Goodbye for Now, Dad

My precious father died last week, on All Saints’ Day, so fitting. I wanted to post some things I wrote about him, some poetry and and essay.

Letter Poem for Dad

Dear Dad,

 You turn 95 tomorrow

You have forgotten everything

absolutely everything

everything small and everything big

Everything about me and

our entire family and our

life together

Dear Dad the worst part is

you have forgotten you

This is not okay

This makes no sense

not at all

Your memories have flown away

Pages and pages whipping in

the storms of your darkening brain

Landing in boxes that slam

and lock and then

disintegrate

I am running to catch them

before they fall

snatching at one

then another

There are too many and

the wind is too strong and

the boxes bite

like vicious dogs

Here are a few I’ve caught

(in no particular order):

You could only cook buttered toast

and burned hot dogs which we once

threw out the window to the birds

You shouted up the stairs

“To the Table!” to

retrieve your children

for dinner

You took pride in

your father’s golf course

and loved mowing the greens

and fairways

tending bar

owning Coke machines

At the end of WW2

you joined the Navy because

Mema said at least

you’ll have a meal

and a clean bed

You tossed buttered bread

down the table

salted our plates before

passing them

You called ice cream cones licks

piled us into the station wagon

on a summer’s evening

to get one

You had a faded green anchor tattoo

on your left bicept that

you said broke your mother’s heart

We begged you to make a muscle

to show it off

Mom lengthened your

shirt sleeves to keep it

covered

You never gossiped or

spoke unkindly of others

You apologized for your

mistakes at work and

at home

You gave generously to

waitresses and anyone

who came across

your path

You glowed with pride

over all of our

accomplishments

You tickled us until it hurt

your beard bristles scraping our faces

You called me red

You told me I’d

hit one out of the park

You told me this

too shall pass

You wrote me hundreds

maybe thousands

of letters

You rose up out of your own grief

 to comfort me when my brother

your son then my sister

your daughter died

your own broken heart

set aside

You wrote songs and poems

a family newspaper called

the Sibling Sentinel

You took us out

to breakfast

every single Sunday

after Mass

You sprayed whipped cream

into our mouths

You paid with cash

loathed credit card interest

and any kind of debt

You lost your home

and car during

the Great Depression

You loved to be

a father of seven

a husband to Mom

above all things

and we knew that

And you loved fireworks

Parades

watching golf and

football with you sons

You bought an Airstream trailer

towed it to Florida

all of us in the station wagon

You brought ice cream

and doughnuts

to the men out working

your construction jobs

You wrote a poem when

you wrote your last tuition check

You said “It’s over” when

we fought and then

it was so

You painted the barn

 in one day

with a small brush

You planted a wild

abundant vegetable garden

that overwhelmed us with zucchinis

and tomatoes and pumpkins and

kept mom working

You let us ride in the back of

a pickup full of just-raked leaves

you stepped on the gas and flew

up the hill to the house

We threw out handfuls of

leaves into the cold autumn air

You didn’t get mad

You built us houses

homes much nicer than any

you had as a child

yards that contained woods

and fields and a barn and

basketball court and

an orchard and a little creek

Daddy,the wind is blowing hard

and these memory pages

are lifting

into the air

I don’t know

how long they will hold but

I’ll keep chasing keep

grasping for them

keep trying to remind you

tell you how you were

in every way

exceptional

unforgettable

 Happy Birthday,

Maggie

The Pilgrimage

The journey begins each day in my parents’ house, the dining room to be exact. It is here that I see my 91-year-old father sitting in his wheelchair. He was walking fine in the fall, but due to a complication of a heart procedure, he has nerve damage which has made his left leg unreliable. He cannot walk unassisted, and has aged about ten years in two months’ time. He has lost his independence, and as he puts it, feels like a burden to my mother, to all of us.

With much effort, my father stands up and grasps his walker.  He wears what is known as a transfer belt, a thick canvas strap that allows me to grab on and support him if his knee goes out. The thing is useful, but it is hard to see my dad so weak, vulnerable. I keep a hold on the belt as we move from one end of the dining room to the other and through the length of the living room and back. We circle the table and trudge along, making our daily pilgrimage.

             Our suffering is mainly tedium. The grandfather clock ticks in the hall. The unstoppable hum of my mother’s housework plays in the background. I imagine dust silently falling, invisible snow burying us. This slow-motion world contrasts sharply with the busy line of traffic on the road visible from the front window. Sometimes the sun shines brilliantly, taunting us in this housebound state. Thankfully, the Syracuse winter’s mostly -all -grey- all-the- time state perfectly matches our mood.

Conversion is the name of the pilgrim’s game, trying to get closer to God, trying to find God. Each day I show up I could say I am turning my heart toward God, being converted again and again. But if it is a strain, does it count? I don’t want to be here, not in this capacity. I want Dad out mowing the lawn and picking up sticks. I want my parents driving around town, passing me as I travel in an opposite direction. Is Dad also being converted through this experience? Each day my father takes a step, says thank you, or simply is willing to get out of bed, maybe that is a turning of his heart, his way of getting closer to God? Maybe, but I know he doesn’t want to be here either.

On days when there is nothing to say or when Dad’s grumpy, I ask him if he would like to pray the Rosary. I don’t know why I feel a little scared to suggest this, so I ask God for strength.  Dad responds, warily, “I suppose I could use it.”  I believe in one God. We must look and sound bored as we shuffle along, repeating our Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and Glory Bes, but somehow these words carry us forward.

            Our pilgrimage does not give us sore feet and dusty clothes. We do not have stamps on our passports and we will have no slideshow for our friends. We are not saints, not now anyway. All we have is our silent steps, the ticking clock, the vacuum running in the distance, our murmured, sustaining prayers, our witness to each other that we love now, are loved always, and we are going somewhere.

Salad Days

For my parents

 We had a strawberry patch in our big

green, brown, and forsythia yard

beneath the pealing blue moon with

white trim and dark eyes

 We lived above a tennis court never built,

left an ambiguous pit overtaken by daisies

 The pines bowed courteously

beneath their skirts we dined,

silverware, bright pink and green

plastic baskets left over from Easter,

baby dolls with heavy eyes

 We had a banging back door,

cracked wooden steps

The ground felt uneven beneath our feet

The grass held hidden treasure

The weather, sometimes grey and sometimes blue

sometimes warm and sometimes cold

We knew no schedule

The woods, soldier friends lined up

A tree house held low in a crook

an arm snapped

A path meandered downward 

dotted by protruding tops, 

buried bottles

Memory reflects the shimmer of metal

A colander in the late spring, early morning sun

We picked our berries knowing 

the devouring would wait

past pump, past blackeyed susans, a pear tree

a hose wrapped up like a snail

We returned to the moon which awaited us,

disappearing, fading into its cool shadows

Christmas Poem

For Mom and Dad

You do not know about

the lights on Rittenhouse Square 

the way none of us saw them coming

and a few of us suggested they were a miracle 

They hover in the trees-multi-colored spheres

I search to see if they line the entire park

My heart feels all there is to feel

when one is overwhelmed by excess

but still wants more

No, you do not know about 

the lights on Rittenhouse Square

or my throat gone tight as it does 

by the silliest things

the moon in a sliver or 

perfectly round and orange 

the bus coming when I want it to

an arm's smooth stroke through water 

In those first feeling moments

I think of telling it

telling someone about it 

I think of telling you about it

Maybe I will forget to tell you about

the lights on Rittenhouse Square 

How they remind me of everything 

and nothing at once 

How they seem like small planets

I can imagine reaching out for

cupping in pale hands 

How they reveal life

turning slowly, quietly

spectacularly

dangling from something as

fragile as a branch­