Sunday Visit
My fatherÕs skin
Rice paper
Stretched translucently
Around the silhouette of his skull
The blue veins look
Hand drawn
It is his face
But not his face
What is left of his cheek droops
Lifelessly.
I look for the eyes
They always told a story
He never spoke much
It was always in the eyes
They are blue, like mine
Or they were
It seems they are turning gray
With the rest of him
Everything I learned was in them
I am their reflection
It is all that I have
And now they are looking at mine
They are all that he has
There are no answers.
His hand shakes as he holds his fork
Trying to snare a morsel of fish
It has been one minute
And now deliberately, painfully
He brings the morsel to his mouth
His lips betray him
The morsel falls to his napkin-bib
A defeated groan
He says he loves the fish
He says he no longer likes eating
I am feeding my father.
My father was a proud man
In a good way
Humble to a fault, self-deprecating
He is humiliated by the betrayal
Of his body
Bladder and bowel
Hand and eye
Foot and leg
The irony is not lost
That his twice scarred heart
And by-passed arteries
Are all that seem to work
And for what purpose?
He remembers seeing Babe Ruth play
But can not recall his last sentence
Our conversations are crossword puzzles
That become increasingly more difficult
He points to the floor
And asks what is that thing doing there
Only he sees it.
He is trying to hold on to life
That has become liquid
And as the fire burns itself out,
Vapor.
He stands with the aid of two people
And a walker
His walk has become a burlesque
Performed only a few feet at a time-
A Ôremember thisÓ ritual
That has lost its purpose and utility
He is propped into a soft chair
His dead weight body adjusted
A cushioned jail, hour after hour
There is no escape except within.
There are moments my father is reborn
A wave that washes over the room
Only to recede into the murky waters
In which he is adrift
He takes a sip of juice and chokes
The muscles of his throat
No longer remember.
We are watching the ball game
I sit next to him in a chair
Like I did when I was a kid
At the ballpark
He knows the score.
He asks if the Cubs will win anytime soon
The mortality of the answer
Makes my eyes well
This is no joke
We were always Sox fans
I tell him theyÕre beating the Yanks 4-0
It is 1959 again
For a moment.
We leave our conversation for a minute
He is asleep, slumped to his left
Surrounded by his chair cell
He is small and fragile
I touch him gently
Afraid he will turn to dust.
He awakens a bit confused
I tell him it is time to go
He asks me when I am going to get here
I tell him I am here, next to him
The confusion no longer surprises him
He is resigned
He rasps, ÒOh, yes.Ó
I find myself gently caressing his shoulders
When he was my father we never caressed
I hold out my hand to shake, we always shake hands
He does not so much shake
As he holds it, just holds it
And I know what he is saying
And I lean over and kiss him
It is all that I could do
With the last two gifts my father could give me
The ability to forgive, and
Simple, gentle, kindness.
-- jwb, 2000