[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img] When I left Pop two weeks ago today at the lunch hour, probably for the final time, he was as I want to remember him.
In a permanent food pose.
For almost 94 years, he has been bringing a world-class appetite to the table. And there he was, wolfing down the second half of his day-old Subway sandwich, dabbling in a salad, supping coffee all while carrying on a lively conversation with his regular tablemate, a stoic lady of similar age who said 14 words during my visit but was a very faithful, patient listener. Or deft at nodding her head.
He was sorry to see me leave, Pop said, but after all, I needed to understand that it was 11:40 a.m., and for many years that has been the shank of lunchtime. Only a Communist invasion could deter him from fulfilling this passionate obligation.
Some families travel. Some families teach. Other families perform. In my house, we ate. Mom must have invented the phrase, “Lunch served all day, also breakfast, dinner, nosh time.” The smallest pang of hunger was against family law. Pity the vulnerable wretch who would accidentally position himself between the spoon of a family member and said eater’s mouth.
Danger While Eating — which also gave birth to another favorite phrase, “24/7.”
Eating three squares a day — regardless of weather, health, incontinence, missing slipper, wheelchair that moves too slowly — is what drives Pop to awaken every morning.
Healthier Than I Thought
Two and a half years after our most recent visit, an image of feebleness had been conveyed through the unreliable cross-country wires of our daily telephone calls.
Wrong.
He looks pretty darned robust, at least during the little time that he spends out of bed.
No longer ambulatory, his legs are so weak that stepping, slowly, lumpily, from bed to wheelchair is an Evel Knievel-style thrill. Reaching the bathroom in a timely manner is measured by the calendar rather than a timeclock.
I had cast myself, the sole surviving son, as being of heroic proportions for deigning to interrupt my supposedly busy workday to telephone Pop 6 days of the week. I imagined that I was gallantly rescuing him from unfathomable boredom.
Three of his remaining 6 children telephone him daily. Not until I was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him field a typical call, did I realize how psychologically slender, how transitory, telephone visits are for him. When he hangs up, the contents simultaneously vanish.
Like watching a beautiful bird fly by, the wonderful energy of even an appreciated call fades swiftly and entirely.
At Least He Is Well, Well Rested
He must lie in bed 95 percent of a day. The television at the foot of his bed may as well be a 1948 model because he has not turned it on since Inauguration Day, which was its first usage in months.
What truly counts for Pop, the only device that makes a meaningful dent in his fairly dry days, is to come to the nursing home for a live visit.
Even though his mind is clear most of the time, it is rusting from lack of use.
Home for 4 1/2 days, Pop and I were seldom out of each other’s sight. Still, it took me until the fourth day to figure out he was comfortably capable of much more activity than he had shown.
The first 3 days, he virtually only arose for meals. On Day 4, to the shock of my family, he got into my car, dammed up, and away we roared on a 3-hour, 75-mile drive. With my recording device in place, he ticked off the business or family who used to occupy nearly every building between home and our destination. We went to see his 90-year-old sister, who was positive she never would see him again.
She Appeared, and Then She Was Gone
The beginning and the end of my visit were my favorite scenes that ache my heart.
A sister who is persona non grata with some family members met me at the airport on a snow-blowing day. It was so windy that I needed both hands and my left foot to keep the steering wheel under control.
Minutes later, I veered off for a quick visit with Pop, and an hour later hooked up with two of my sisters, including Ms. Persona Non Grata, for lunch. Afterward, Ms. PNG and I bundled up to our chins and roamed our old neighborhood because it had been years since we had seen each other.
I hated to see her go home already and end a wonderful day since it was only 2:30. She promised to follow me back to the nursing home.
When I turned off the engine of my car in the snowy parking lot and headed for the door, the darnedest thing happened. My sister was closely trailing. “Don’t say a word,” she said.
A moment later, we dually entered Pop’s room. It happened too fast to feel nervous. Their eyes met, his much more slowly than hers.
For 20 self-willed years, they have been apart. This remarkably unremarkable scene was the only time in my fairly lengthy life that I recall two high-octane members of my family eschewing emotion.
She stayed for 45 minutes. They visited, prosaically, as if she came around every week. Neither a voice nor an eyebrow was raised.
Surreality invaded Pop’s room. When she was ready to leave, she abjured me not to accompany her to her car.
Only after she was gone did Pop break down, a little. He still raves about her, wondering when she will come back.
She will return, she said, without explaining exactly why.
