Dazzle Your Children

Y'know, once in a while, I would like things to go as I envision them. Just now and then. I bought nice letter paper, figuring I would write to Dad at the nursing home once a week, like I used to write home when I was in the Peace Corps. I'm a good letter writer (believe it or not), and he can't talk on the phone. I have been putting together photos and art from the kids to decorate his walls when I get there.

I have been mentally preparing myself to see him in this desperately ill condition. How to be...cheerful without being forced; encouraging without being unrealistic?

But Mom called tonight to tell me that he's going fast. Having a lot of trouble breathing, very seldom awake, heart meds aren't helping. The stroke affected the part of his brain that controls all of these functions, and the rest of him is shutting down. She has asked them to stop feeding him with the stomach tube. He's able to take a little water by mouth.

I'll be there a week from today. Probably a little too late. I'm trying not to let it bother me.

About ten years ago, I was in Wisconsin on Father's Day. It was a big get-together of the whole family (and Simon's parents from England), for Sara's baptism. Since all four of his kids were in attendance, Dad had offered to give the Message that day at church. He called it "DAZZLE Your Children!" This has always been one of his parenting themes. His actions have often been followed by a chorus of "DAAAAAAADDDD!!" You can read that with a tone of mortification (as when he managed to find a seersucker suit that was striped in my class colors to wear to my high school graduation). Sometimes it took the tone of mortal mortification (as when he surprised me at my college dorm one day and asked me if he could take me and my four best girl friends out to lunch, then gave us all a talk about AIDS and the dangers of unprotected sex). When we were younger, the tone would denote awe (like when he used to squeeze the honey over his toast, raising the bottle higher and higher the air until he was standing over the kitchen table).

I thought of this the other day. Sara and I took a walk to the supermarket, and I bought a new laundry basket. While walking home with it, I shocked Sara by wearing it over my head. "Oh, my God! Moooooooommmmm! [hissed] Just take it off before we walk past K's house, OK?" Pfffft. Yeah, right. I did pause in front of K's house to do a special, butt-shaking dance in front of her picture window, with the basket still on my head. "Don't worry. She won't know it's me. I have a basket on my head." "Mom, you're with me. Who ELSE would you be??"

Then I realized. I WAS BEING DAD! I called him up and told him all about it. He had his stroke the next day, so I guess I won't have the chance to talk to him again. I'm glad I called on the spur of that moment. It can be an OK ending, if it has to be. I'm still sad, though. I suppose I'll eat a half-box of Junior Mints and scrub some grout. I'd go dazzle the kids, but they're in bed.