Molly’s a natural blond with a wasp’s waist. I’m guessing she’s in her forties because she has two grown daughters, both of whom live out of state. I don’t know how long Molly’s been divorced, but unlike some women I meet, she appears perfectly comfortable living alone.

The company she works for assists special needs children and was named after the owner’s dog. I know Molly works odd hours because I so often see her walking her dog or watering her lawn.

Friday, I’d just finishing installing two new windows in the downstairs bedroom.

“Who’s Abby’s friend?” I ask.

“That’s Ginger.”

“She’s pretty. She’s the color of those pine needles under your trees, but she’s not moving too well.

“She’s fourteen.”

“Ginger, you’re getting old.” I bend down to pet her. “My dog lived until she was Ginger’s age. We should have put her down, but we didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Just couldn’t. Then one winter night as she walked along the road, a truck ran her over. I came home and found her covered by the guy’s tartan blanket. I felt sorry for the driver, he had no idea he’d done us all a favor.”

“Abby had a cousin, Violet. At seven, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He was in so much pain he didn’t even want to come inside where he used to curl up. That fetal position hurt too much so he’d lay on the porch near the slider. It was so sad.”

“No trucks in your neighborhood?”

“Come on! We took him to the vet like you should have.”

“And he laid down and waited for the injection.”

“No, he fought like hell. He always hated the vet.”

(click)

It’s over, he’s all moved in and Matt’s first class is this morning at 9:40. Here’s a short bit from Friday and Saturday’s events. Background music, “A Nice Life” by Paradox.

****************

This New York Times article and linked video from Adam.

Dear Helen,

Diane and I are chillin’ here in Boothbay Harbor. We’re sleeping late, eating out and dreading our return trip home. As we crested Eastern Ave., about to descend the hill to Hannaford’s grocery store, I thought I’d give you a call and talk about Matt going off to college. Then I felt a quick hollow beat in my chest. All those years, all those calls, and especially all those shared stories. Not gone, but over. Shortly after I cut off the end of my finger I reached for the zipper on my jacket but missed. It was no longer there to grab – in the old way – between thumb and forefinger.

Well, you’re not here to grab, in the old way, either. I guess from now on our conversations will be one way. Diane doesn’t frown on this, she tells me I’m incorporating your spirit within mine. I think of it as taking the good parts of you and sprinkling them around in my head.

Mostly what I have in my head right now is the cheerleader. At some point in my life you gave up being a judgmental mother and became my reinforcer. I’m not really sure when that happened, but it might have been when your brother died, and you called me for support.

If you were still around, I would have told you about missing Matt. As Diane and I headed out of Acton, we stopped by Hil K’s house to give her the CD version of a movie I’d made. Hil K is Hil K because there is a Hil B. You’ve seen her picture in the last two proms and on that sophomore camping trip to Ed’s place.

Hil came to the door dressed in a black t-shirt speckled with yellow paint. When she leaves she’s handing her newly spiffed-up room over to her sister. Hil and I had sort of talked before about change, this transition from high school to college, and I’d joked about wanting all of Matt’s friends to get married and settle down. Frozen in amber at eighteen, if you will.

Hil described how hard it was to no longer have Debbie a quick drive away, and then she asked me, “Will you miss Matt?” I said, no, but that I already missed Debbie. A funny variation of the answer I’ve been reciting for months. Usually I frame it as, ”I’m so happy for Matt that I’m not feeling the loss.”

However, Hil’s asking kicked the loss door open. Today I’m dreading Matt’s leaving, and I thought I’d ask you for advice. You have to admit, our family handled leaving in an odd way. I remember when I left for college. Brian drove me to IU’s campus, opened the car door and said, “Goodbye.” I remember when I hitchhiked around the country in 1969. I walked out of our side door to the highway in front of our house, and waved, “Goodbye.” I had imagined my father’s transitions were similar but without the fanfare.

But, mom, I know you must have had feelings though you didn’t share them. So that’s why I’m asking now, what do I do with those same feelings? The ones you sat on. The one’s I kept hidden until Hil came to the door.

Diane, Matthew and Brian boarded flight 5807 lifting off from Dress Memorial in Evansville at 10:09 a.m.. I waved goodbye and drove back to my father’s house. I had a huge list of to-do’s before the to-do’s birthed new to-do’s. The first, a drive to the elder law attorney where my father signed his Living Will, his Last Will and Testament, and a document that would empower Brian to make medical decisions should my father lose his capacity to do so. From there we drove to the First Federal Bank to transfer funds to Mack’s Fifth Third Bank checking account. Chunky important stuff, mostly done.

Tomorrow I’ll probate my mother’s will and retrieve a death certificate to enable banks to release joint funds. The last task, before I return home, paying for Helen’s end of life expenses.

Tired, I returned to Jeff and Karen’s to make the last two calls of the day. The first to Diane and the second to Adam. As I moseyed outside in the dark, cell phone in hand, ozone at peak levels, heat rising from the pavement, I saw my bent and weary father shuffling past. A lonely and sad figure to be sure.

“Would you like company?”

“If you wish.”

The Ruthenburg’s live four short blocks from my father’s. I’m not much of a walker and I assumed we’d cut back towards Bellemeade, but instead, we walked away, past the local library towards Washington Street. Whenever I’d suggest an about face, Mack would forge ahead. I believe he needed help sleeping.

“What is Peter going to do?” he asked.

“He’ll head back to Hawaii Saturday, but he may be moving back here for awhile.”

“Is that a smart move?”

“Peter’s teaching English to Japanese residents and he’s making money, so I’d say, yes.”

“How long was he in Hawaii? Ten, twenty years?”

“Eighteen.”

“That’s a long time to pull up and leave. And Joan and Paul?”

“I don’t know about them. But I want to tell you what I did today. I dropped in on both shifts at the hospice center. I thanked them for their care of Helen.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“Mary Ann on evenings. I called her Jersey Girl because she’s from somewhere near Newark. And Rebecca from nights. I wanted to see Darcy who works days but she was on vacation. Tomorrow I’ll go to Patchwork Central to ask them to mail me a list of donors. I’ll write the thank you notes, with help from Jeff and Karen, who’ll make the personal connections to Helen.”

“That’s a good thing to do. Very good.”

We walked on until I noticed my father trailing farther behind. I slowed, but he slowed some more, and then he placed his hand on his chest where all the heat and humidity had come to rest.

“Do you need to sit down?”

“I can’t catch my breath.”

I helped him down onto a terraced curb. We weren’t sitting in the street but just behind the sidewalk. There were no other pedestrians.

“My chest hurts, and right here (he moved his right hand up and down his left arm) it hurts like you wouldn’t believe.”

When I was a boy I had a reputation for never complaining. After I dropped a heavy barbell on my head, at fourteen, my parents were much more worried about my complaints than the blood streaming down the side of my neck. “Like you wouldn’t believe” focused my attention.

“I can tell you exactly what this is, Mack. There are few things I’m as certain about as this. Do you want to hear?”

“Go ‘head,” he said as he stood up ready to move on. I looked around for the nearest return street and open stores where I might get help.

“You’re having classic angina symptoms. Or even heart attack symptoms. Do you want me to describe exactly what’s happening?”

“My heart can’t keep up?”

“Not what I was going to say, but, yes. Your heart isn’t keeping up.”

My father seemed to catch his breath, and I thought I should sit him down and run back for my truck, but I couldn’t leave him alone. The rhythmic sounds of crickets behind us clashed with the roar of cars and busses. I was nervous, but not overly so. Peter had described similar symptoms while he was walking with my father.

“There’s medication that will treat your pain. If you were younger, you’d have surgery, but this medicine reallly works. Faster than an aspirin for a headache.”

“How much is it? About twenty-five dollars a pill?”

“I’m not sure that would be my first concern, but, no, it’s been around forever and I suspect it’s quite cheap.

We walked another block, finally away from the busy lighted street and into the dark. Mack stopped and fumbled for another place to sit. I helped him down onto a chipped concrete stoop leading to a side porch.

“I can hardly breathe,” he said, and then began throwing up. You can’t get more textbook than this, and I drifted back twenty-five years to the woman I’d walked away from at Emerson Hospital. As a Respiratory Therapist I’d set-up her oxygen after her transfer from the Cardiac Care Unit. She arrested after I walked out of her room.

“Look, I could call an ambulance. Anyone else would. I should call an ambulance. But let me try Jeff first.”

I walked back to the corner to pin point where we were. I thought I’m going to lose my father less than a week after my mother. I imagined my cell phone call to Diane, “I went for a stroll with Mack and now he’s dead at my feet.” I also pondered, somewhere in my now-fatalistic psyche, that this would be alright – if it happened soon. If he arrested five or ten minutes from now, I’d have to stand up to withering questions from my family. I looked back to see Mack belching and covering his mouth as stomach fluid spilled past his hands. I called my friend, Jeff, for help but only heard the faint, “Please leave us a message.” “Jeff, pick up. Jeff, it’s me and it’s important, please pick up. I know I sound like you when you call home, just waiting around for an answer, but please pick up.” I didn’t want to alarm him by describing what was happening so I blabbed on, waiting. I hung up and called back five times in a row, letting the phone ring but hanging up before the answering machine kicked in. Finally I called 911.

“Emergency services.”

“I’m Michael Miller and I’m on the corner of Grand and Washington. I’m with my father who is ninety-two and he’s having classic angina or heart attack symptoms. Chest pain, shortness of breath and severe pain down his left arm. Plus he’s throwing up.”

“Is he cold and clammy?”

“No, he’s not diaphoretic.”

“How’s his skin color?”

“I can’t tell; it’s dark out. He’s standing up again, let me ask him how he’s doing.”

“It doesn’t matter, there’s an ambulance on the way now.”

I could hear the sirens in the distance and I hung up.

“Mack, there’s an ambulance coming.”

“What?” He looked panicked and angry. “Can’t you cancel it?”

“It’s too late, but once they get here we can send them on their way. I’d prefer they check you out.”

I waved my arms as paramedics Joe and Courtney jumped out of the ambulance.

I described my father’s symptoms and what he’d said about his heart not keeping up. I also told them his wife died last week, but that he was embarrassed and wanted them to leave. I said, “My father is from Kansas,” as if that would explain it all.

After I apologized to Joe, “He can die walking around the block but not on my shift,” we shooed them away. My father and I resumed our impossibly long walk back to Bellemeade. He chattered on about how the city blocks are half as long in one direction as in the other, about the dead tree in the park and why it hadn’t been cut down, but nothing more about his heart. We finally arrived at his house and he said, “You walked me to my house; how about if I walk you to yours?”

“How about if you don’t?” I said. “And how about next time we take a shorter walk?”

My mother told me that when she was four her father and a friend of his were outside arguing. I don’t remember the man’s name or what the spat was about , but the friend, in jest, raised his fist in a threatening manner. As men do. Helen Virginia O’Connell promptly picked up a rake and said, “I’m Hennie Bo Jennie Ocono and if you hit my father I’ll hit you.”

Hennie Bo Jennie put her rake down yesterday at noon.

My mother told me that when she was four her father and a friend of his were outside arguing. I don’t remember the man’s name or what the spat was about , but the friend, in jest, raised his fist in a threatening manner. As men do. Helen Virginia O’Connell promptly picked up a rake and said, “I’m Hennie Bo Jennie Ocono and if you hit my father I’ll hit you.”

Hennie Bo Jennie put her rake down yesterday at noon.

(click)

The photograph behind Sarah (QT 2MB) is of Helen in her early twenties.

Same movie but posted at youtube.com

Here’s the Quicktime (7MB) unedited version of the making of “Where The Hell Is Michael.” Following Matthew’s lead, I’m gonna publicly thank Jeff and Karen and their friends – Connie, Chris, Wayne and Mark.

I’m pretty sure this is our twenty-second wedding anniversary, but since I broke my finger I haven’t been able to wear my wedding ring on which the date is inscribed. Although without an electron microscope I wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. I’m going to trust my intuition…met in ’69…moved into her bedroom in ’70…bought our house in ’83 …married in ’84……Matt born in ’86 …put out to pasture in ’09.

I love you Diane.

Last night Diane escorted me to the American Repertory Theatre to see Monsieur Chopin . This was the end of a two-day birthday celebration which began with polenta pie, presents and my traditional cherry pie dessert. Though I knew where we were going, Diane made me promise not to peek at the ART’s website. A surprise performance in lieu of a surprise party.

That meant that while listening to Gunsmoke and nailing mahogany decking, I could fantasize about the conjunction of my desires and Diane’s intuition. Matthew had the day before been spot-on with his gift – a super, glow-in-the-dark popgun blaster.

As we walked into the ART, the first poster we passed was for “The Island Of Slaves.” Described as shipwreck survivors switching roles to learn lessons in humanity, I thought uh oh, until I noticed the long-ago production date. Tacked to the right of the ticket window, however, was the current play – Chopin’s life, written, produced and acted by one man, Hershey Felder.

After a month and half of rain.

That much talked about Ford F-650

************
Take Comfort Where You Can

Not for nothing
are we given at least as much
sense as God gave a goose,
which we have no access to, sensewise.
We don’t speak goose
nor recognize what body language
there may be in a body
which is mostly neck and dollop.
But down, now there is something
to build dreams on.
We have recourse
and in the morning the feathered snow
will have come and closed the roads.
Linger. Leave off.

Michael Chitwood

***********

David Attenborough