Play Ball

 
Two
Carl Sandburg

Memory of you is ... a blue spear of flower.
I cannot remember the name of it.
Alongside a bold dripping poppy is fire and silk.
And they cover you.

Perhaps it would have been appropriate to silence that machine attached to the wall, to blot out its comedic and tragic images and incessant words oozing out of its sleek body, with a single click of my finger. At the very least, I could have curtailed the din, decreasing the volume flowing from that device to a barely audible buzz so as not to be distracted, so as not to use entertainment and news as a means to escape from the grave circumstances at hand. Undoubtedly, it would have been more dignified, more noble, more reverent, to cultivate a surrounding of quiet conducive to prayer. And in my mental handbook of "Top Ten Things To Do When Your Parent Is Dying," unplugging all media, reading psalms aloud, and praying the Jesus Prayer, are numbers one, two, and three on my list. But while Death was indeed at the door, whispering to my father on this Sunday, it was clear to me that his journey back to God was only beginning. In an effort to transport my father, mother, and I away from the sterile yet meaning to look "homey" environment around us to a familiar place in our collective Sunday afternoons past, I found on TV the sport my father loves second to God - a sport whose lackadaisical nature often lulled us into a blissful, temporarily sleep - and with my hands clutched in his feverish ones, we watched the Cubs play the Dodgers, volume turned to mass capacity. The Cubs won in ten innings. It was enough.

Over the course of the last several weeks, as it became apparent to me that my dad was not really going to get better, I began to hastily scrawl with a piece of purple chalk a list of things my boys emulate from my father. My boys are tiny and my mind desperately limited and I don't want them to relegate this man, who up until his illness stole him from them a few months back spent at least one day a week in our home, to a flimsy apparition rather than a man of flesh and blood. And so I asked my three sons to help me chronicle what reminds them of Grandpa. "Ski lift ride," said Thomas as he slid his finger down Lucia's nose, saying "I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck," and "playing Trouble and Shut the Box"; "Two hands" when using a cup, big squeezes affectionately known as "Ooh ooh loves," and that "he read me Frog and Toad," stated Russell; "how Grandpa prays," folding hands and bowing head, how "Grandpa says 'OK'" with his fingers and how he "pats you on the back" when giving hugs, chimed in Elliot. And on a chalkboard crowded with this week's dinner menu, an ever increasing grocery list, as well as reminders of things to do, my father's story continues.

Tonight I was able to grant a bit of respite to my mother who has admirably kept a constant vigil at my father's side these last three months. I was moved by their kiss good-bye to one another, their urges to the other "to get some rest," their speaking words which we know in our hearts may not be true, because for my father, there very well may not be a tomorrow. With my mother's absence, I was able to spend an hour alone with my dad. I spooned the only substance he truly desires, orange sherbet, into is mouth, firmly insisting that he also attempt some sips of broth and bites of slippery red jello, wiping his mouth with an over-sized towel resembling a bib wrapped around his neck, holding a cup when he needed a drink of water.  And it was an honor. With several guests stopping in, my father's day had been tiresome and noisy. Now he desired quiet. "Turn off the television," and "shut the door a bit," he whispered. And I complied, holding his hand, sitting in a dimly lit room, and praying over and over again, for me, for him, for us, and for all those grieving and suffering throughout this world, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  And it was enough.

Poetry Wednesday