The Long Way Home

These days I take the long way home, meaning that I am there every day. I am there in the house I grew up in. The clutter is the same, the books are still falling off the shelves and my parents exist in the same intellectual Bohemian comfortable debris they always have.

but now my dad no longer cooks. My brother and I make supper. I clean up and wash the dishes. Sometimes I try to clear an area, but more often my mother simply needs me to hold her on the couch.

It is a long way home now. Chores, medications, bathing, diapering, cares, concerns, doctor appointments and the emotional realities that slowly settle in.

I take a long hard look and settle into the comfortable disarray without trying to change it.

It is a long way home from what I knew before...yet I get there.

After the Bath

Dad's hair is wild and unkempt. He is unshaven and needs a bath. He has always taken great care in particular with his mane of hair. Wild root hair oil is his favorite.
Last week he received the first haircut I have even given anyone. It was hard, but his big white mane of hair had gotten out of control. So I clipped away.

I told him we would shave and bath. I was apprehensive about bathing my dad for the first time, but figured I could do it.

We went upstairs. There were not any new razors so I made do by cleaning the old ones with an old toothbrush. Dad lathered up the soap and lathered his face....deftly from years of experience. I lined up the razors on the sink and he started shaving. It goes pretty well and soon his clear jar line and handsome face appeared out of the scrubble of the grey beard.I help a little bit, but he knows what to do and moves ahead.And soon, there he is, all shaved and clean in the face. His handsomeness showing through again.

I ask him if he wants a bath.I draw the water, but do not have my sketchbook or camera to record this tender moment. Fragile and vulnerable. It is an intimate moment for both of us and we jump over our self consciousness well...it's not easy, but it is necessary.
He smiles as I spray the water on his head. He washes his hair. He washes all parts of his body. Praising me for being able to help him in this way. Gone is the gruff anger I have known.He is happy to be helped.
. Somehow this is healing and helpful.
I see the bulge of the pacemaker in his chest.Life depends on that and his medications and I suppose on nurturing moments like this as well.....
He lays there in the tub in his vulnerability. Laying in the water...He philosophizes and muses as I hand him soap and a washcloth.

I assist him out of the bath and find clean clothes for him to wear. Clean socks are the hardest, but I find some.

He puts on his diaper, the long underwear, his socks, and pants, with belt. Then his two shirts, buttoning them carefully. Then he brushes his hair. I blow dry it a bit and he is all ready. Clean and ready for supper. He carefully goes downstairs.He sits on the couch, radiant and happy to be clean again.

The Clay Hanukiah

Darkness falls. Another winter storm is predicted..We wait...

It is the second night of Hanukah and I have stuffed my precious triangular box of Hanukah candles into the purple cotton bag that also holds my new rubber ice grippers that slip onto my shoes.

I guess I am ready for winter. I take one determined walk around the block..just as dusk is falling. There is slick ice everywhere already. I walk, hearing the click click, click of my ice grippers on the pavement. I round the corner from the alley and then another one.. I do not fall.I try out the ice grippers on Real Ice. They work, I do not fall....I keep walking..Click, click, click.

Back home we eat supper. I search for one of the many menorah's that I know must be around the house somewhere...in vain...nothing turns up.Then.... I see a clay face..it is a grimace really. I turn it over and use its hollowed out back side for our menorah.

After all, it is the perfect one. Yes, this sad face is really my sad face turned upside down....sadly sad...it is the face that watches my parents grow old..

...and yet in the light of the blue candles there is a peacefulness....a calm...we share some news of our day...my prayer wafts over the steady flames..and a feeling of brief tranquility resides....

The candles burn low in the upside down face.........then my mother worries and complains, I get crabby. My father is tired and feels very constipated...Before I leave I run all over the house looking for his laxative remedy...hoping it will work.

the little candles have burned down...my sad face remains..inwardly and outwardly..
and yet..there is the remaining sense of calm left.....a layer of spiritual light lingers as we face our problems and I go to drive home in the cold on icy streets.

That Viennese Music

That Viennese Music

Oh how it comes out of nowhere, just as we are driving back from Arden Hills to see the doctor....it drifts and suddenly swirls around us..taking us to that higher place..

anywhere but here..going west on 26th street to Lyndale in south Minneapolis...away from the news that my mother's white blood cell count is getting higher by one point since last week...
We drive right by the Urology place where she was diagnosed with a tumor last April...the music lifts us up and safely takes us back to Vienna where she grew up..where this music was the commonplace of everyday life.

I stop outside the coop...black birds fly off into some upper heaven, lighting briefly in the black trees..briefly..

The Viennese music is a message, a Hanuka gift perhaps from a long dead mother...a sign of some kind.

Enthralled we liston to it..as busy traffic hurries by. I cannot bear the news I have heard..it is too much...

and so the music is a gift....on the second day of Hanukah. It is a gift.

Every Day

Even though it is winter now every day is like it was before. I make it over to my parent's house to see how they are doing.

My mother is anxious and often desperate. A trail of phone calls precedes my visit there...I often feel that I do not get there soon enough.

This morning she slipped on a small rug and fell on her bottom.She is fine, but it shook her up and me as well. My husband rushed over to make sure she was okay.

Every day I call my mother.
Every day I help make supper.

Almost every day I help my mother change her diaper...It is so humbling to feel how the roles have changed.

Every day I wonder..How much longer will I have them?

every day I go see them.

Every Day Routine

I go to my parent's house every day just about. Yes, every day I make it over there about 3 or 4 o'clock. As usual my mother is sitting anxiously in the back yard awaiting my arrival. I am never early enough or on time. I feel guilty for being late, but am glad to have made it.
My dad is reading some magazine or newspaper. We talk. I fill my mother in on my day.
Then we usually take a ride.We beheld the golden sunset by the lake...a magnificent view...spectacular. It is often to Walgreen's Pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and get any number of items. Adult diapers, Ensure, vitamins, etc.I know most of the pharmacists there by name.
Then home for supper. My brother has fixed it. Tonight we had thin angel hair spaghetti, summer squash and small pizzas.
My mother is very anxious. After supper we sit on the couch watching obnoxious Wheel of Fortune. I hold her hand and often enfold her in my arms. Baby Emily, age eighty nine. Her memory has bigger holes in it lately. It bothers her and me.

Dad leans back into the couch watching TV or reading. I watch them. Then I say good bye and kiss them and hug them and kiss them again and drive off into the dark night.. It is very dark now...... I turn on the radio and let beautiful music carry me all the way home.

You'd wonder.

You'd wonder. Yes, you would wonder after all, after all these years...just how they keep on...and how you do as well.
There are lots of episodes to write about since summer ended.
We just turned back the clock. The long hours of darkness are here. Shadows slant sideways across the lawn in the late morning. I gather up what light there is in my hands and I remember. Not back across the years, or months...just the past few weeks..

I wish I had written every day...but this is enough...this...this moment...Now as darkness becomes our companion. I recall:

Emily selling books at the art crawl.
Emily's small stroke.
Dad's low pulse.
Dad to Regions.
The New Pacemaker.
Shalom Home.
Home Again.
No to the Vet's Home.
Everyday Challenges.