I'm doing my father's laundry, the same shirts every week, the tan chinos, the plaid boxers, white v-neck undershirts and black diabetic socks he prefers that are loosely woven at the ankles so they are both easy to put on and not pinch-y. Shirts on the hangers my departed mother lovingly wound with multicolored wool yarn while she was watching TV a million years ago. Pants, socks, underwear in the laundry basket, then into my car for the drop-off later. This dad-o'-mine, who was movie-star attractive in his youth, who loved suits and great ties and had a gorgeous head of black hair ... he's now resigned, at 91, to a uniform of ordinary fabrics and sensible scuffed brown shoes. His only accessory is a blue and light brown twill belt with a coppery Kodak logo on the clasp, shades of his day job selling equipment at Penn Camera for decades, and his side job as a wedding and bar mitzvah photographer when I was growing up. Occasionally I would go with him and stand, well-behaved and invisible, around the edges of the dancing and laughing and hugging, wearing a Sunday dress on a Saturday. It's how I, Catholic to the core then, learned all the words to Hava Nagila by the time I was seven. ("....hava neranena, venis mecha" and then the more exciting, "Uru achim, belev sameach - hey!")
My dad never expected to live this long - my sisters and I didn't think he would, either, after his cancer and then kidney disease, our mother's death nine years ago, and more cancer - though of course we love having him. My father simply refuses to accept his mortality, and thus defies the odds. He is stubborn and self-sufficient and sharp as a tack. And lonely. Deeply, sadly, consistently lonely.
I'm using this blog post as part late-Father's Day tribute; part confession. Sometimes I resent being the Caretaker Kid. I have spent a lot of time keeping him safe and hanging out with him and picking up groceries and driving to and from dialysis and doing things like laundry and such. Most of the time I do so with great love and selflessness - after all, he did that for us when we were defenseless, and now he is, and he needs this. But there are times I just want to stay home, or go out with friends, or just not have to be responsible... and even though I always do the right thing, make the right choice, I feel guilty when I've had those thoughts, as if he can see that I'd rather be someplace else. Sometimes I'm embarrassed that the conversation starter these days from my friends is often "How's your dad?," as if that is all I do now, even though I'm working and living a life. Still, I realize how kind that is, that people remember him, and maybe they're thinking they wish they had their fathers, too, and I feel awful that I'm making this about me, and not him.
But often following the guilt, I have a moment like I had the other day, when I was leaving my father after having dinner with him. I leaned over to kiss him, and he, with his huge 1980s glasses and thinning grey hair, with age spots dotting his skin and nothing but love on his still-handsome face, held on to both of my arms on the inside, just below my elbows, and looked at me with teary eyes, and said, "Be careful driving home. You're my link to the outside world, you know."I do know, Dad. I'm your link.
© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie
