Needless to say, this past weekend was hell, and the best I could come up with for writing was focusing on porches. But this was exactly where a lot came together for me on Sunday.
It wasn’t going to be a great day—I knew that from the onset. With the yet undetermined nature of my niece’s sudden illness worrying itself in one corner of my own brain, I headed to my Dad’s (just noticed that I capitalize the “D”, just like the “G” or “H” in God or Him), where I planned to help him with some hedgetrimming, taking down storm windows to replace with screens, and a few other little chores. But all the time I was with him, I couldn’t tell him that my sister was down in D.C., nor what was going on with my niece. He’s 92. It’s his grandchild. We decided to wait until we maybe had better news and at least, until the operation was over.
My father has reluctantly learned to sit and watch me work, but it’s very, very difficult for him to do this. I also have learned to move slower when I’m around him, so that it looks relaxed and easy, or his natural fatherly, male instinct drives him to insist on joining in. We did start to work together on the windows, but suddenly he sat down on the porch stairs and I realized that once again he was getting chest pains. Even in this, my learned response is to appear calm, slowly go in and get him an aspirin and some water, and sit with him for a while without showing him how scared I really am. Just as careful of his feelings as I need to be of his physical health, I wanted to rake and clean up to make sure that he wouldn’t have anything left to do before I left.
From my Dad’s I went to visit my friend Chris. I hadn’t had to face her husband for a couple months because I’ve been there while he’s working so that she has some company during the long lonely days. Just looking at each other told us how hopeless the situation is, and gave both of us just an instant of weakness in the bold facade of strength we must hold onto in dealing with Chris’ own battle with cancer. There are moments of connection between family and friends, sometimes even strangers, that speak of things that can only be told through the eyes, not allowed to pass as words spoken out loud.
Chris is looking forward to going to Arizona for a brief visit with her new grandchild. This alone is keeping her going, I know. We sat out on her back deck and talked honestly and openly about her prognosis, and she told me what decisions she is making about her own life and what she is facing, about my niece’s current situation, and then, just as naturally, we started talking about the backyard gardens and what we were and weren’t going to bother doing this year. We had a good visit between good, close friends. I cried only in the car coming home.
Home, to face a sweet and understanding but very deeply pained husband who I had to delicately tell about my niece’s operation because his mother died from a brain tumor and it still hurts, twenty years later.
I learned a lot this weekend. And it all tied in with and was focused on the meaning of porches.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology