old,
teary-eyed, hard-of-hearing, a little wobbly,
bobbing,
weaving, shaking.
(Our
bodies animate us when we get old
so
passer-bys can tell
we’re
still alive.)
The
job was a challenge.
Their
memories of her,
dominated
by the past few years,
concerned
them -
short
phone calls, frustrated visitors -
the
end of participation, the brutality of Alzheimers.
She
had grown small.
She
once filled a neighborhood
walked, patrolled,
was recognized
then
just a street
then
she only filled a single house.
Awareness
shrunk to just one room,
then
to dimensions no larger than her.
Then
less, inside,
just
a little tiny space
somewhere,
we hoped, between her head and heart.
It
looks to us like a reflective space, a serene place to be,
but
it’s not.
It
seemed like a good idea at the time
“to
celebrate her life”
(a
well-worn line used at funerals
that
are never anything of the sort.)
So
I decided that my job would be
to
remind them, that
the
body lying behind me,
now
stopped at 86,
the
woman whose teeth were still in my Jeep,
the
shell of a girl with lips superglued together,
had
been a funny girl.
Neither
Florence nor John finished high school.
Both
had smiles that were more than authentic -
something
that just couldn’t be held in.
This
little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Don’t
hide your light under a bushel basket.
They
had that light, that I learned about in Sunday School.
My
parents were an oddly but surely matched set.
In
the factory, he worked
and
in the John he read.
He
read the Philadelphia Inquirer.
He
read the Evening Bulletin.
He
read the candy bar wrappers -
Snickers,
Almond Joys, Hershey Bars,
He
read money in his pocket, writing on his pencils,
cereal
boxes, scrapple wrappers, toothpaste tubes,
Look
magazine, TV Guide,
the
lawnmower owner’s manual.
Write
it and he’d read it.
Then
he’d come home.
His
hand, touching the chair at the dinner table, clicked him on
like
the transistor radio in his shirt pocket
it’s
dial peeking out at me as he ate
and
talked.
“Did
you know that Chervrolet
is
coming out today
with
a new color?”
“Robin
Roberts hit two homers
against
Cleveland!”
He
seemed well-informed!
Then
it would begin.
“The
President was in Brazil.
He
met with their President, Juan Valdez.”
My
father talked.
It’s
what he did.
A
man who never paused mid-sentence
to
try and remember a name or place or fact;
they
were of little immediate use.
He
talked to make you smile.
He
worked to make you laugh
even
if it took hours.
My
mother and I were in training -
to
learn his timing -
to
learn his mission.
Opportunities
to speak were few
unless
you participated,
so,
as mother carried in the green beans, she engaged.
“Actually
these beans came from Brazil.”
(an
interesting coincidence when you’re five).
He
agreed, informing me
that
they were picked by a good friend of his
Fat
Albert Valdez.
(again,
an interesting coincidence when you’re five).
And
off he’d go,
or
off they’d go
in
extended conversations that I’ve since to learn
most
other families weren’t having.
We
were being tutored
a
fact not understood by any of us
but
when he died, our training was complete
and
our mission was clear.
The
crowd bubbled with continued concern
But
it was an old bubble, not like coke.
More
like soup.
I
was obligated to report that while she was alone, confused
mostly
deaf and old
in
her last days,
it
was OK;
she
was confused but she was OK, because
she
was well-trained.
A
few weeks before, we were at Antonio’s Pre-Mortem Pizza Shop,
a
place where she felt comfortable being at, because she remembered it.
“Why
do you eat so fast?” she asked, as she always asked.
“I
don’t. Glue your teeth in before
we come
and
you could keep up.”
Ten
seconds later: “Are you done
already?”
“Yes,
you’re slow.” I said.
“You
eat fast.”
“Yes,
Mom, I think it’s relative.”
“Who’s
a relative? Done already?”
“Yes. Yes.”
Then,
she looked me in the eye
lowered
her voice
and
leaned across the jagged circle of pie crusts
that
we always assembled on the pan as we ate,
to
inform me that, when we leave,
in
the parking lot,
she
intended to beat me up.
It
was a funny line.
Perfect
timing.
The
waitress would have been puzzled.
He
would have been proud.
I
reported to the tough crowd
of
a night not long ago
Lawrence
Welk, thankfully, signed off.
An
8-second short term memory make attempts to follow Survivor useless.
The
same is true for the rest of us.
Animals
make few demands, so when I visited, we’d watch the Animal Channel - monkeys on
TV.
“Oooooh
- monkeys!” she said.
Her
eyes wide with childish excitement-
a
well-rehearsed move
“Do
you like monkeys?” I asked, in my straight-man mode.
“Oh
yes I do!”
each
word was given center-stage
“Remind
you of anyone?” I asked.
“Uuuummmmm
. . .
Well
you used to be a little monkey!”
I
sat in silence, looking away blankly
from
her one ‘good ear’
my
best feigned hurt face.
“Oh,
I’m just kidding.
You’ll
always be my baby.” She said as she put her hand on the back
of
my neck.
“Thank
you mom.”
.
. .
.
. .
.
. .
“You
little monkey.”
It
was perfect - the timing of a 20 year old,
the
timing of him.
So
we continued
a
family having a conversation.
Small
talk,
exceedingly
small talk,
with
a timing and topic that was part of a conversation
that
was decades long,
as
long as a family was permitted to remain a family.
It
was a conversation not crafted to communicate
but
to create in another
a
continuous
inner
smile.
Perhaps
others would have found it curious.
But
then, she was a very funny girl.
© 2012 John Allison
© 2012 John Allison
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