.
I come home, crawl into bed with my four dogs and lie awake most of the night, listening to what sounds like four tiny lawnmowers.
In the morning I am exhausted. I see my morning patients and call my sister every hour...Until she tells me to leave her alone. "He's stable. He's just sleeping."
I eat lunch with Marti who is having her own personal hellish breakdown.
"Why are you here, Nance? What are you waiting for?"
And suddenly it comes to me...The answer.
I just want to hold my boys, even if it's just for a moment. I need to feel them in my arms and feel their arms around me. I need to touch my home base, feel the reality of that love anchoring me to what will remain after my father is gone.
As I drive off I carry their love in my heart like a lucky coin in my pocket. Borrowing the strength I need from a well that has been filled to overflowing by each generation. My father lives in my boys and in me. Losing his physical presence can't take that away.
I needed to come home so I could remember this. I needed to feel this love wrapped around my shoulders.
Only then could I walk back into the room where I sit now...letting my father go.
For some reason it made sense to me to drive 200 miles from New Bern to Greensboro, despite the fact that my father was rapidly worsening and most probably really dying this time.
He's hardly eating. His breathing is labored and his kidneys are shutting down. And I think I can leave town and go to work for 2 days and he'll still be there when I return?
The little voice inside my gut said, "Idiot!"
When I didn't listen to my instincts, the Universe decided to intervene. Torrential rains. Lightning. Flash flooding. Did I listen then?
Nope. That just made me stop at McDonald's for comfort food. I mean, if you're about to die in Noah's Ark, The Sequel, a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is just what you need to have in your right hand while you hydroplane.
The hospice nurse calls. She's away at a conference and won't be back until tomorrow. She's worried she won't make it back in time, but I think I've got all the time in the world.
"I don't know why I'm doing this," I tell her. "I just feel like I need to tag home base and then turn right back around...Only I should go to work. I've got patients who need me."
"Maybe you just need a break," Sharon says. "You've been on duty so much."
I feel like a coward. I remember my best friend's death. I was 23 and terrified, but I hung in there, sitting by her bedside, listening when her husband and sons couldn't allow her to say goodbye. And then, for no reason I could understand, I'd up and disappear for two days at a time. I would flee to my little house in the country, burrow down under my covers and "forget" that Hazel was dying.
At the very end, I was there. Her husband was in the waiting room crying "I can't go in there! I can't handle it!" One son was standing, stone-faced at the far end of her hospital room while the other whined over the phone, "Are you really sure she's dying this time? I mean, People keep saying she's dying and she doesn't and well, I'm at the Columbia tennis semi-finals and..."
I promised myself I would kill him as soon as his mother was gone.
And then I called Dad.
"I'm scared," I told him. "I've never seen anyone die. I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going to happen. What if I can't do it?"
I told him that one of my friends said helping someone die unafraid and at peace was the greatest gift one friend could give to another. I believed this, but knowing that didn't make my promise any easier to keep.
Dad listened. He didn't try and take the fear away. He didn't make my decision into a moral value of my self-worth as Hazel's friend. He just said, "I know you're scared but you can do this."
I walked back into the room where this woman who was a second mom to me lay in a coma. Her two oldest friends, both nurses, were on either side of her, holding her in their arms. They beckoned me close. "Tell her it's okay to go now," Louise said. "She needs to know it's all right."
But Hazel always was stubborn. She waited, skating on the brink of death, until her spoiled eldest son arrived. Her respirations were down to only a few breaths per minute. Her heart was slowly stopping. She had been in a coma for two days. And yet, less than a minute after Phillip arrived, she opened her eyes, raised up and looked around the room at the assembled group of friends and family.
"I love you," she said. And died.
Twenty-seven years later, I am on the road again, running away from my father's bedside. And even this memory of Hazel is not enough to stop me.
"You just need a good night's sleep," Sharon tells me.
She obviously doesn't know my snoring, up-at-all-hours dogs.
The Universe is very patient with me and decides to try again. This time in the form of Rose, one of my former nursing home patients who's made it out and now lives with her daughter.
Rose grew up in South Boston. She got married when she was 15 and had a very hard life. Her husband was her sole beacon of hope. When he died, he broke her heart...And pissed her off big time.
Four years later, Rose finally saved up enough money to rent four vans and cart her children and herself back to Boston to bury the man's ashes. "We're a big family, Nance," she explained. "There wasn't one of us under 350 pounds at the time. That's why it took so many vans."
Rose pulled out a photo album and had me turn to the last page. It was a photograph of a card table covered in a paper "Bon Voyage" tablecloth. The table was sitting on a lush, green square of grass. A sheet cake with a picture of an ocean-liner and the words "Have a Great Trip!" sat in the center of the table. A skinny rectangular object flanked the cake's right side while a small bottle stood on its left.
"I told that son of a bitch, if you die and leave me first, I'm gonna pay you back! I'm gonna bury you with the TV remote only I ain't gonna put no batteries in it. And I'm gonna put in a bingo dauber only I ain't gonna put no ink in it! That Russ loved his bingo!"
Rose knows the importance of love. She knows how to be fully present in the important moments of her life. She also loves the buddies she left behind at the nursing home.
She called when I was halfway to Greensboro.
"You're driving home? What the hell for? What's the matter with you! You don't gotta see them people in the nursing home! They know you'll be back and they sure as hell ain't goin' nowhere! Your father needs you, Nancy. Them others, they'll understand, and if they don't, the hell with 'em!"
But I am too tired now to turn around.
I come home, crawl into bed with my four dogs and lie awake most of the night, listening to what sounds like four tiny lawnmowers.
In the morning I am exhausted. I see my morning patients and call my sister every hour...Until she tells me to leave her alone. "He's stable. He's just sleeping."
I eat lunch with Marti who is having her own personal hellish breakdown.
"Why are you here, Nance? What are you waiting for?"
And suddenly it comes to me...The answer.
I just want to hold my boys, even if it's just for a moment. I need to feel them in my arms and feel their arms around me. I need to touch my home base, feel the reality of that love anchoring me to what will remain after my father is gone.
As I drive off I carry their love in my heart like a lucky coin in my pocket. Borrowing the strength I need from a well that has been filled to overflowing by each generation. My father lives in my boys and in me. Losing his physical presence can't take that away.
I needed to come home so I could remember this. I needed to feel this love wrapped around my shoulders.
Only then could I walk back into the room where I sit now...letting my father go.
9/19/2006
The Sun Don't Shine On One Dog's Tail Forever!
It's Tuesday- the day I am supposed to return to Greensboro. Per my arrangement with my sister, she will cover the day shift watching over Dad while I work for two days. I'll arrive back in New Bern in time for her to go to work Friday morning. But that is really irrelevant because...
Tuesday is the day before Wednesday.
On Wednesdays I prepare a great feast...As if this can somehow make up for my absence from home. I let the boys and Adam's girlfriend, Amanda, enjoy their repast. I lull them into sated complacency with carbohydrates and dessert. And then, when I am quite sure the young fiends are almost in a stupor...
I whip their asses at any game they put before me.
The evening culminates in a ferocious pinochle game.
Unfortunately for me, pinochle, the game I taught them to play a mere month ago, seems to be the only game they have found that affords them unbridled success.
For three straight weeks in a row they have beaten me...This includes the very first week when we were allegedly "not keeping score."
As if.
Last week Martha and I came close, ramping back from our 800 point deficit to lose by only 200 points. We were so proud.
But we were still losers.
Amanda's confidence grows with every hand. When she is particularly smug in the delivery of a trump card, Martha calls her "Witch!" Last week Amanda achieved "Double Witch!" status.
Adam, on the other hand, tries to maintain a poker face. But when he is pleased with himself, he looks at Amanda and cries "Putas!" At least, that is what I thought he was saying.
I didn't want him to think this little taunt of his was having an effect on us, so I said, "Ah-ha, my little putas! The tide is of victory is turning!"
Amanda bursts out laughing- which is not at all the response I was expecting from the opposition.
"What?" Adam asked.
She smiled her "Double Witch" smile. She had Spanish 2 last year.
"Your mom just called you her little bitch!"
They laugh like lunatics. She has neatly turned the joke back on me.
I am actually amused...but I am also thinking,
Okay, Bruja del Diablo, enjoy your little moment. But just remember:
The sun don't shine on one dog's ass forever.
In other words:
El sol no puede brillar en una cola del perro por siempre!
Tuesday is the day before Wednesday.
On Wednesdays I prepare a great feast...As if this can somehow make up for my absence from home. I let the boys and Adam's girlfriend, Amanda, enjoy their repast. I lull them into sated complacency with carbohydrates and dessert. And then, when I am quite sure the young fiends are almost in a stupor...
I whip their asses at any game they put before me.
The evening culminates in a ferocious pinochle game.
Unfortunately for me, pinochle, the game I taught them to play a mere month ago, seems to be the only game they have found that affords them unbridled success.
For three straight weeks in a row they have beaten me...This includes the very first week when we were allegedly "not keeping score."
As if.
Last week Martha and I came close, ramping back from our 800 point deficit to lose by only 200 points. We were so proud.
But we were still losers.
Amanda's confidence grows with every hand. When she is particularly smug in the delivery of a trump card, Martha calls her "Witch!" Last week Amanda achieved "Double Witch!" status.
Adam, on the other hand, tries to maintain a poker face. But when he is pleased with himself, he looks at Amanda and cries "Putas!" At least, that is what I thought he was saying.
I didn't want him to think this little taunt of his was having an effect on us, so I said, "Ah-ha, my little putas! The tide is of victory is turning!"
Amanda bursts out laughing- which is not at all the response I was expecting from the opposition.
"What?" Adam asked.
She smiled her "Double Witch" smile. She had Spanish 2 last year.
"Your mom just called you her little bitch!"
They laugh like lunatics. She has neatly turned the joke back on me.
I am actually amused...but I am also thinking,
Okay, Bruja del Diablo, enjoy your little moment. But just remember:
The sun don't shine on one dog's ass forever.
In other words:
El sol no puede brillar en una cola del perro por siempre!
9/18/2006
Springboards and Milestones
My son, Adam, has a hard time with change. He was the kind of toddler you had to tell, “All right, ten minutes ‘til bedtime!” Then, “In five minutes, it’ll be bedtime.” If you didn’t do this, The Monster would emerge and pitch a cyclone of a fit all the way up the stairs to his room.
When he turned five, we had a big celebration. Chucky Cheese with his pre-school buddies, a family party with the grandparents. We did the entire dog and pony show. Later that night, when I went to tuck him in, I said, “Well, Adam, you’re a big boy now!”
His big brown eyes welled up with tears. With a wail torn straight from his heart, he turned on me, furious. “I don’t want to be a big boy! I want to stay little!”
Sigh. Who can blame the kid? I mean, really, don’t we all look back on the golden days of our childhood as the time before life choked us with responsibility and disillusionment?
So, why would I expect things to be any different now that he’s a teenager?
I am driving back to
I counter this with a saved-to-quick-text “Do it and you’re ass is grounded!” message. You’d think the kid would get it after so many attempts, but like I said, he doesn’t do well with change.
This time the text read, “I’ve decided to go to the prom after all.”
Just that. At 3:30 on the afternoon before the prom.
I mentally thank God for the daily Zits cartoon that is my source for Parenting Your Teenaged Boy education.
I text back, “What about a tux? Corsage? Tickets? Dinner reservations?”
“Marrisa’s brother’s lending me his maybe, and his shoes. We’re going with Marissa and her friends. She’s got a reservation. I’ll get one at the grocery store.”
This response merits a phone call. Good thing, too. Marissa’s brother is away at school. His tux went with him.
“I thought you didn’t want to go to the prom,” I say when I reach him.
“I didn’t but Marissa told me she won’t have anybody to talk to if I don’t take her friend, Amanda and Trey would be all by himself, too. So, I like, kinda had to do it.”
I smile. This Marissa girl is a pro.
“Graham, broke into the principal’s office and got a permission slip. Don’t worry- he forged your signature so I could buy the tickets.”
Well, thank heavens for petty criminals, I think.
“I called around. There’s one place left where I can get a tux but we have to be there by five. Okay?”
I set the land speed record, hit the driveway at 4:40, pull into the men’s shop parking lot at 4:50, and hurl myself, breathless and disheveled, upon the mercy of the shop’s manager. He looks as Adam, mentally tsk-tsking. Gives him the “Son, do you know you are putting your poor mother through hell?” look and whips out a measuring tape.
The store is one of a dying breed, catering to wealthy gentlemen of a certain age. Bright pink shirts top the manikin’s neon, madras shorts. Golfing clothes line the center aisle, while business suits skirt the edges of the tiny room.
His tux will have to be shipped in over night. The guy is down to cumber bun color when I remember some retained bit of trivia. Cumber buns are O.U.T. Only a fool would wear a cumber bun. A real man wears a vest.
“Vest!” I cry. “No cumber bun!”
Adam’s eyebrow lifts. I point soundlessly to a photograph in the catalog. A polished, debonair young man models the look I knew Adam would covet. The eyebrow slowly lowers. I get the nod.
“You won’t find any corsages left at the grocery store and it’s too late to order one from the florist. Every kid in town has already done that. What color is her dress?”
I am spitting this at him in a rapid-fire staccato of information and questioning as we double-step it into the Fresh Market next door to the now-closed men’s shop.
“I don’t know. Just get her white,” he says, clearly clueless.
“Son, your taking her to the prom, not a funeral.”
I buy forty dollars worth of flowers. “I’ll make her corsage,” I tell him.
“Why’d you buy so many?” he asks. “Don’t you just stick one or two roses on it?”
I give him a withering look. Does he not get it? This is one of life’s milestones. My baby’s first prom. Doesn’t he want it to be special? Doesn’t he want perfection?
By noon the next day, I am alone in a kitchen filled with failed corsages. Stemless rosebuds and shredded leaves lie on the floor surrounding my seat at the kitchen table. The dogs are afraid to cross the threshold into the room, even though this is where the treats are kept. They know I am a homicidal maniac.
I have researched corsages on the internet…along with every other morsel of information I can obtain about proms, etiquette and floral arrangement. The “wristlet” is in, replacing the traditional or wrist corsage. It looks like a bracelet of flowers.
I can think of about fifty-thousand places they can cram that sucker, too!
I am so mad I jump up and decide to go to the grocery store at the edge of town and throw myself on the mercy of the floral department. I am a desperate woman.
“We have one left,” the woman says. She hands me a pale pink, three tiny rose, traditional corsage. Ten bucks and I’m headed home, feeling defeated.
My entire family is waiting in the kitchen when I return.
“Mom, I looked in the refrigerator and there are corsages all over it. They’re beautiful! But I like that bracelet-looking thing the best. Why’d you make so many?”
I look at the dogs. They’re looking back at me, telepathing, “We didn’t tell him, honest!”
My friend, Martha, arrives. “Wow! These are beautiful! I thought you only needed one?”
I pull the Harris Teeter corsage out of its brown plastic bag and plop it down next to the others on the counter.
I am surprised to realize the store-bought roses look pale and anemic next to the brilliant pinks of the wrist corsage.
But I react quickly.
“Well,” I say. “You didn’t want her to think your Mom made the corsage, did you?” I pull open the clear plastic, grocery store container, discard the contents and gently place the wristlet inside. “There,” I say, tearing the price tag off. “Now she’ll never know.”
Later, as I am driving him to the house where I have been informed I may meet the other parents and take pictures, I listen as Adam talks to his buddy, Trey.
“What do you mean, you’re lost?” he says. A nervous edge colors his tone. “Well, okay. No, turn around. You went too far. All right, see you in a minute.”
We are turning onto the street where Marissa lives.
“Just pull up across the street,” he says. I know he’s waiting for Trey, shy about walking inside alone.
He’s on the cell again. “Yeah, I’m almost there,” he says. “I’ll see you in a minute.” His voice is soft, gentle. It’s Her.
A few moments later he scowls. “Turn out the headlights, Mom! You want ‘em to think we’re just out here waiting?”
Oh, stupid me! We wouldn’t want to look like that! No, never!
I cut the lights. With the next frown, I cut the engine.
Suddenly, across the street, the front door swings open. I catch a glimpse of a blonde in a bright pink dress just before Adam hisses, “Duck!”
I am scrunched down beneath the steering wheel of my car, hiding from a 17 year-old girl. Has my life really come to this?
But when I look over at Adam, see the acknowledgement of our ridiculous behavior; both of us collapse into helpless giggles. Of course, we do not get back up, but I have been transported back to my own adolescence…when hiding beneath steering wheels and giggling at clueless boys was a main form of entertainment.
Just as quickly, he is gone…my baby, slipping off into the night on the arm of a beautiful blonde.
The world widens its arms to receive them as we, the left-behind parents, watch from the open doorway.
Oscar the Merry Devil
Oscar wears Hawaiian shirts. A happy Alfred Hitchcock who sits in the parlor of the assisted living facility and farts.
When it’s safe- When we're sure he’s forgotten, we leave, tiptoeing out into the lobby.
Tonight he doesn’t go to the sofa. Instead he hones in on my table and only stops when his feet bump the back legs of the chair beside me. He gazes down into my eyes and I fall in love.
“I’ll be right there,” I say.
But I am already walking after Oscar into the darkness.
9/16/2006
Perfect Angels and Unbridled Hooliganism...
Perhaps we know New Bern a little too well...
After years of coming over from Greensboro to visit the grandparents, I would have to say my family knows New Bern inside and out. We've done the touristy tours. We've eaten in all the restaurants. We've browsed Books A Million a thousand times too many.
New Bern lost it's pizzaz for us when The Wisest Man in the Universe got sick. As Adam said over Spring Break..."Granddaddy was New Bern. Now Fairfield Harbor is just a boring place full of old people." No sailing. Tennis just isn't the same. The pool has lost it's sparkle.
We are forced into mindless consumerism...And finally...insanity, as evidenced below.
Because we wouldn't be The Wisest Man in the Universe's family if we didn't find the silver lining on this cloudy day...
We brought the picture back and showed it to him. He smiled and shook his head. Yep, we're his people all right, and there's not a damned thing he can do about it!
After years of coming over from Greensboro to visit the grandparents, I would have to say my family knows New Bern inside and out. We've done the touristy tours. We've eaten in all the restaurants. We've browsed Books A Million a thousand times too many.
New Bern lost it's pizzaz for us when The Wisest Man in the Universe got sick. As Adam said over Spring Break..."Granddaddy was New Bern. Now Fairfield Harbor is just a boring place full of old people." No sailing. Tennis just isn't the same. The pool has lost it's sparkle.
We are forced into mindless consumerism...And finally...insanity, as evidenced below.
Because we wouldn't be The Wisest Man in the Universe's family if we didn't find the silver lining on this cloudy day...
We brought the picture back and showed it to him. He smiled and shook his head. Yep, we're his people all right, and there's not a damned thing he can do about it!
9/14/2006
Last Rites and Hotrods
The Hotrod Priest was just here. He's the one who looks like he should be a vice president of a very conservative bank but also drives a Mustang GT with Hemi headers.
I say, "Hey, how'd you know we needed you today?" Because Dad is truly not doing well and I am a little glad to see him because I know Dad would be glad to see him. And I'm trying to stick to the Any-Friend-of-Dad's-is-Good-Enough-for-Me freeway.
I say, "I thought you weren't coming til Thursday?"
He smiles one of his half-smiles, showing a lack of conviction and replies, "It is Thursday."
Smart. Ass!
I try to wake Dad but I can't. So Hotrod decides to say a prayer instead. He takes hold of Dad's wrist. I bow my head and the priest begins to pray. The air-conditioner and the fan are making too much noise. I can't hear the words, but the tone is enough.
Why is it always the old familiar that triggers the lump in my throat?
Dad doesn't wake up for this. I mean, he is really zonked. Not comatose, I think, but gorked to the gills.
Hotrod says "I'll come back Friday or Saturday and do the Last Rites."
I say, "I wouldn't wait until Saturday."
He looks at Dad.
We keep the room freezing cold to help Dad breathe. The lights are off and what little light there is seems to tint the entire room a gray-blue. A cyanotic blue.
"Maybe I'll do some of the rites now," the priest says. He pats his pockets and seems to be searching for something.
"I didn't bring my holy oil. Would you happen to have any oil?"
Okay. I am truly alone in this operation. No backup. No one to get that life is getting a little bizarre around here.
I am alone with a guy who doesn't seem to have a sense of humor and another guy who is unconscious. There is screaming inside my head, or maybe it's coming from deep inside my heart, behind the big lump in my throat.
I silently scream, "Jesus, God! Help me! Don't make me lose it now! I can't cry. I can't do this! Not now!"
And She is there. Ask and ye shall receive.
The gift of the eternal smartass. The wit that shields me from every unpleasant emotion.
This Hotrod guy asks me if I have any holy oil on me and he thinks he should get a straight answer?
"No, unless you count the Italian salad dressing," I say, absolutely deadpan.
I'm beginning to think Hotrod's had Botox. Not one twitch of a smile answers me.
"Okay, well, we'll just use some Holy Water then. Could you get me some in a glass or something."
Excuse me?
If I don't have Holy Oil, what are the chances I'm gonna have Holy Water?
"Yeah, right, Father, can you hold the tail a second. I'll just be checkin' my purse, I will."
And no, I do not say this out loud.
Instead I go to the cabinet, open it and look for the heavy rocks glasses Dad likes to drink from. What I find is a stack of small, white foam cups, larger royal blue plastic cups, a Pepto Bismal medicine cup and a mug with a picture of a four-masted schooner on it. The mug's out. It's stuffed with Sweet and Low. Where are the damned tumblers? Foam and plastic just don't seem like the appropriate containers for Holy Water used for the Last Rites for my father.
And then I look down. They are on the drainboard, right where I left them this morning. My relief is palpable...Until I see the half-empty, designer water bottle sitting next to the sink. I have a new dilemma, tap or bottled?
This entire process couldn't have taken over thirty seconds but to me it felt like a slow eternity.
I return with the glass half full of tap water...because I will not give in to bourgeoisie consumerism at a time like this...and find Father Hotrod looking around the room like he's lost something.
The entire scenario is beginning to feel like an episode of "Let's Make a Deal!" Hotrod is a very controlled Monty Hall and I'm the panicked lady he's picked to approach in the studio audience. "I'll give you one thousand dollars for every crystal cherub you have in your purse!"
"Where's your father's prayer book?" the priest asks.
Okay, now maybe it's just me...but don't you think a priest visiting the sick and dying should at least come equipped with a Book of Common Prayer? I mean, come on...The plumber comes with a wrench. Am I asking too much here?
We find the prayer book on the bookcase, beneath a travel-sized plastic pouch of tissues and a bunch of junk mail. Father Hotrod gives me a look like, "You couldn't keep the clutter off the Holy Book now, Lassie?" Which I ignore.
He opens the book, standing at the foot of Dad's bed. I stand beside him, clutching the "Holy" Water, the lump in my throat once again choking me with unshed tears.
The priest prays over the glass of water, saying something like "Bless this water to thy use..." and a few other phrases that all minister's daughters ought to know and then turns to me. "I'll read this with you," he says.
With me? I'm going to read something? Out loud? You've got to be kidding me!
Is it not enough we're standing at the foot of Dad's bed with him unconscious and therefore unable to bail me out by being the appropriate grown-up? Is it not enough that this moment is only a taste of what it is going to be like to be without my best friend and mentor? That this is how every day will feel for the rest of my life? And you want me to read?
I can't possibly, but of course I do. It is what Dad would want and that is what saves me.
It is not at all like "Law and Order," where a priest rushes to the scene, kneels down and makes a hasty sign of the cross on some poor victim's forehead. No. This is a service. It is four pages long.
The priest dips his fingers into the water, murmurs more prayers, then steps forward to make the sign of the cross on Dad's forehead.
It reminds me of how Dad baptized my babies. I can seehim using his thumb to make a wet cross on each of their tiny foreheads. Like my babies, Dad seems to react a little when the priest touches his forehead. His eyebrows arc and then relax as he sleeps on.
I am okay. I can handle a moment that reminds me of birth. But when the priest makes crosses on my father's palms I feel as if a weight has landed on my shoulders. The Crucifixion. Nails. Blood. Death. I should think of his death as a rebirth but I don't. In this moment I can only think of suffering.
The priest backs up, resumes his litany of blessings and prayers, until at last the service is over. I think about my friend, Wendy, a Quaker. She says they don't pray for things or people, they hold them in the light. Holding Dad in the light seems like such a perfect option.
Father Hotrod is still standing there at the foot of the bed. He looks at me, pushes the prayer book into my hands and says, "Here are some prayers you should read to him throughout the day. I'm sure they are prayers you said with him as children."
I am absolutely certain this man has unconscious and unresolved anger issues.
Mine are totally conscious.
Furthermore, I am pissed that we had to pray out loud to God to forgive Dad's sins before he could get a pass into Heaven. Dad hasn't done anything wrong. Ever...and certainly not in the past year! It was work just to breathe. When would he have time to sin? And don't say "by thought, word and deed," cause I'm not buying it.
I have to get this forty-pound robin out of this room before I truly lose my shit.
"He was very good to Christ Church," Father Hotrod murmurs. Even I know the translation of remark.
He is saying, "Your dad was a hell of a friend to me and I am going to miss him. He really understood me, even if I do come off like a rigid ass. He saw that I was shy and frightened. He had compassion."
I say, "He's been that way all of his life."
I am still hacked off about that confession thing.
Only now I feel my father's teachings leaching through my resistant hide. In this moment, and for every moment after this, I like old Hotrod. He can't help that he's stiff and uncomfortable. He's an introvert driving a crucifixion-colored, souped-up Mustang GT, and all he needs is a bit of kindness.
I have got to get rid of him. Now!
So, I say the only thing I can think of and afterward, I know it offends his propriety.
"My dad is the best example of unconditional love on the planet," I say.
Trump that! I think, knowing he will see me as a sacrilegious and faithless. I am worshipping a false idol.
Whatever. It is enough to get Father Hotrod out the door.
I close it behind him, sink down into the chair and feel like I have been defending my helpless father from invaders. I feel besieged myself...By all the tears that refuse to stay put behind the giant lump in my throat.
I dash to the bathroom and, ever the multi-tasker, pee and cry at the same time. But even over this cascade I can hear my father call out.
I jump up, pull my low-riding jeans high enough to cover the essentials and dash, my rhinestone belt flapping in the breeze beside me. "I'm...here!" I cry, the sound breaking off in mid-phrase. He is sleeping again. He was dreaming.
I walk back to my place in the green recliner beside his bed, sink down into its overstuffed cushions.
Oh, God, I feel so alone.
Epilogue
Minutes later Dad wakes up. He's feeling worlds better, he says. I tell him the priest came and gave him last rights. "But don't worry," I say. "I wrote a blog about it!" Dad rolls his eyes. I tell him the version I gave you, only I left out the parts where I felt bad and alone. He is smiling. "So, how many hits today?" he asks.
Dad thinks I should be a columnist. I don't tell him I doubt this will make any more money than what I make as a novelist or a therapist in a nursing home. Besides, I like writing in my pajamas. It was his idea that led me to www.greensboro101.com. He thought I should find others who were doing what I do.
He also thinks I should write from my heart and not always write the funny stuff.
"I'm not saying be depressing. There's just a hint of sadness behind so much of your humor. It's poignant. Just write like you talk."
So I did a search for bloggers in Greensboro and I "found my people." The hits went up a little. And then the sweet creator of www.hoggsblog.com wrote a nice bit about me. Mr. Hoggard has made Dad very, very happy...Even if he did say Dad was already dead!
I say, "Hey, how'd you know we needed you today?" Because Dad is truly not doing well and I am a little glad to see him because I know Dad would be glad to see him. And I'm trying to stick to the Any-Friend-of-Dad's-is-Good-Enough-for-Me freeway.
I say, "I thought you weren't coming til Thursday?"
He smiles one of his half-smiles, showing a lack of conviction and replies, "It is Thursday."
Smart. Ass!
I try to wake Dad but I can't. So Hotrod decides to say a prayer instead. He takes hold of Dad's wrist. I bow my head and the priest begins to pray. The air-conditioner and the fan are making too much noise. I can't hear the words, but the tone is enough.
Why is it always the old familiar that triggers the lump in my throat?
Dad doesn't wake up for this. I mean, he is really zonked. Not comatose, I think, but gorked to the gills.
Hotrod says "I'll come back Friday or Saturday and do the Last Rites."
I say, "I wouldn't wait until Saturday."
He looks at Dad.
We keep the room freezing cold to help Dad breathe. The lights are off and what little light there is seems to tint the entire room a gray-blue. A cyanotic blue.
"Maybe I'll do some of the rites now," the priest says. He pats his pockets and seems to be searching for something.
"I didn't bring my holy oil. Would you happen to have any oil?"
Okay. I am truly alone in this operation. No backup. No one to get that life is getting a little bizarre around here.
I am alone with a guy who doesn't seem to have a sense of humor and another guy who is unconscious. There is screaming inside my head, or maybe it's coming from deep inside my heart, behind the big lump in my throat.
I silently scream, "Jesus, God! Help me! Don't make me lose it now! I can't cry. I can't do this! Not now!"
And She is there. Ask and ye shall receive.
The gift of the eternal smartass. The wit that shields me from every unpleasant emotion.
This Hotrod guy asks me if I have any holy oil on me and he thinks he should get a straight answer?
"No, unless you count the Italian salad dressing," I say, absolutely deadpan.
I'm beginning to think Hotrod's had Botox. Not one twitch of a smile answers me.
"Okay, well, we'll just use some Holy Water then. Could you get me some in a glass or something."
Excuse me?
If I don't have Holy Oil, what are the chances I'm gonna have Holy Water?
"Yeah, right, Father, can you hold the tail a second. I'll just be checkin' my purse, I will."
And no, I do not say this out loud.
Instead I go to the cabinet, open it and look for the heavy rocks glasses Dad likes to drink from. What I find is a stack of small, white foam cups, larger royal blue plastic cups, a Pepto Bismal medicine cup and a mug with a picture of a four-masted schooner on it. The mug's out. It's stuffed with Sweet and Low. Where are the damned tumblers? Foam and plastic just don't seem like the appropriate containers for Holy Water used for the Last Rites for my father.
And then I look down. They are on the drainboard, right where I left them this morning. My relief is palpable...Until I see the half-empty, designer water bottle sitting next to the sink. I have a new dilemma, tap or bottled?
This entire process couldn't have taken over thirty seconds but to me it felt like a slow eternity.
I return with the glass half full of tap water...because I will not give in to bourgeoisie consumerism at a time like this...and find Father Hotrod looking around the room like he's lost something.
The entire scenario is beginning to feel like an episode of "Let's Make a Deal!" Hotrod is a very controlled Monty Hall and I'm the panicked lady he's picked to approach in the studio audience. "I'll give you one thousand dollars for every crystal cherub you have in your purse!"
"Where's your father's prayer book?" the priest asks.
Okay, now maybe it's just me...but don't you think a priest visiting the sick and dying should at least come equipped with a Book of Common Prayer? I mean, come on...The plumber comes with a wrench. Am I asking too much here?
We find the prayer book on the bookcase, beneath a travel-sized plastic pouch of tissues and a bunch of junk mail. Father Hotrod gives me a look like, "You couldn't keep the clutter off the Holy Book now, Lassie?" Which I ignore.
He opens the book, standing at the foot of Dad's bed. I stand beside him, clutching the "Holy" Water, the lump in my throat once again choking me with unshed tears.
The priest prays over the glass of water, saying something like "Bless this water to thy use..." and a few other phrases that all minister's daughters ought to know and then turns to me. "I'll read this with you," he says.
With me? I'm going to read something? Out loud? You've got to be kidding me!
Is it not enough we're standing at the foot of Dad's bed with him unconscious and therefore unable to bail me out by being the appropriate grown-up? Is it not enough that this moment is only a taste of what it is going to be like to be without my best friend and mentor? That this is how every day will feel for the rest of my life? And you want me to read?
I can't possibly, but of course I do. It is what Dad would want and that is what saves me.
It is not at all like "Law and Order," where a priest rushes to the scene, kneels down and makes a hasty sign of the cross on some poor victim's forehead. No. This is a service. It is four pages long.
The priest dips his fingers into the water, murmurs more prayers, then steps forward to make the sign of the cross on Dad's forehead.
It reminds me of how Dad baptized my babies. I can seehim using his thumb to make a wet cross on each of their tiny foreheads. Like my babies, Dad seems to react a little when the priest touches his forehead. His eyebrows arc and then relax as he sleeps on.
I am okay. I can handle a moment that reminds me of birth. But when the priest makes crosses on my father's palms I feel as if a weight has landed on my shoulders. The Crucifixion. Nails. Blood. Death. I should think of his death as a rebirth but I don't. In this moment I can only think of suffering.
The priest backs up, resumes his litany of blessings and prayers, until at last the service is over. I think about my friend, Wendy, a Quaker. She says they don't pray for things or people, they hold them in the light. Holding Dad in the light seems like such a perfect option.
Father Hotrod is still standing there at the foot of the bed. He looks at me, pushes the prayer book into my hands and says, "Here are some prayers you should read to him throughout the day. I'm sure they are prayers you said with him as children."
I am absolutely certain this man has unconscious and unresolved anger issues.
Mine are totally conscious.
Furthermore, I am pissed that we had to pray out loud to God to forgive Dad's sins before he could get a pass into Heaven. Dad hasn't done anything wrong. Ever...and certainly not in the past year! It was work just to breathe. When would he have time to sin? And don't say "by thought, word and deed," cause I'm not buying it.
I have to get this forty-pound robin out of this room before I truly lose my shit.
"He was very good to Christ Church," Father Hotrod murmurs. Even I know the translation of remark.
He is saying, "Your dad was a hell of a friend to me and I am going to miss him. He really understood me, even if I do come off like a rigid ass. He saw that I was shy and frightened. He had compassion."
I say, "He's been that way all of his life."
I am still hacked off about that confession thing.
Only now I feel my father's teachings leaching through my resistant hide. In this moment, and for every moment after this, I like old Hotrod. He can't help that he's stiff and uncomfortable. He's an introvert driving a crucifixion-colored, souped-up Mustang GT, and all he needs is a bit of kindness.
I have got to get rid of him. Now!
So, I say the only thing I can think of and afterward, I know it offends his propriety.
"My dad is the best example of unconditional love on the planet," I say.
Trump that! I think, knowing he will see me as a sacrilegious and faithless. I am worshipping a false idol.
Whatever. It is enough to get Father Hotrod out the door.
I close it behind him, sink down into the chair and feel like I have been defending my helpless father from invaders. I feel besieged myself...By all the tears that refuse to stay put behind the giant lump in my throat.
I dash to the bathroom and, ever the multi-tasker, pee and cry at the same time. But even over this cascade I can hear my father call out.
I jump up, pull my low-riding jeans high enough to cover the essentials and dash, my rhinestone belt flapping in the breeze beside me. "I'm...here!" I cry, the sound breaking off in mid-phrase. He is sleeping again. He was dreaming.
I walk back to my place in the green recliner beside his bed, sink down into its overstuffed cushions.
Oh, God, I feel so alone.
Epilogue
Minutes later Dad wakes up. He's feeling worlds better, he says. I tell him the priest came and gave him last rights. "But don't worry," I say. "I wrote a blog about it!" Dad rolls his eyes. I tell him the version I gave you, only I left out the parts where I felt bad and alone. He is smiling. "So, how many hits today?" he asks.
Dad thinks I should be a columnist. I don't tell him I doubt this will make any more money than what I make as a novelist or a therapist in a nursing home. Besides, I like writing in my pajamas. It was his idea that led me to www.greensboro101.com. He thought I should find others who were doing what I do.
He also thinks I should write from my heart and not always write the funny stuff.
"I'm not saying be depressing. There's just a hint of sadness behind so much of your humor. It's poignant. Just write like you talk."
So I did a search for bloggers in Greensboro and I "found my people." The hits went up a little. And then the sweet creator of www.hoggsblog.com wrote a nice bit about me. Mr. Hoggard has made Dad very, very happy...Even if he did say Dad was already dead!
Feelings...Nothing More Than...Damned Men!
Men! When will they ever "get in touch with" their damned feelings?!
The Wisest Man in the Universe (you know, Dad) said this day would come.
"Those boys of yours will have a hell of a time finding wives," he said. "They won't be able to find one that measures up to their mother, and that's what they'll be looking for, you know."
I think he was alluding to my compulsion to prove myself on the IronMom circuit...You know, the marathon competition where you bake chocolate chip cookies every day, serve meals made from food products that are not pre-packaged, chauffeur the kids to school and soccer practice, all while serving as mentor, guide and concierge.
Well, the day has arrived. Adam has his first real, true girlfriend...and they are so disgustingly in looooove...They call each other "My Pooh."
Someone, quick, gag me!
I was prepared to hate her. I mean, for pity's sake, she's a blonde...while also managing to be super smart, wicked funny, and undaunted by adults and ferocious snapping schnauzers.
What's not to love?
All right, I'll tell you what's not to love...Amanda got my rock-faced, iron-willed son to express his true emotions! Do you realize I have been trying to do this for lo these seventeen, almost eighteen years and have yet to crack the little bastard?!
When Adam was seven, the dentist said he wanted to pull the rest of Adam's baby teeth. He wanted to allow the adult teeth space to grow in. Well, my boy wasn't having that, not one bit of it! He pitched a little fit and as we drove home in the van told me he was not going to have his teeth pulled.
I glanced at him in the rearview mirror and saw stone. No contorted kid grimace. Stone.
I know the kid is terrified. This dentist wants to give him a cup of juice with knock-out drops in it a la Jonestown. Then, while Adam's sleeping, the guy intends to commit mayhem inside the kid's mouth. There will be blood. There will be pain. There will be ice cream at the end of the rainbow, I announce.
Stone. "I'm not doing it!"
I sigh. It's one of those "teachable moments."
I pull into the driveway, unbuckle my seatbelt and prepare to get to the root of the problem. Adam needs to face his fear. Only then will he feel less overwhelmed and see the logic of the situation.
I walk back to the rear captain's chair and face down my surly child. "Let's talk about this, honey," I say in my best therapist-y tone. "Are you scared?"
"No," he says. "I'm just not doing it, that's all!"
"Well, now, honey, the dentist is trying to make room for your big teeth. If the little baby ones are still stuck in place, the big ones will have to come in around them. They'll be crooked."
No reaction...Just a steely-eyed glare.
I try and I try to get the kid to talk about it, but no. We are trapped in the stuffy van, locked in mortal combat, daring the other to blink first.
And that was my undoing.
Instead of thinking it through. Instead of giving it a little time. Instead of following the tiny voice in my gut that said...Hey, there's something wrong with a dentist who routinely gives little kids cups of Kool-Aid in the waiting room and then waits for them to drop like flies into the waiting attendant's arms...Maybe it's okay to keep your baby teeth. Maybe that's why God invented orthodontics... I just bulldoze on through and finally lose control of the one little shred of dignity I have left.
I find myself towering over my young son, my arms gripping each side of his chair, looking the seven-year-old mountain right in the eyes.
"You have to tell me what you're feeling!" I demand. "I'm a therapist. This is what I do for a living!"
There is one long moment of complete and total silence. My entire parental life flashes before my eyes, culminating with the realization that I have just reached my all-time parenting low.
Our eyes remain locked together but our souls react as one...We both bust out laughing! Gut-holding, tear-shedding, loud, hiccuping gasps of laughter.
I collapse onto the floor beside him, pull him into my arms and hug him tight.
"You know what?" I say. "You're right. If you don't want to have your baby teeth pulled, we won't do it. We already know you're gonna have braces. What's a few more months?"
His little body relaxes against me and I am forgiven.
But Stoneface doesn't crack like this often.
Many's the big battle where we've gone head-to-head, toe-to-toe, forcing me to bully my way into doing what is hard but also right. Many's the time I've seen the anger, hurt or fear building up like a thundercloud only to drift away without expression.
I have learned to ride it out with him. To sit by his side in silence until he is ready...or not. To bear witness to his pain instead of trying to erase it with denial or easy kindnesses.
We have worked out a way to work through the feelings...Even if he doesn't want to express them like I do.
But now SHE is on the scene. There is nothing SHE can't conquer.
My father is mentor, best friend, and true companion to both my boys. He has been a constant safe harbor in their lives. When their parents fail them, Grandaddy will not.
Adam brought Amanda to meet Grandaddy a few weeks ago...And I knew it was to receive his blessing upon this tender, fragile shoot of new love.
Of course, The Wisest Man in the Known Universe is the font of all unconditional love and approval, so the girl had a cakewalk to his okay.
She liked him, likes him, and he likes her.
In the past year, I have watched my boys skate slowly around the edges of their grandfather's impending departure. I have seen them blow off the opportunities he has given them to say goodbye, or to talk about his leaving. I have watched their two little stone faces and it has killed me to know what agony must lie just beneath the surface.
But SHE tapped the keg.
When Adam told her he might need to leave school for New Bern because Grandaddy was probably dying, SHE lost it. She cried and wailed and showed every single piece of her anguish to him...
And in doing so turned the magic key and released his own imprisoned pain.
He came home, slightly after curfew, eyes swollen, nose plugged and collapsed at the foot of my bed amongst the dogs and my friend, Martha who is Vice Mom in my absence.
And he talked about his feelings.
Just a little bit.
When I called minutes later I said, "How you doin'?"
"Fine."
"You don't sound fine," I said.
"It's a cold. I'm catching a cold."
"Asshole," I said...my pet name for him.
"Turd," he said, chuckling- then "Amanda was crying about Grandaddy and when I saw her, I just lost it..."
Thank you, Amanda. Thank you for giving him the gift of expressing what he feels inside and then showing him it's okay to let others know. Thank you for being his first gentle love.
And don't forget, little girl...I can still whip your ass at Tribond, so you're not the Queen yet!
The Wisest Man in the Universe (you know, Dad) said this day would come.
"Those boys of yours will have a hell of a time finding wives," he said. "They won't be able to find one that measures up to their mother, and that's what they'll be looking for, you know."
I think he was alluding to my compulsion to prove myself on the IronMom circuit...You know, the marathon competition where you bake chocolate chip cookies every day, serve meals made from food products that are not pre-packaged, chauffeur the kids to school and soccer practice, all while serving as mentor, guide and concierge.
Well, the day has arrived. Adam has his first real, true girlfriend...and they are so disgustingly in looooove...They call each other "My Pooh."
Someone, quick, gag me!
I was prepared to hate her. I mean, for pity's sake, she's a blonde...while also managing to be super smart, wicked funny, and undaunted by adults and ferocious snapping schnauzers.
What's not to love?
All right, I'll tell you what's not to love...Amanda got my rock-faced, iron-willed son to express his true emotions! Do you realize I have been trying to do this for lo these seventeen, almost eighteen years and have yet to crack the little bastard?!
When Adam was seven, the dentist said he wanted to pull the rest of Adam's baby teeth. He wanted to allow the adult teeth space to grow in. Well, my boy wasn't having that, not one bit of it! He pitched a little fit and as we drove home in the van told me he was not going to have his teeth pulled.
I glanced at him in the rearview mirror and saw stone. No contorted kid grimace. Stone.
I know the kid is terrified. This dentist wants to give him a cup of juice with knock-out drops in it a la Jonestown. Then, while Adam's sleeping, the guy intends to commit mayhem inside the kid's mouth. There will be blood. There will be pain. There will be ice cream at the end of the rainbow, I announce.
Stone. "I'm not doing it!"
I sigh. It's one of those "teachable moments."
I pull into the driveway, unbuckle my seatbelt and prepare to get to the root of the problem. Adam needs to face his fear. Only then will he feel less overwhelmed and see the logic of the situation.
I walk back to the rear captain's chair and face down my surly child. "Let's talk about this, honey," I say in my best therapist-y tone. "Are you scared?"
"No," he says. "I'm just not doing it, that's all!"
"Well, now, honey, the dentist is trying to make room for your big teeth. If the little baby ones are still stuck in place, the big ones will have to come in around them. They'll be crooked."
No reaction...Just a steely-eyed glare.
I try and I try to get the kid to talk about it, but no. We are trapped in the stuffy van, locked in mortal combat, daring the other to blink first.
And that was my undoing.
Instead of thinking it through. Instead of giving it a little time. Instead of following the tiny voice in my gut that said...Hey, there's something wrong with a dentist who routinely gives little kids cups of Kool-Aid in the waiting room and then waits for them to drop like flies into the waiting attendant's arms...Maybe it's okay to keep your baby teeth. Maybe that's why God invented orthodontics... I just bulldoze on through and finally lose control of the one little shred of dignity I have left.
I find myself towering over my young son, my arms gripping each side of his chair, looking the seven-year-old mountain right in the eyes.
"You have to tell me what you're feeling!" I demand. "I'm a therapist. This is what I do for a living!"
There is one long moment of complete and total silence. My entire parental life flashes before my eyes, culminating with the realization that I have just reached my all-time parenting low.
Our eyes remain locked together but our souls react as one...We both bust out laughing! Gut-holding, tear-shedding, loud, hiccuping gasps of laughter.
I collapse onto the floor beside him, pull him into my arms and hug him tight.
"You know what?" I say. "You're right. If you don't want to have your baby teeth pulled, we won't do it. We already know you're gonna have braces. What's a few more months?"
His little body relaxes against me and I am forgiven.
But Stoneface doesn't crack like this often.
Many's the big battle where we've gone head-to-head, toe-to-toe, forcing me to bully my way into doing what is hard but also right. Many's the time I've seen the anger, hurt or fear building up like a thundercloud only to drift away without expression.
I have learned to ride it out with him. To sit by his side in silence until he is ready...or not. To bear witness to his pain instead of trying to erase it with denial or easy kindnesses.
We have worked out a way to work through the feelings...Even if he doesn't want to express them like I do.
But now SHE is on the scene. There is nothing SHE can't conquer.
My father is mentor, best friend, and true companion to both my boys. He has been a constant safe harbor in their lives. When their parents fail them, Grandaddy will not.
Adam brought Amanda to meet Grandaddy a few weeks ago...And I knew it was to receive his blessing upon this tender, fragile shoot of new love.
Of course, The Wisest Man in the Known Universe is the font of all unconditional love and approval, so the girl had a cakewalk to his okay.
She liked him, likes him, and he likes her.
In the past year, I have watched my boys skate slowly around the edges of their grandfather's impending departure. I have seen them blow off the opportunities he has given them to say goodbye, or to talk about his leaving. I have watched their two little stone faces and it has killed me to know what agony must lie just beneath the surface.
But SHE tapped the keg.
When Adam told her he might need to leave school for New Bern because Grandaddy was probably dying, SHE lost it. She cried and wailed and showed every single piece of her anguish to him...
And in doing so turned the magic key and released his own imprisoned pain.
He came home, slightly after curfew, eyes swollen, nose plugged and collapsed at the foot of my bed amongst the dogs and my friend, Martha who is Vice Mom in my absence.
And he talked about his feelings.
Just a little bit.
When I called minutes later I said, "How you doin'?"
"Fine."
"You don't sound fine," I said.
"It's a cold. I'm catching a cold."
"Asshole," I said...my pet name for him.
"Turd," he said, chuckling- then "Amanda was crying about Grandaddy and when I saw her, I just lost it..."
Thank you, Amanda. Thank you for giving him the gift of expressing what he feels inside and then showing him it's okay to let others know. Thank you for being his first gentle love.
And don't forget, little girl...I can still whip your ass at Tribond, so you're not the Queen yet!
9/13/2006
Thanking the Sponsors
Dad had only been sleeping for a short while when he opened his eyes, rose slightly onto one elbow and said, "I think we've reached the end of what we can do."
I had been doing nursing home paperwork. Reams of paper were littered at my feet in scattered, messy piles. I had been swearing under my breath about miscodes and missed faxes. But the tone of his voice, the frightened child-like look on his face stopped all that.
When these episodes happen and the world is abruptly upside down, I plaster a set, everything-is-copasetic half-smile onto my face. My brain goes into hyperdrive, whirring through the emergency To-Do list.
Is the oxygen line kinked? No. Okay, take a slow, shallow breath.
Does he need Ativan? No. We did that an hour ago.
Morphine? I gave him a shot twenty minutes ago. .75ml.
It's not working.
Check the line again...check the indicator on the oxygen machine...It's at the appropriate 7 lpm. Air blasts out of the cannula against my finger.
I angle the fan to blow cool air on him, as instructed by his hospice nurse, Sharon. In case of emergency, do these things..."It probably won't help," she'd said. "It's more psychological than anything. So he won't panic."
I've done everything. Worked my way through The List. All I have left is my calm, We're-good-Big-Mon attitude.
"Would you like me to..."
"Call Sharon," he says.
She is right in the building. She is walking through the hallway and I am pathetic in my relief to hear her say this.
She arrives, hooking up the pulse oximeter, listening to the tiny shard of lung he has left, feeling the pulses in his extremities.
I look at his feet. They are not blue, not like she said they'd begin to be when his body shut down. They are waxen and pale.
Her face has not changed but I can read her. She is worried.
She gives him another hefty dose of morphine. "This is going to gork you a little," she says. "But I figure better to gork you than to have you feeling distressed."
I am sitting at the foot of his bed, watching. A lump has risen in my throat and it is all that keeps my sanity and grief from blowing my head off. I cannot speak, I think. But somehow when I need to, I still manage.
"He said he thought we'd done all we could do for his breathlessness," I say softly.
Sharon looks to him for confirmation.
His eyes are wide. He is trying to appear calm and casual about this, but I see he is scared. He is protecting me.
"Aw, Sharon," he says. "You've done such a good job, you really have, but I think it's time. I'm ready to go."
She nods, just like we've all been trained to do in care-taker school but her cheeks redden. Her eyes brighten suspiciously. She is fighting it.
"Well, nine times out of ten, when my patients say 'This is it,' it usually is," she tells him calmly. "You've been up and down before though...but this time it seems like a slower decline. I think maybe you're right. I think this is it."
She is writing something in her notes and I know what it is, confirmed later when her back is turned and I read her notes, "Pt. states he is ready to go."
I look at the pulse oximeter. Heart rate is down from 90 to 80. O2 sats are up to 98. She looks too. "Feeling better?" she asks. "Your sats were in the 70s when I came in but they're back up now."
Dad nods, but he's not having any of it. "Now, I want you to remember something we talked about," he says to her. My father is giving the nurse instructions! Is this not just like him? To control his very death by monitoring his caregivers?
"I don't want the actual process of my death to be traumatizing to Elise, Nancy or Becky."
Sharon appears to miss his meaning, asks instead, "What do you want me to do, smack 'em? I might get away with slapping Becky, but this one," she says nodding in my direction. "I've seen her get mad. She might hurt me!"
I smile. "True that," I say.
"You know," he says, a bulldog clinging to the bone. "They've got to work and this is taking up so much time and..."
My voice returns, bringing the wit I hold like a shield every time I am scared.
"So, what're you saying, Dad? You're gonna be the martyr and die to make our lives easier? So, like, you'll leave me with the big guilt trip? I caused my father's death because he was inconvenient.." I let the word inconvenient break up into stretchy syllables...in-connn-veee-nee-ent, just like Dana Carvey doing The Church Lady on Saturday Night Live. "Can you say, Satan?" I think.
He smiles, looks at Sharon. "Or else I might die just to get away from this one!"
He says, "It's been a good ride but it's time."
And then he lays back against the pillows, like, okay, he's cued the cameras and "Action!"
Sharon squats down beside the bed, pats his arm and smiles gently.
"Well, you know, if you had brain cancer I'd say, yeah, okay, you're going today. But you've got a lung disease and they're different. It's gonna take a little while. It's not going to be today."
Oh he is pissed then!
His furry, white eyebrows arch. "What do you mean? I said I'm ready to go!"
She tells him he will probably stabilize on morphine very 4 hours instead of every six. That later it will go to three hours apart, then two. "And then you'll be in this drifty, dreamy kind of place. You'll wake up every now and then and see our ugly faces and think what am I still doing here? And then you'll just go to sleep and not wake up."
She says this like we're going to our first day of middle school, or to McDonalds, or to the bank to open our first account. She says this as if it were normal. Which in reality, it is.
But he is still ticked off about it. "Well," he huffs. "I guess I'm not in charge of that either, huh?!"
She lets it go. She says, "Besides, next week, I'll be down to only five patients. I'll have all the time in the world to hang around here. You won't be able to get rid of me."
I say, "Dad, even if there were some cataclysmic event and Sharon wasn't here and you were in distress, I am trained. I can handle this. You will not traumatize me...even if you seize up and foam at the mouth!"
But I am his girl, so he isn't buying this either.
"She can do it, you know," Sharon adds. "Look, she's got the fan going."
Dad scowls at the fan, realizing it has never before been turned on. "Is that what that was for?" he asks, looking from her face to mine.
We nod.
Minutes later he is stable enough for Sharon to leave. I know, down the hall, another patient is dying. I overheard her talking. Dad lays back, his eyes closed but not sleeping.
I think I need to call Becky. I need to call the priest. If Dad wants to die today, he might do it just to show Sharon up.
But I don't get a chance to call the priest. He's standing in the doorway, like a God-ordered pizza...which totally freaks me out.
He is tall, quite distinguished with his silver-shot hair. At first I thought he had a stick up his ass, but in the same breath I realized a fellow introvert. He is shy, trying to come off as quasi-regal, imposing, anything but shy.
I am so freaked that he has come that I say, "I was just going to call you!" I usher him in, spin around and mouth "it's not a good day," and say louder, "I've got to make a call. I'll be right back."
I make a mad dash for the parking lot, praying I will make it before I lose my shit and cry like a scared baby. I sink down beside the car and call my sister, leave her a voice mail, then text everyone else because I need the lump in my throat. I can't lose it now.
God makes me feel guilty...or I allow Her to...I know the priest will do communion. I know Dad will want me there, especially if he intends for it to be the last one.
So I drag-ass back inside. The receptionist is standing in the foyer, eyes wide behind her red-framed glasses. "A priest was looking for you!" she says...like the guy is God incarnate.
I nod. "Yeah, I figured. I was trying to get my act together before I had to face him," I say.
She giggles and nods. "Yeah, I know what that's like," she says.
I smile to myself. Well, well, well...does she have secrets or what?
They are in the middle of the prayer of Confession when I return. I pick up, staring at the leaflet, hearing the words come out with rote precision..."We have sinned against thee by thought, word and deed."
Well, I think, that's certainly true for me, I think. But what has Dad ever done to deserve this, to apologize for?
We do the deed. The thin wafer sticks like toilet paper to my dry tongue. The wine is only enough to make the wretched thing slide down my throat.
And then, God develops a sense of humor.
The priest goes to rinse out the chalice, trips over the trash basket, and before he can stop himself says, "Oh, I kicked the bucket!"
I adore this.
Dad is doing the same "Thank you for all you've done" routine he did with Sharon and me. The priest says, "I'll see you Thursday." He says it like three times, despite Dad's non-verbal "Yeah, but I might not be here" look. Finally Dad gives up and just nods. "See you Thursday," he says.
Kind of like..."Over my dead body!"
A few moments later I am in the parking lot...in time to see the priest drive away in a souped up, maroon Mustang GT. "BlaaaaVoom!" The exhaust manifold throbs as he cuts out on to the street, roaring up the road like a teenaged hot-rodder.
I walk back in, pause at the foot of the bed and say, "I suppose you know about the maroon Mustang GT, with, I think dual Hemi headers?"
Dad nods.
"Well, I say, I guess he has to blow it out somehow!"
Dad nods. He's got a little, been-there-done-that-t-shirt smile working the corners of his lips. "And he's got a lot to blow, too!" my father says.
The afternoon wears on. Dad's feeling better and better. I say, "Listen, I can understand if you're tired and you want to go on. I can respect that, Dad. But don't die because you think we're burdened. Don't you get it yet? We've waited all our lives to give back. We are the same children who used to fight for the opportunity to ride up to the hospital with you while you visited the sick, just to have the twenty minutes on either side of the two hour wait. You are giving me the greatest gift in the world by letting me be here with you. But if you want to go because you don't want to be here anymore, don't worry. I'll be fine."
I am squatting down beside him and he is rubbing circles across my back. "I know you will," he says. He tells me how great my boys are. I tell him it's because he's been in their lives. I tell him every single time I can off-hand remember him saying something momentous...like "You can't grow up to be like your mother, you have half my DNA."
It is tender and sweet.
I say, "How are you feeling? I want to talk about how you are."
He tries to tell me about how he's breathing much better but I cut him off. "No, Dad. How are you feel-ing, inside, emotionally. Are you scared?"
The eyebrows go up, he looks into my face. "Well, no. Not scared. A little apprehensive maybe. Because I've never...well, you know."
And then he says, "But it's been a great life. It's been so full. What a ride!"
I tell him about this sign I saw in a catalog that says something about not showing up at Heaven's gates with a well-preserved body. Instead showing up battered, worn out, out of gas, coasting on empty and totally used up.
We agree this is the way to show up.
I stay. I watch over him until late that night before I am able to move from my spot in the chair by his side.
I leave. I drive out across the bridge studying the brilliant full moon, half-hidden by clouds. The waters of the Trent sparkle and shimmer as the moon lights up a path to the Milky Way.
I think about my father and his full life.
At some point I realize the lump in my throat is gone. The feelings sealed safely away.
And only when I replay the day here on cyber-paper do the tears begin to fall.
I had been doing nursing home paperwork. Reams of paper were littered at my feet in scattered, messy piles. I had been swearing under my breath about miscodes and missed faxes. But the tone of his voice, the frightened child-like look on his face stopped all that.
When these episodes happen and the world is abruptly upside down, I plaster a set, everything-is-copasetic half-smile onto my face. My brain goes into hyperdrive, whirring through the emergency To-Do list.
Is the oxygen line kinked? No. Okay, take a slow, shallow breath.
Does he need Ativan? No. We did that an hour ago.
Morphine? I gave him a shot twenty minutes ago. .75ml.
It's not working.
Check the line again...check the indicator on the oxygen machine...It's at the appropriate 7 lpm. Air blasts out of the cannula against my finger.
I angle the fan to blow cool air on him, as instructed by his hospice nurse, Sharon. In case of emergency, do these things..."It probably won't help," she'd said. "It's more psychological than anything. So he won't panic."
I've done everything. Worked my way through The List. All I have left is my calm, We're-good-Big-Mon attitude.
"Would you like me to..."
"Call Sharon," he says.
She is right in the building. She is walking through the hallway and I am pathetic in my relief to hear her say this.
She arrives, hooking up the pulse oximeter, listening to the tiny shard of lung he has left, feeling the pulses in his extremities.
I look at his feet. They are not blue, not like she said they'd begin to be when his body shut down. They are waxen and pale.
Her face has not changed but I can read her. She is worried.
She gives him another hefty dose of morphine. "This is going to gork you a little," she says. "But I figure better to gork you than to have you feeling distressed."
I am sitting at the foot of his bed, watching. A lump has risen in my throat and it is all that keeps my sanity and grief from blowing my head off. I cannot speak, I think. But somehow when I need to, I still manage.
"He said he thought we'd done all we could do for his breathlessness," I say softly.
Sharon looks to him for confirmation.
His eyes are wide. He is trying to appear calm and casual about this, but I see he is scared. He is protecting me.
"Aw, Sharon," he says. "You've done such a good job, you really have, but I think it's time. I'm ready to go."
She nods, just like we've all been trained to do in care-taker school but her cheeks redden. Her eyes brighten suspiciously. She is fighting it.
"Well, nine times out of ten, when my patients say 'This is it,' it usually is," she tells him calmly. "You've been up and down before though...but this time it seems like a slower decline. I think maybe you're right. I think this is it."
She is writing something in her notes and I know what it is, confirmed later when her back is turned and I read her notes, "Pt. states he is ready to go."
I look at the pulse oximeter. Heart rate is down from 90 to 80. O2 sats are up to 98. She looks too. "Feeling better?" she asks. "Your sats were in the 70s when I came in but they're back up now."
Dad nods, but he's not having any of it. "Now, I want you to remember something we talked about," he says to her. My father is giving the nurse instructions! Is this not just like him? To control his very death by monitoring his caregivers?
"I don't want the actual process of my death to be traumatizing to Elise, Nancy or Becky."
Sharon appears to miss his meaning, asks instead, "What do you want me to do, smack 'em? I might get away with slapping Becky, but this one," she says nodding in my direction. "I've seen her get mad. She might hurt me!"
I smile. "True that," I say.
"You know," he says, a bulldog clinging to the bone. "They've got to work and this is taking up so much time and..."
My voice returns, bringing the wit I hold like a shield every time I am scared.
"So, what're you saying, Dad? You're gonna be the martyr and die to make our lives easier? So, like, you'll leave me with the big guilt trip? I caused my father's death because he was inconvenient.." I let the word inconvenient break up into stretchy syllables...in-connn-veee-nee-ent, just like Dana Carvey doing The Church Lady on Saturday Night Live. "Can you say, Satan?" I think.
He smiles, looks at Sharon. "Or else I might die just to get away from this one!"
He says, "It's been a good ride but it's time."
And then he lays back against the pillows, like, okay, he's cued the cameras and "Action!"
Sharon squats down beside the bed, pats his arm and smiles gently.
"Well, you know, if you had brain cancer I'd say, yeah, okay, you're going today. But you've got a lung disease and they're different. It's gonna take a little while. It's not going to be today."
Oh he is pissed then!
His furry, white eyebrows arch. "What do you mean? I said I'm ready to go!"
She tells him he will probably stabilize on morphine very 4 hours instead of every six. That later it will go to three hours apart, then two. "And then you'll be in this drifty, dreamy kind of place. You'll wake up every now and then and see our ugly faces and think what am I still doing here? And then you'll just go to sleep and not wake up."
She says this like we're going to our first day of middle school, or to McDonalds, or to the bank to open our first account. She says this as if it were normal. Which in reality, it is.
But he is still ticked off about it. "Well," he huffs. "I guess I'm not in charge of that either, huh?!"
She lets it go. She says, "Besides, next week, I'll be down to only five patients. I'll have all the time in the world to hang around here. You won't be able to get rid of me."
I say, "Dad, even if there were some cataclysmic event and Sharon wasn't here and you were in distress, I am trained. I can handle this. You will not traumatize me...even if you seize up and foam at the mouth!"
But I am his girl, so he isn't buying this either.
"She can do it, you know," Sharon adds. "Look, she's got the fan going."
Dad scowls at the fan, realizing it has never before been turned on. "Is that what that was for?" he asks, looking from her face to mine.
We nod.
Minutes later he is stable enough for Sharon to leave. I know, down the hall, another patient is dying. I overheard her talking. Dad lays back, his eyes closed but not sleeping.
I think I need to call Becky. I need to call the priest. If Dad wants to die today, he might do it just to show Sharon up.
But I don't get a chance to call the priest. He's standing in the doorway, like a God-ordered pizza...which totally freaks me out.
He is tall, quite distinguished with his silver-shot hair. At first I thought he had a stick up his ass, but in the same breath I realized a fellow introvert. He is shy, trying to come off as quasi-regal, imposing, anything but shy.
I am so freaked that he has come that I say, "I was just going to call you!" I usher him in, spin around and mouth "it's not a good day," and say louder, "I've got to make a call. I'll be right back."
I make a mad dash for the parking lot, praying I will make it before I lose my shit and cry like a scared baby. I sink down beside the car and call my sister, leave her a voice mail, then text everyone else because I need the lump in my throat. I can't lose it now.
God makes me feel guilty...or I allow Her to...I know the priest will do communion. I know Dad will want me there, especially if he intends for it to be the last one.
So I drag-ass back inside. The receptionist is standing in the foyer, eyes wide behind her red-framed glasses. "A priest was looking for you!" she says...like the guy is God incarnate.
I nod. "Yeah, I figured. I was trying to get my act together before I had to face him," I say.
She giggles and nods. "Yeah, I know what that's like," she says.
I smile to myself. Well, well, well...does she have secrets or what?
They are in the middle of the prayer of Confession when I return. I pick up, staring at the leaflet, hearing the words come out with rote precision..."We have sinned against thee by thought, word and deed."
Well, I think, that's certainly true for me, I think. But what has Dad ever done to deserve this, to apologize for?
We do the deed. The thin wafer sticks like toilet paper to my dry tongue. The wine is only enough to make the wretched thing slide down my throat.
And then, God develops a sense of humor.
The priest goes to rinse out the chalice, trips over the trash basket, and before he can stop himself says, "Oh, I kicked the bucket!"
I adore this.
Dad is doing the same "Thank you for all you've done" routine he did with Sharon and me. The priest says, "I'll see you Thursday." He says it like three times, despite Dad's non-verbal "Yeah, but I might not be here" look. Finally Dad gives up and just nods. "See you Thursday," he says.
Kind of like..."Over my dead body!"
A few moments later I am in the parking lot...in time to see the priest drive away in a souped up, maroon Mustang GT. "BlaaaaVoom!" The exhaust manifold throbs as he cuts out on to the street, roaring up the road like a teenaged hot-rodder.
I walk back in, pause at the foot of the bed and say, "I suppose you know about the maroon Mustang GT, with, I think dual Hemi headers?"
Dad nods.
"Well, I say, I guess he has to blow it out somehow!"
Dad nods. He's got a little, been-there-done-that-t-shirt smile working the corners of his lips. "And he's got a lot to blow, too!" my father says.
The afternoon wears on. Dad's feeling better and better. I say, "Listen, I can understand if you're tired and you want to go on. I can respect that, Dad. But don't die because you think we're burdened. Don't you get it yet? We've waited all our lives to give back. We are the same children who used to fight for the opportunity to ride up to the hospital with you while you visited the sick, just to have the twenty minutes on either side of the two hour wait. You are giving me the greatest gift in the world by letting me be here with you. But if you want to go because you don't want to be here anymore, don't worry. I'll be fine."
I am squatting down beside him and he is rubbing circles across my back. "I know you will," he says. He tells me how great my boys are. I tell him it's because he's been in their lives. I tell him every single time I can off-hand remember him saying something momentous...like "You can't grow up to be like your mother, you have half my DNA."
It is tender and sweet.
I say, "How are you feeling? I want to talk about how you are."
He tries to tell me about how he's breathing much better but I cut him off. "No, Dad. How are you feel-ing, inside, emotionally. Are you scared?"
The eyebrows go up, he looks into my face. "Well, no. Not scared. A little apprehensive maybe. Because I've never...well, you know."
And then he says, "But it's been a great life. It's been so full. What a ride!"
I tell him about this sign I saw in a catalog that says something about not showing up at Heaven's gates with a well-preserved body. Instead showing up battered, worn out, out of gas, coasting on empty and totally used up.
We agree this is the way to show up.
I stay. I watch over him until late that night before I am able to move from my spot in the chair by his side.
I leave. I drive out across the bridge studying the brilliant full moon, half-hidden by clouds. The waters of the Trent sparkle and shimmer as the moon lights up a path to the Milky Way.
I think about my father and his full life.
At some point I realize the lump in my throat is gone. The feelings sealed safely away.
And only when I replay the day here on cyber-paper do the tears begin to fall.
9/12/2006
What It All Comes Down To...
My attic is full of crap...
Clothes we all know I'll never wear again. Baby pajamas that in some delusional state I saved thinking one day my boys might want to dress their own children in them...But truthfully, I I saved them because I didn't want to let go of my babies, or the scent that reminded me of those fleeting, fragile moments.
Of course, now the tiny bits of fabric smell like stale, soured milk but still I save them.
I have furniture, life jackets Dad asked me to keep for a "little while," old lamps, all the receipts from every single purchase I've ever made just in case the IRS wants to audit me and asks to see them...Although now they are in such a chaotic jumble of years, months and items that I feel certain even an IRS auditor would feel swamped and overcome.
I have all the pictures I have ever taken, all my old patient charts, and all my favorite toys from the boys' childhood. Saved for the grandchildren yet to come, or because I thought one day they'd be collectible...Or because really they were my favorites. They remind me of days spent lying on the kitchen floor making "Varooom" sounds as our Batman figures careened across the tiles and my babies screamed their delight.
My attic is full of treasures and trash.
The closets downstairs are just as full. Boxes of winter sweaters are crammed beneath the bed. The kitchen cabinets are overflowing. The yard is crowded with flowers and shrubs. The trunk of my car is even loaded...
I carry only the essentials of my commuter lifestyle...Two small suitcases of clothing, a backpack of nursing home paperwork, paperbacks I've read but intend to trade in for other, unread paperbacks...My filebox of greeting cards, kept on hand in case I remember someone's birthday, or want to send a written thank you to the legion of people who have made it possible for me to be here with Dad because they help out at home.
Lately I cannot bring anything new into my home without realizing it, thinking about it, and wondering "Do I really need this Thing?"
This train of thought began when my parents moved to the independent living facility and had to downsize.
I felt it again whenever I walked into a patient's room in the nursing home and saw how few "things" remained from their former lives. There are always photographs, at least one or two, and perhaps a trinket or favorite sweater. But half a room is not much. Two single drawers and an armoire will not hold every single thing we want to carry along with us...Much is winnowed away.
Dad is down to one room.
It is cluttered with the things he wanted to bring...Important pictures, meaningful books, CDs, papers...But as his world slows down and closes in on him, as the lack of oxygen affects his short term memory, I have noticed something.
Dad's world is now contained in a single overstuffed shoebox.
It sits beside him on the bed-always within reach.
It holds his current favorite book, "Leaving Church," crossword puzzles in varying levels of difficulty, stationary, pens, pencils, the pad where he tracks which medication he's taken at which time, the "black bag" he carried long before "man bags" were in, his daytimer, the TV schedule and of course, the remote controls to every electronic device in the room.
Yesterday, in an attempt to help him organize and find his things easily, I brought him a tote. It was the kind used for carrying cleaning tools from one room to the next. I went to the dollar store to find it, and while I was there, my best friend, Marti, called.
When I told her what I was doing, she was completely silent for a long minute.
"Nance," she said finally, in a small, choked voice. "That's what my Daddy did before he died. He kept his treasures in a shoe box."
I felt my heart squeeze as I took in the reality of what she was saying. I remembered her father's battle with Alzheimers and realized once again, with an awful clarity- my father is dying. His life is ending.
I realized all of this in a nanosecond before rejecting her words. But it was too late. The arrow of reality shot home piercing my armor of denial.
"Well," I said, my tone light and cavalier. "That just goes to show you. We were twins separated at birth!"
I wouldn't let myself go where her words led me. I couldn't.
Not then. Not in that brightly lit store where everything is only a dollar and where are so many things and possibilities to consider. I had to stay in the moment.
Right then I needed to help my father organize his "things." I did not need to accept the meaning of this further distillation of his essential life.
Because she is my best friend, Marti let me get away with it... But she knew.
Today as I sit across from him, I feel the reality of her words. I feel the truth cut down to the bone and shatter my heart.
My father is dying and nothing will stop this tide from running out.
I brought the organizer back to his room and sat down on the bed beside him to explain my great idea...I showed him the small bathtub stopper I intended to use to keep an ocean of life from running out on my wonderful, wonderful friend.
He listened, paying rapt attention as he always does...But I knew, even as the words dropped from my lips and rained down around us on the bed, he would never use the plastic tote.
Sure enough, he kept it on the bed, but more as a token of his appreciation and love for me. He even stuck a few pens in the holes along the carrier's side.
But next to it on the flowered quilt, sits the navy blue, cardboard box.
It is still nestled close by his side and my father is still dying.
Clothes we all know I'll never wear again. Baby pajamas that in some delusional state I saved thinking one day my boys might want to dress their own children in them...But truthfully, I I saved them because I didn't want to let go of my babies, or the scent that reminded me of those fleeting, fragile moments.
Of course, now the tiny bits of fabric smell like stale, soured milk but still I save them.
I have furniture, life jackets Dad asked me to keep for a "little while," old lamps, all the receipts from every single purchase I've ever made just in case the IRS wants to audit me and asks to see them...Although now they are in such a chaotic jumble of years, months and items that I feel certain even an IRS auditor would feel swamped and overcome.
I have all the pictures I have ever taken, all my old patient charts, and all my favorite toys from the boys' childhood. Saved for the grandchildren yet to come, or because I thought one day they'd be collectible...Or because really they were my favorites. They remind me of days spent lying on the kitchen floor making "Varooom" sounds as our Batman figures careened across the tiles and my babies screamed their delight.
My attic is full of treasures and trash.
The closets downstairs are just as full. Boxes of winter sweaters are crammed beneath the bed. The kitchen cabinets are overflowing. The yard is crowded with flowers and shrubs. The trunk of my car is even loaded...
I carry only the essentials of my commuter lifestyle...Two small suitcases of clothing, a backpack of nursing home paperwork, paperbacks I've read but intend to trade in for other, unread paperbacks...My filebox of greeting cards, kept on hand in case I remember someone's birthday, or want to send a written thank you to the legion of people who have made it possible for me to be here with Dad because they help out at home.
Lately I cannot bring anything new into my home without realizing it, thinking about it, and wondering "Do I really need this Thing?"
This train of thought began when my parents moved to the independent living facility and had to downsize.
I felt it again whenever I walked into a patient's room in the nursing home and saw how few "things" remained from their former lives. There are always photographs, at least one or two, and perhaps a trinket or favorite sweater. But half a room is not much. Two single drawers and an armoire will not hold every single thing we want to carry along with us...Much is winnowed away.
Dad is down to one room.
It is cluttered with the things he wanted to bring...Important pictures, meaningful books, CDs, papers...But as his world slows down and closes in on him, as the lack of oxygen affects his short term memory, I have noticed something.
Dad's world is now contained in a single overstuffed shoebox.
It sits beside him on the bed-always within reach.
It holds his current favorite book, "Leaving Church," crossword puzzles in varying levels of difficulty, stationary, pens, pencils, the pad where he tracks which medication he's taken at which time, the "black bag" he carried long before "man bags" were in, his daytimer, the TV schedule and of course, the remote controls to every electronic device in the room.
Yesterday, in an attempt to help him organize and find his things easily, I brought him a tote. It was the kind used for carrying cleaning tools from one room to the next. I went to the dollar store to find it, and while I was there, my best friend, Marti, called.
When I told her what I was doing, she was completely silent for a long minute.
"Nance," she said finally, in a small, choked voice. "That's what my Daddy did before he died. He kept his treasures in a shoe box."
I felt my heart squeeze as I took in the reality of what she was saying. I remembered her father's battle with Alzheimers and realized once again, with an awful clarity- my father is dying. His life is ending.
I realized all of this in a nanosecond before rejecting her words. But it was too late. The arrow of reality shot home piercing my armor of denial.
"Well," I said, my tone light and cavalier. "That just goes to show you. We were twins separated at birth!"
I wouldn't let myself go where her words led me. I couldn't.
Not then. Not in that brightly lit store where everything is only a dollar and where are so many things and possibilities to consider. I had to stay in the moment.
Right then I needed to help my father organize his "things." I did not need to accept the meaning of this further distillation of his essential life.
Because she is my best friend, Marti let me get away with it... But she knew.
Today as I sit across from him, I feel the reality of her words. I feel the truth cut down to the bone and shatter my heart.
My father is dying and nothing will stop this tide from running out.
I brought the organizer back to his room and sat down on the bed beside him to explain my great idea...I showed him the small bathtub stopper I intended to use to keep an ocean of life from running out on my wonderful, wonderful friend.
He listened, paying rapt attention as he always does...But I knew, even as the words dropped from my lips and rained down around us on the bed, he would never use the plastic tote.
Sure enough, he kept it on the bed, but more as a token of his appreciation and love for me. He even stuck a few pens in the holes along the carrier's side.
But next to it on the flowered quilt, sits the navy blue, cardboard box.
It is still nestled close by his side and my father is still dying.
9/08/2006
Boyz2Men...Almost
I live amongst wily teenagers...Boys who sail boats and scale brick walls...Boys who drive cars and wear pictures of dead revolutionaries on their shirts...
9/07/2006
Incognito
They Might've Been Little Once, But They Were Always Too Cool For Words!
The boys and their cousin, incognito, "back in the day."
The boys and their cousin, incognito, "back in the day."
My Dirty Little Secret...
Okay, I have absolutely got to tell you my dirty, little secret.
I mean, this is the place to do it, right? In my online "diary"? That is what blogs are for, right?
Okay, not always...Like in my case, I'm an author, hoping to intrigue people who've never read my work into buying one of my books. For the people who already read my books and wonder how anyone could come up with such deranged ideas, this blog should be attempting to answer those questions. Hence, the blog is alleged promotion.
Too bad I can't stick to that notion. Instead I wind up telling you all about my life- the ups and downs, the insanity and the little quirks that a sensible author would probably keep to herself!
Not me. Not the big mouth.
But tonight, I'm gonna give it my best shot. I'm going to tell you the dirty little secret that drove me to write books.
Before I tell you the absolute worst, let me set the scene a little.
When I started writing, for the first time since college that is, my boys were toddlers. We lived in what I euphemistically called "The Golden Ghetto" of Atlanta, the northern suburbs of the city, a good 45 minute commute from the downtown area, in a subdivision where every house looks the same and every lot occupies no more than a tenth of an acre.
The other women who lived in my subdivision scared the hell out of me.
They were the perfect "supermoms." Their houses were immaculate, their children well-dressed, albeit obnoxious, and their husbands brought home pots of money and never wanted their wives to work "outside" the home. It was the perfect melding of Soccermom and Stepford Wife.
They had the toddler mom social scene scoped out and they did it to a fare-thee-well, too. Playgroups, Pampered Chef parties, Cookie Exchanges at Christmas. Oh. My. God! What daunting rolemodels...Especially to an imposter trying to pass muster, hoping these superwomen never found out the real truth and exposed me to the world for the sham I was.
I must've been absent the day they taught Soccer Mom 101 because I didn't have a clue! I was a former hippy disguised as a regular mom and I wanted desperately to fit in. I wanted to do the right thing because I by-God knew if I didn't my boys would grow up to be drug-addicted reprobates.
I absolutely believed that if they didn't play sports, they'd become junkies overnight. If they weren't in the same preschool the others attended, they'd become social pariahs. It was my total nightmare! My children, abnormal...Just like their mother!
So, I tried. I went to all the playgroups. I mimicked the Supermoms every move...If they packed Ritz crackers and juice boxes for snack at the pool, so did I. If their children wore polo shirts and Nike soccer shorts, so did mine...kind of. Except I would keep veering off, lured by the scent of leather and the feel of fake sheepskin over to the baby biker jackets and tiny high-topped construction worker boots. I'd buy the faded jeans and flannel shirts of my youth because they were just too cute when they were made in a size 2T.
I envisioned myself cruising around town with my boys, the three of us wearing matching aviator sunglasses, as they scoped out the local "chicks."
Oh, God, I was such a miserable failure at being a social chameleon!
I knew something was wrong the day I scrubbed the no-wax finish off my vinyl floor with a toothbrush and Clorox...combined with a little ammonia.
In addition to producing a gas toxic enough to compromise the health and well-being of metropolitan Atlanta, I ruined the brand new floor forever and had a contact high that would've induced brain damage in a lesser person.
I knew then that something was terribly wrong. I just didn't have a clue what it was! And had I known, I wouldn't have been able to figure out what to do about it. No, I hadn't hit my emotional "bottom," as they say in AA. I still had to sink to a further low. I needed a little more misery before, like an oyster irritated by a grain of sand, I produced a pearl of insight.
I needed...Billy Two-Feathers.
Every day, as part of my perfect-mom ritual, we watched Sesame Street followed by Thomas the Tank Engine...all on PBS. I drew the line at Barney. I didn't care what kind of low-achievers my boys turned out to be, we were just not going to sink to the depths of despair that it would've taken for me to turn to a purple dinosaur who's best friend is named "Baby Bop." Sorry, even a people-pleaser like me has to draw the proverbial line in the sand and Barney was it. Barney was like sprinkling Sweet and Low over sugar. He was insipid, patronizing and he had a voice that sounded like fingernails on a blackboard to me.
But Thomas the Tank Engine...Now there was a show I could get behind.
As long as there was Thomas, the world of toddlerdom had hope. Maybe Good could triumph over Evil when the Conductor was played by none other than George Carlin and later, Ringo Starr.
I mean, Rock is not dead as long as Ringo and George draw breath, am I right? We can still march on Washington and demonstrate with George Carlin as our fearless conductor, can't we? The sixties and seventies aren't dead until Ringo checks out, correct? Can I get an Amen in the back there, Sisters?
Would that I were that altruistic...
I finally had to confront the dreadful truth of my existence the day I realized I was not watching Thomas the Tank Engine because George Carlin was leading my little guys into an authentic, truthful childhood.
I was watching Thomas the Tank Engine because the Conductor's faithful sidekick, in a quirk of public television marketing brilliance, was the most stone-gorgeous, washboard ab-ed, hunk of burning American Indian love I have ever personally experienced.
I was sitting on the end of my four-poster, early American-reproduction bed, drooling over Billy Two-Feathers.
Had I no pride? Had I absolutely no sense of self-worth? Had it come to this- my sexual fantasy life was peopled by a guy who played the Conductor's sidekick on a toddler t.v show?!
This insanity had to stop.
I had to get a life. A real breathing, smoking-mighty-Jesus life. Not one of those two-dimensional, Calgon-Take-Me-Away lives based on conjecture and innuendo. It had to be mine...my passion, my drive, my...self.
And that, my dear readers, is the stinking, awful truth of how I came into the world of writing.
There was just no other place to go.
I was out of options. Desperate. My life had become an unmanageable hoax and creating a deeper, more intense fantasy life peopled by characters I created and loved was my only road to personal salvation.
I thought long and hard about it. And when that didn't work, I allowed my then-husband to hold an emotional gun to my head.
"Your writing is an obsession," he intoned one night. "You have a private practice. You can make a lot more money seeing patients than you can fooling around with this silly hobby of yours. You need to work more. You need to bring in more money."
And so I took a deep breath and made a deal with the devil.
I told him there was a writing conference in his favorite city, Ft. Lauderdale, and that the conference sponsored a short story contest for new writers. "Let's go," I said. "It'll be like a second honeymoon. I'll enter that contest and if I don't place in the top ten, I'll quit and focus on being the best little social worker in the whole wide world!"
That is how I wound up three months later, sitting in front of a blank computer screen on the eve of the contest deadline, praying for inspiration.
It is also how I learned that your children will be who they are regardless of what environmental obstacles you throw in their paths.
I sat in front of that blank screen in the cold, dank basement, drinking cup after cup of coffee until finally my youngest boy, then three or four, wandered downstairs with a box in his hand.
"What you doin', Mama?" he asked with the world's cutest lisp.
He looked up at me with huge brown, trusting eyes and I wanted to say "Writing the Great American Novel," but instead only said, "Writing a story, baby."
He looked at the blank screen. "It don't look like you writin', Mama. It look like you just sittin dere and if you just sittin' dere maybe you could put this Weeder Wabbit game on the computer cause I'm gonna learn to weed."
I thought, what the hell, it's not like I'm getting anywhere. I'd written one so-so story and I knew it was going to take a better effort than that to place in the contest. I felt defeated and uncertain and lost.
"Okay, baby," I said, giving up. "Let me see the box."
It was one of those magical moments that happen only a few times in your life.
Ben extended the box that held the reading program toward me. I reached for it with caffeine-induced, trembling hands; fumbled and sent the box flying into the air.
It came crashing to the floor, spilling open, the papers and discs scattering. I leaned down, sighing with just-my-damned-luck self-pity and saw a piece of paper.
"Sierra Reveals All," it said, describing the Sierra Software companies many educational programs.
I froze, my fingers clasping the shiny white paper. "Sierra Reveals All," I murmured. "Now that would be a great title for a story. I wonder who would reveal all?"
And then I heard her voice...The voice all authors mention when they talk about their inspirational muse...Only I didn't get the F. Scott Fitzgerald muse...Nope, I got Sierra Lavotini, the wise-cracking blonde bombshell, exotic dancer and amateur sleuth.
The rest, as they say, is history...
I found myself. Ben taught himself to read and I won first place in the contest. Six months later I finished, The Miracle Strip...Six months and 27 rejections later, I had an agent. Five months after that, less than 12 hours after my spouse again said I was going to have to fish or see patients for a living, my agent sold my first born daughter, Sierra, in a two book deal to a wonderful editor at St. Martin's Press.
I finally had a life...A juicy, real-deal, authentic life of my very own.
Somewhere I have a picture from my first book signing. Adam and Ben flank me, their arms folded, clearly "body-guarding" their Mama from her fans.
In that photo, we are all three grinning like maniacs.
Maniacs with their very own, rich and breathing lives.
This isn't the picture from the booksigning, but it was taken the day my first book arrived.
I mean, this is the place to do it, right? In my online "diary"? That is what blogs are for, right?
Okay, not always...Like in my case, I'm an author, hoping to intrigue people who've never read my work into buying one of my books. For the people who already read my books and wonder how anyone could come up with such deranged ideas, this blog should be attempting to answer those questions. Hence, the blog is alleged promotion.
Too bad I can't stick to that notion. Instead I wind up telling you all about my life- the ups and downs, the insanity and the little quirks that a sensible author would probably keep to herself!
Not me. Not the big mouth.
But tonight, I'm gonna give it my best shot. I'm going to tell you the dirty little secret that drove me to write books.
Before I tell you the absolute worst, let me set the scene a little.
When I started writing, for the first time since college that is, my boys were toddlers. We lived in what I euphemistically called "The Golden Ghetto" of Atlanta, the northern suburbs of the city, a good 45 minute commute from the downtown area, in a subdivision where every house looks the same and every lot occupies no more than a tenth of an acre.
The other women who lived in my subdivision scared the hell out of me.
They were the perfect "supermoms." Their houses were immaculate, their children well-dressed, albeit obnoxious, and their husbands brought home pots of money and never wanted their wives to work "outside" the home. It was the perfect melding of Soccermom and Stepford Wife.
They had the toddler mom social scene scoped out and they did it to a fare-thee-well, too. Playgroups, Pampered Chef parties, Cookie Exchanges at Christmas. Oh. My. God! What daunting rolemodels...Especially to an imposter trying to pass muster, hoping these superwomen never found out the real truth and exposed me to the world for the sham I was.
I must've been absent the day they taught Soccer Mom 101 because I didn't have a clue! I was a former hippy disguised as a regular mom and I wanted desperately to fit in. I wanted to do the right thing because I by-God knew if I didn't my boys would grow up to be drug-addicted reprobates.
I absolutely believed that if they didn't play sports, they'd become junkies overnight. If they weren't in the same preschool the others attended, they'd become social pariahs. It was my total nightmare! My children, abnormal...Just like their mother!
So, I tried. I went to all the playgroups. I mimicked the Supermoms every move...If they packed Ritz crackers and juice boxes for snack at the pool, so did I. If their children wore polo shirts and Nike soccer shorts, so did mine...kind of. Except I would keep veering off, lured by the scent of leather and the feel of fake sheepskin over to the baby biker jackets and tiny high-topped construction worker boots. I'd buy the faded jeans and flannel shirts of my youth because they were just too cute when they were made in a size 2T.
I envisioned myself cruising around town with my boys, the three of us wearing matching aviator sunglasses, as they scoped out the local "chicks."
Oh, God, I was such a miserable failure at being a social chameleon!
I knew something was wrong the day I scrubbed the no-wax finish off my vinyl floor with a toothbrush and Clorox...combined with a little ammonia.
In addition to producing a gas toxic enough to compromise the health and well-being of metropolitan Atlanta, I ruined the brand new floor forever and had a contact high that would've induced brain damage in a lesser person.
I knew then that something was terribly wrong. I just didn't have a clue what it was! And had I known, I wouldn't have been able to figure out what to do about it. No, I hadn't hit my emotional "bottom," as they say in AA. I still had to sink to a further low. I needed a little more misery before, like an oyster irritated by a grain of sand, I produced a pearl of insight.
I needed...Billy Two-Feathers.
Every day, as part of my perfect-mom ritual, we watched Sesame Street followed by Thomas the Tank Engine...all on PBS. I drew the line at Barney. I didn't care what kind of low-achievers my boys turned out to be, we were just not going to sink to the depths of despair that it would've taken for me to turn to a purple dinosaur who's best friend is named "Baby Bop." Sorry, even a people-pleaser like me has to draw the proverbial line in the sand and Barney was it. Barney was like sprinkling Sweet and Low over sugar. He was insipid, patronizing and he had a voice that sounded like fingernails on a blackboard to me.
But Thomas the Tank Engine...Now there was a show I could get behind.
As long as there was Thomas, the world of toddlerdom had hope. Maybe Good could triumph over Evil when the Conductor was played by none other than George Carlin and later, Ringo Starr.
I mean, Rock is not dead as long as Ringo and George draw breath, am I right? We can still march on Washington and demonstrate with George Carlin as our fearless conductor, can't we? The sixties and seventies aren't dead until Ringo checks out, correct? Can I get an Amen in the back there, Sisters?
Would that I were that altruistic...
I finally had to confront the dreadful truth of my existence the day I realized I was not watching Thomas the Tank Engine because George Carlin was leading my little guys into an authentic, truthful childhood.
I was watching Thomas the Tank Engine because the Conductor's faithful sidekick, in a quirk of public television marketing brilliance, was the most stone-gorgeous, washboard ab-ed, hunk of burning American Indian love I have ever personally experienced.
I was sitting on the end of my four-poster, early American-reproduction bed, drooling over Billy Two-Feathers.
Had I no pride? Had I absolutely no sense of self-worth? Had it come to this- my sexual fantasy life was peopled by a guy who played the Conductor's sidekick on a toddler t.v show?!
This insanity had to stop.
I had to get a life. A real breathing, smoking-mighty-Jesus life. Not one of those two-dimensional, Calgon-Take-Me-Away lives based on conjecture and innuendo. It had to be mine...my passion, my drive, my...self.
And that, my dear readers, is the stinking, awful truth of how I came into the world of writing.
There was just no other place to go.
I was out of options. Desperate. My life had become an unmanageable hoax and creating a deeper, more intense fantasy life peopled by characters I created and loved was my only road to personal salvation.
I thought long and hard about it. And when that didn't work, I allowed my then-husband to hold an emotional gun to my head.
"Your writing is an obsession," he intoned one night. "You have a private practice. You can make a lot more money seeing patients than you can fooling around with this silly hobby of yours. You need to work more. You need to bring in more money."
And so I took a deep breath and made a deal with the devil.
I told him there was a writing conference in his favorite city, Ft. Lauderdale, and that the conference sponsored a short story contest for new writers. "Let's go," I said. "It'll be like a second honeymoon. I'll enter that contest and if I don't place in the top ten, I'll quit and focus on being the best little social worker in the whole wide world!"
That is how I wound up three months later, sitting in front of a blank computer screen on the eve of the contest deadline, praying for inspiration.
It is also how I learned that your children will be who they are regardless of what environmental obstacles you throw in their paths.
I sat in front of that blank screen in the cold, dank basement, drinking cup after cup of coffee until finally my youngest boy, then three or four, wandered downstairs with a box in his hand.
"What you doin', Mama?" he asked with the world's cutest lisp.
He looked up at me with huge brown, trusting eyes and I wanted to say "Writing the Great American Novel," but instead only said, "Writing a story, baby."
He looked at the blank screen. "It don't look like you writin', Mama. It look like you just sittin dere and if you just sittin' dere maybe you could put this Weeder Wabbit game on the computer cause I'm gonna learn to weed."
I thought, what the hell, it's not like I'm getting anywhere. I'd written one so-so story and I knew it was going to take a better effort than that to place in the contest. I felt defeated and uncertain and lost.
"Okay, baby," I said, giving up. "Let me see the box."
It was one of those magical moments that happen only a few times in your life.
Ben extended the box that held the reading program toward me. I reached for it with caffeine-induced, trembling hands; fumbled and sent the box flying into the air.
It came crashing to the floor, spilling open, the papers and discs scattering. I leaned down, sighing with just-my-damned-luck self-pity and saw a piece of paper.
"Sierra Reveals All," it said, describing the Sierra Software companies many educational programs.
I froze, my fingers clasping the shiny white paper. "Sierra Reveals All," I murmured. "Now that would be a great title for a story. I wonder who would reveal all?"
And then I heard her voice...The voice all authors mention when they talk about their inspirational muse...Only I didn't get the F. Scott Fitzgerald muse...Nope, I got Sierra Lavotini, the wise-cracking blonde bombshell, exotic dancer and amateur sleuth.
The rest, as they say, is history...
I found myself. Ben taught himself to read and I won first place in the contest. Six months later I finished, The Miracle Strip...Six months and 27 rejections later, I had an agent. Five months after that, less than 12 hours after my spouse again said I was going to have to fish or see patients for a living, my agent sold my first born daughter, Sierra, in a two book deal to a wonderful editor at St. Martin's Press.
I finally had a life...A juicy, real-deal, authentic life of my very own.
Somewhere I have a picture from my first book signing. Adam and Ben flank me, their arms folded, clearly "body-guarding" their Mama from her fans.
In that photo, we are all three grinning like maniacs.
Maniacs with their very own, rich and breathing lives.
This isn't the picture from the booksigning, but it was taken the day my first book arrived.
9/06/2006
For Dad's Fan Club...
So...I've had a request for Dad's picture...
I put three pictures up from the days before we really "got" that he was sick. These were taken on his birthday...also referred to as The Year Of The Naked Guy (See 3/18/05- More Than They'll Ever Know) He was channeling Willie Nelson and nothing could hurt him.
Every year we celebrate Dad's birthday with much gusto and fanfare. This year was no different but I suppose it was actually very, very different. We all knew it would be his last birthday.
Dad's a sailor. He's always had a boat, and as a family we spent the month of July sailing North from the Chesapeake Bay to Rhode Island.
We hated it.
We were bored, seasick and restless. We wanted a "normal" vacation. Where was the Grand Canyon? Where was Disney World? Why on earth would anyone in their right mind cram five people into a 25' sailboat for a month and call it fun?!
And let's not mention the family secret...only revealed a few months ago by my sister...During the month of July, Dad quit smoking. We didn't even know he still smoked! We thought we'd taken care of that one windless, sticky July when we'd cornered him in the galley and cried until he promised he'd quit.
And no, that's not why he's dying now. They haven't found a link between smoking and pulmonary fibrosis...but who believes that? Even if it's been over forty years since his last cigarette...
So there we were, every summer...the freaks, the poor abnormal children forced to row in to the beach instead of sitting in traffic, following the crowd of weekend commuters to the Jersey Shore. There we were, sailing past the Statue of Liberty and up the East River, passing the United Nations building. There we were, forced to sail into historic Mystic seaport. There we were, slipping into Marblehead, Mass., to go to one of the trendy new "coffee houses" so we could listen to folksingers. There we were...
It was terrible...Huge waves hurled us across the cabin during fierce thunderstorms. The wind died down without fail throughout most of July along the Eastern seaboard and it was so hot. We were so seasick...
But then...there we were, sitting astride the bow, clinging tightly to the stantions as we bounded through the wake of passing motorboats, screaming as the waves washed up over our legs. There we were, snug in the harbor, the wafting evening breeze cooling our berths, the gentle lap, lap, lap of the tiny wavelets kissing the side of the boat, whispering in our ears as we rocked to sleep. There we were...
Isn't it funny that every time we are together, without fail, we kids taunt Dad with tales of our tortured summers aboard the Doxy? Isn't it funny how we remember the outrageous tales of things that just never happened to "normal" kids on their staid, summer vacations?
We sailed into Port Judith harbor in fog so thick Mom was stationed on the bow with a boat hook in case another boat suddenly loomed up through the mist too close to miss. We ran out of gas in the smack middle of New York harbor and when the Coast Guard came along and asked if we needed help, Dad said, "Oh, no! Thanks! We're fine! We've got it!"
They followed us at a distance, not quite believing we were sailing up the East River.
Dad suddenly called to Mom, "Quick, take the tiller. I need to use the head."
Mom was horrified. Here we were, amidst tugboats, ferries, freighters and Dad picks that moment to use the bathroom?!
"It's all in your head!" she yelled.
"Yeah, and it'll be all down my leg in a minute if you don't take the helm!"
We made it. Somehow.
And you know, we never for a second doubted that we would. We never knew danger when in its presence. We rode out every storm with our hero. The three of us kids would sacrifice everything for one blessed month with our dad...away from his busy parrish, away from the constantly ringing phone, the crisis-ridden burdens that come with a small town church...As bad as it was, our time with him was worth our "sacrifice."
We just didn't get it. Not then.
Family vacations are supposed to be endured...how else would we have such a rich vein of memories to mine? How else would we regale our own offspring with harrowing tales of our childhood adventures and the "agonies" we suffered at the hands of our crazy parents?
I put three pictures up from the days before we really "got" that he was sick. These were taken on his birthday...also referred to as The Year Of The Naked Guy (See 3/18/05- More Than They'll Ever Know) He was channeling Willie Nelson and nothing could hurt him.
Every year we celebrate Dad's birthday with much gusto and fanfare. This year was no different but I suppose it was actually very, very different. We all knew it would be his last birthday.
Dad's a sailor. He's always had a boat, and as a family we spent the month of July sailing North from the Chesapeake Bay to Rhode Island.
We hated it.
We were bored, seasick and restless. We wanted a "normal" vacation. Where was the Grand Canyon? Where was Disney World? Why on earth would anyone in their right mind cram five people into a 25' sailboat for a month and call it fun?!
And let's not mention the family secret...only revealed a few months ago by my sister...During the month of July, Dad quit smoking. We didn't even know he still smoked! We thought we'd taken care of that one windless, sticky July when we'd cornered him in the galley and cried until he promised he'd quit.
And no, that's not why he's dying now. They haven't found a link between smoking and pulmonary fibrosis...but who believes that? Even if it's been over forty years since his last cigarette...
So there we were, every summer...the freaks, the poor abnormal children forced to row in to the beach instead of sitting in traffic, following the crowd of weekend commuters to the Jersey Shore. There we were, sailing past the Statue of Liberty and up the East River, passing the United Nations building. There we were, forced to sail into historic Mystic seaport. There we were, slipping into Marblehead, Mass., to go to one of the trendy new "coffee houses" so we could listen to folksingers. There we were...
It was terrible...Huge waves hurled us across the cabin during fierce thunderstorms. The wind died down without fail throughout most of July along the Eastern seaboard and it was so hot. We were so seasick...
But then...there we were, sitting astride the bow, clinging tightly to the stantions as we bounded through the wake of passing motorboats, screaming as the waves washed up over our legs. There we were, snug in the harbor, the wafting evening breeze cooling our berths, the gentle lap, lap, lap of the tiny wavelets kissing the side of the boat, whispering in our ears as we rocked to sleep. There we were...
Isn't it funny that every time we are together, without fail, we kids taunt Dad with tales of our tortured summers aboard the Doxy? Isn't it funny how we remember the outrageous tales of things that just never happened to "normal" kids on their staid, summer vacations?
We sailed into Port Judith harbor in fog so thick Mom was stationed on the bow with a boat hook in case another boat suddenly loomed up through the mist too close to miss. We ran out of gas in the smack middle of New York harbor and when the Coast Guard came along and asked if we needed help, Dad said, "Oh, no! Thanks! We're fine! We've got it!"
They followed us at a distance, not quite believing we were sailing up the East River.
Dad suddenly called to Mom, "Quick, take the tiller. I need to use the head."
Mom was horrified. Here we were, amidst tugboats, ferries, freighters and Dad picks that moment to use the bathroom?!
"It's all in your head!" she yelled.
"Yeah, and it'll be all down my leg in a minute if you don't take the helm!"
We made it. Somehow.
And you know, we never for a second doubted that we would. We never knew danger when in its presence. We rode out every storm with our hero. The three of us kids would sacrifice everything for one blessed month with our dad...away from his busy parrish, away from the constantly ringing phone, the crisis-ridden burdens that come with a small town church...As bad as it was, our time with him was worth our "sacrifice."
We just didn't get it. Not then.
Family vacations are supposed to be endured...how else would we have such a rich vein of memories to mine? How else would we regale our own offspring with harrowing tales of our childhood adventures and the "agonies" we suffered at the hands of our crazy parents?
9/04/2006
Topless in Tornadoes...
MY BEST FRIEND, MARTII worry sometimes that my life has become staid, mundane and boring. And then I have an evening with my buddy, Marti.
It is five o'clock on a Friday afternoon when Marti and I leave the assisted living facility where I have been sitting with my dying father. We walk out onto the porch where the old folks congregate to watch the weather and find them all standing at the edge of the porch, staring up at a lowering sky. Thick gray and black clouds hang so low to the ground that I can almost feel the impending tornadoes. The air sweats moisture. The sky's light is an eerie greenish-yellow.
My favorite old lady, Ora, stands next to us, staring up at the clouds, leaning on her cane and studying the sky much as she studies everything, with detached interest, as these earthly events are no longer of any consequence to her. She's seen it all for exactly what it is.
The sky reminds me of the only other time I have been in the presence of tornadoes. That time, in Alabama, a small twister cut through the gas station parking lot where I waited inside a van while my best friend called her mother. When the tornado touched down, Kim shrieked into the phone, "Oh my God, we're going to be killed!" Dropped the receiver and ran for the open bay of the station.
In the furor of the moment, we never remembered to call her mother back and let her know we were alive. She was a understandably hysterical when we finally arrived in Battle Creek that night.
But I digress...
Ora's watching the clouds as I say, "Looks like a tornado sky."
"Yep," she agrees. "I'm one to know, too. Grew up in Alabama. We had a plenty of 'em there!"
Marti looks at me, wide-eyed. "Should we go back inside?"
It has been a long, slow day. We are looking forward to a glass of wine and a long evening of laughter and talking.
"Nah," I reply. "I think the mall would be safer. That way, if the tornado touches down there's only a fifty-fifty chance it'll wipe out my entire family."
This is not a callous lack of concern on my part. It is denial. I don't truly believe a tornado will come to town, not with life already about as awful as I can imagine. My karma couldn't be that bad.
So we run for the car and drive, top down in my convertible, to the mall. As we run inside, we are sure the sky is about to open up and release all manner of hell on the parking lot.
The mall here is dying, too.
There are maybe six stores left; but it is at this moment, the best other option we can come up with. We have decided to treat ourselves to manicures and pedicures in the small nail salon. But on our way we stop by a display of outrageous flip-flops, considering the merits of rhinetones over fake turquoise.
We are there when the lights go out. The store is plunged into an inky darkness that prevents any movement. When they flicker back to life a moment later, Marti is freaked. The flip-flops have lost all appeal and she's ready to run.
I say, "We can't leave the mall now. It's too late."
We wander toward the nearest exit to survey the sky and encounter a clerk. She has obviously unnatural red, short, spiky hair and black cat's eye glasses.
"Tornadoes are coming! We're going to get five inches of rain in the next 25 minutes! The parking lot will flood, it always does! Our cars will be ruined! It's happened before! I've seen it!"
Marti tenses.
"That's the back lot she's talking about," I say in an undertone. "The front lot where we are is on higher ground."
"Should we run for it?" Marti asks.
"Nah," I say, attempting to affect a casual, unworried attitude. "Let's just go out into the mall, away from these windows." Away from flying glass, I think.
"You sure?"
"Oh, yeah. The infrastructure is better in the center of the mall."
I do not tell Marti I have no idea what infrastructure is.
We leave Belks. In the stepdown seating area just outside the store, about 20 old guys are standing around playing guitars, mandolins and fiddles...Some wear ball caps, one sports a Fedora, and all wear the hallmark of elderly males- calf-high socks and old guy shoes...They're playing bluegrass!
More old people rim the circle, sitting in gaily colored, folding lawn chairs, the kind with drink holders in the armrests.
Marti gives me "The Look," which reminds me I'd told her about the chance we'd see the Friday night pick-up session.
"I told you we should've brought our clogging shoes in with us," she says.
She relaxes, forgetting the storm and enjoys the music. I look around and then I look up. Above us is a huge, domed skylight...Total glass. I know sooner or later, Marti will look up too, so I decide to take the bull by the horns.
I nudge her and point upward. Before she can react or say anything, I cut in. "Hey, look at it this way...If the tornado hits, we'll be sucked up to Jesus while the band plays "I'll Fly Away!"
That does it. Once again we are the fearless duo. Batwoman and Catwoman. Thelma and Louise.
We are undaunted when we see the manicurists are booked up with fat women in polyester. We cruise the shops, decide not to sit in the curtained photo booth and eventually come to the conclusion that if the tornado hasn't taken us yet, if the hail and rain have still not arrived, we can risk the run to the car.
We put the top down because we are invincible.
We go to a grocery store, buy wine, cream cheese, jalapeno pepper jelly, crackers and, because we've earned it, we grab a Pepperidge Farm coconut cake.
We drive back to my one room efficiency, top down, defying the storm that seems to blow just ahead of us. My black convertible crosses the Trent and Neuse rivers in the fierce pink, red and purple of sunset.
We sit on my bed, eating and drinking, laughing and talking until, miraculously, a bottle of wine has disappeared.
I take the cake out of the minifridge. With the careless abandon of my alcohol-induced euphoria, I open the box and plop the cake and 2 forks into the middle of the my antique quilt-covered bed.
Marti and I own the universe. Death cannot defeat us. The woes of married life leave us unbent and unscarred. Our children are well taken care of and happy...But not with us.
Life is not at all bad, we think.
And then, like all intoxicated idiots, we think...What can we do next?
There is nothing on TV. Cellphones don't work, but for some reason, text paging does.
During the second bottle of wine, we decide it would be a marvelous idea to text page our friend, Martha The Cop.
"Tell her we got stopped by the police on that long road out here," Marti instructs. We giggle hysterically.
"Guess what?" I text. "We got pulled on Broad Creek Road!"
30 seconds later my cell beeps. "What?! What for! What happened?"
She took the bait.
"Speeding," I reply. "Don't worry! You know that Marti. Talked us out of the ticket!"
"How fast were you going?!"
Marti is a brilliant genius of inspiration. "Tell her we were topless!"
Oh, now this is good. This is wonderful!
"We were topless! Thank God he let us off!"
"Oh my God!" Martha texts back. "Which department?"
I can see her, glasses sliding down to rest on the tip of her nose as she texts furiously. She will want to call the chief of whatever local station we say captured us and present some excuse, like "They were grief-stricken and overly stressed..."
We are eating all the good parts of the coconut cake, the corners, licking up thick swipes of the creamy white confection and laughing like the maniacs we are.
"Local New Bern cop," I reply. "Marti invited him back for a drink. He is cute as a bug's ear!"
Marti and I high-five each other. We collapse back against the headrest, weak and spent with laughter.
And then there is no response.
After five minutes I begin to watch the clock. "You don't think she called them, do you?" I ask.
Marti's eyebrows rise into little umbrellas of uncertainty. Eleven minutes. "Text her back," she says.
"Hey Martha," I type. "Don't worry! We invited the aliens we met too! Gotcha!!"
30 seconds later my phone beeps..."Oh. My. God!" Martha's text screams. "You so had me!!"
We laugh and laugh. It isn't until the next day, after we learn that her pager delayed sending her response, that we realize we could've kept stringing Martha along all night!
"Of course I believed you," Martha assures us later. "It just sounded like something the two of you would do!"
Marti returns to her home and real life. I go back to the assisted living facility to confront the reality of my father's impending death all over again. And it isn't until the next day that the thought occurs to me...
I call Marti and when she doesn't answer, leave a message, despite the fact I am reasonably sure her husband will hear it first and totally wonder...
"Hey Marti," I say. "I've been wondering this all day. Why didn't we take our tops off? I mean, if it's so like us, how come we didn't do it? I think next time you come down that's exactly what we should do! Love ya!" I end my message with a long, conspiratorial giggle.
Let him wonder, I think. Let 'em all wonder.
Why didn't we?!
9/02/2006
Short Attention Span Theater...
People Who Probably Shouldn't Be Left To Their Own Devices:
People Who are Short on Oxygen and therefore short on short term memory and Women Approaching Menopause, therefore losing what little was left of their minds.
We are a pair, Dad and I.
Yesterday I gave him 2 doses of morphine a mere 90 mins. apart. As a result, he went to bed early and slept until the alarm went off at 3 a.m to take more morphine. It was the blind leading the blind...He couldn't remember the med schedule and I didn't remember my sister's instructions about the new med schedule. Oh well, he is still alive and we're back at it today.
Today we couldn't tell the cable customer service rep our phone number because he couldn't remember it and I didn't know it! Then we called the wrong cable company for tech support because...Well, you know...
We were going to watch a movie, but couldn't decide on which of the four I'd rented, so we're doing a crossword puzzle...At least until my short attention span presents him with another option and we drift off onto that project.
It's amazing how well we manage here in the attention deficit disordered, short attention span theater.
We take our frustrations out on the stupid cable guys...One actually had the nerve to tell us we didn't even know our own address! Wrong. That was the one thing we could remember!
It's catching, too. Everyone who comes to visit winds up confused.
Go figure!
People Who are Short on Oxygen and therefore short on short term memory and Women Approaching Menopause, therefore losing what little was left of their minds.
We are a pair, Dad and I.
Yesterday I gave him 2 doses of morphine a mere 90 mins. apart. As a result, he went to bed early and slept until the alarm went off at 3 a.m to take more morphine. It was the blind leading the blind...He couldn't remember the med schedule and I didn't remember my sister's instructions about the new med schedule. Oh well, he is still alive and we're back at it today.
Today we couldn't tell the cable customer service rep our phone number because he couldn't remember it and I didn't know it! Then we called the wrong cable company for tech support because...Well, you know...
We were going to watch a movie, but couldn't decide on which of the four I'd rented, so we're doing a crossword puzzle...At least until my short attention span presents him with another option and we drift off onto that project.
It's amazing how well we manage here in the attention deficit disordered, short attention span theater.
We take our frustrations out on the stupid cable guys...One actually had the nerve to tell us we didn't even know our own address! Wrong. That was the one thing we could remember!
It's catching, too. Everyone who comes to visit winds up confused.
Go figure!
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