Noon’s Tunes: “In Color” by Jamey Johnson

My parents were in their early 40s when they decided to adopt me, back in 1966.  Both of my parents lived through The Great Depression, and World War II.  My dad was in the Navy (then the Army) during the war, and was on a medical frigate when they tested the Atomic Bomb, dropping it in the waters of Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands.  My mom, she was part of the Women’s Army Corps, and worked on the bombing range, using surveying equipment to help improve the accuracy of the bombs.

My aunts and uncles were of the same generation, most of my parents friends were too.  So I grew up around them, hearing stories of war and depression first hand.

This song by Jamey Johnson, who is just about a decade younger than I, tells the story of him talking with his grandpa.  For me, because my parents had been older, this song is a generation closer, it’s not me talking to grandparents, but parents.

The story of the song may be of Jamey Johnson’s grandpa, but, it’s also a story of a generation of people who are becoming fewer and fewer in number.  The last of the World War I veterans died last year, aged 110.  My mom, who was 21 when she enlisted, during the last year of World War II will be turning 90 this year.  Soon, the generation who survived depression, war, Holocaust, will too be gone.

I’m thankful to have heard so many of the stories from my parents, my relatives, their friends.  And, like all stories, they need to be told in order to be remembered.

This song resonates with me, and I thank Mr. Johnson for the gift of his song.

There’s a verse from that song that makes my eyes water every time:

This one is my favorite one
This is me and grandma in the summer sun
All dressed up, the day we said our vows

You can’t tell it here but it was hot that June
And that rose was red and her eyes were blue
And just look at that smile, I was so proud

I’m reminded of my dad saying that he was so proud to be standing next to my mother, while the Justice of the Peace performed their wedding.

Every day, I’m reminded of that day my dad said those words to me, because, hanging in the living room is a painting — made from their wedding photo. Their wedding may have been in January, not June, but the roses were red, and, though you can’t tell in the photo here, my mom’s eyes are a beautiful blue.

 

Christmas Eve

I wrote this last Christmas Eve (2011). At least, I wrote much of the words, thoughts, feelings.  It was written in the evening, after the events described, when thoughts were racing, and emotions were high.  It was, like much that is written in times of great emotional stress, a jumble.  There were long, rambling sentences that probably only made sense to me.  I put the draft aside, intending to go back in a few days to revise it, then post it.  However, as I read it, the emotions were still too raw to articulate well, and the story too close, too personal to share.  I put it away again.

On Christmas Eve this year (2012) I pulled it out, read it again, and discovered it wasn’t as jumbled as I had thought, though it was rather long and rambling.  So, I’ve spent some time revisiting my story, trying to clarify thoughts and feelings so they (hopefully) make sense to someone other than me.  It’s still personal, and the emotions are still raw.  But, I think I’m ready to share.  I hope someday, somewhere, a boy who has lost his father might read this and know that he’s not alone, that there are others who can understand his grief.

This is a bit longer than normal, so don’t start reading unless you’ve got a few extra minutes.

(The photo of the gravestones in the snow is an old snapshot I took on a different day, at a different cemetery.)

*********

Christmas Eve. Perhaps not the best day to go to the cemetery to put flowers on my father’s grave.

I guess there aren’t really any days that can be considered the best day to go.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I have anything against cemeteries. Heck, I don’t even have anything against death.

Denver’s second-oldest graveyard, Fairmont Cemetery, is a few miles from our home, and it is one of my favorite places to go for a long walk. Fairmont’s 280 acres are filled with more than just tombstones: more than 3800 trees provide shade, and give shelter and home to a variety of wildlife. It’s a peaceful, calm, quiet oasis in the middle of a big, bustling, noisy city. Perhaps it’s not just the symbols of death, but, maybe it’s also the zen-like calm silence that all cemeteries possess that make people feel uncomfortable among the graves. In conversation, casually mention that you love to take long walks in the cemetery. You’ll find people’s reactions quite fun. The fact that I am walking among the dead doesn’t bother me; we find in cemeteries what we take with us: I believe that death is the final stage of life, and that there is nothing after death, so I am not haunted by the images of ghosts and stranded souls wandering around the tombstones, lost and forlorn.

Death is not something I find fearful or terrifying. Dying? Yes, that bugs me. The thought of a long, lingering, pain-filled, drugged up existence? Yeah. Bugs me. Terrifies me. But the death part? No. I’m fine with that. I am not afraid of non-existence. There’s a strange comfort in knowing that someday I will simply cease to exist.

Comforting?!

Death?

Yes.

Not in a suicidal fantasy way. No.

In the way that means that death brings an end to all the worrisome questions that echo through my brain:

“Am I too fat?”

“How bald will I get?”

“Wrinkles: how many, and how deep?”

“What if I lose my sight? My hearing? My ability to care for myself?”

“Will my penis stop working?”

“Will my stomach get so big I can’t see my penis?”

“What about a heart attack?”

–Cancer?

–Stroke?

–Incontinece?

–Dementia?

–Alzheimers?

“Will Julian and I still be together then? Will we have separated? Will I be a widow?”

“How many years might I spend alone, in a nursing home, with no one but the other dying, demented, lonely individuals for company?”

“How will I pay for it all?”

“I have no children, so who will help me if I’m old and alone?”

“Will I be so lost in Alzheimer’s that I won’t care?”

“If I have Alzheimer’s, will I forget about my penis? Will I even recognize my penis, and remember all the good times we’ve shared?” (I’m a guy. We think about our penis from time to time. Often. Frequently. Obsessively.)

“Will I be lost in Alzheimer’s, yet unable to let anyone know that in some deep recess of my mind there is a voice, my voice, shouting ‘I’m sane! I’m fine! Help me! I’m still in here, I’m just lost! Please find me!”

No. With all of that, death doesn’t seem like such a bad place to be.

And, the cemetery seems the least scary thing in life. Going to the cemetery to take flowers to my dad’s grave is not an emotional task.  I go because mom wants to go.  My need to visit my dad’s resting place has long since past.

Going to the cemetery, the cemetery my mom and I went to on Christmas Eve, means going to the military cemetery, where whatever remains of my father exists. Dad was not always buried here; from the time he died in 1980, until 2008, he was buried in Rhode Island, in the plot where my maternal grandparents rest. It seemed a natural thing at the time, burying dad in Rhode Island, as my mom spent a great deal of time there, and, I think, she thought she’d move back there some day. The years passed. We never moved. In 2008, my mom had my dad’s body moved from the family plot in Rhode Island to the military cemetery here in Denver.

There was a time, in the first few years after my fathers death that I wished his grave was closer.  I was 14 when he died, and, as an adolescent, my understanding of death and dying was still based on the things I’d learned being raised in the Catholic tradition. I believed that some part of my dad was attached to the cemetery, to the stone, to the grave.  I’m not sure exactly how, or what, but, in the religious tradition, there’s a belief that the dead are somehow in need of visiting.  For a time, I wished I could visit him at the cemetery, that I could go and talk to him, in the way you see people in movies talk to the graves.  I don’t remember all the things I wanted to say, though I do know that I wandered around for a long time feeling like he couldn’t hear me, because I was so far away.  Years passed, life brought new experiences and beliefs, and I realized that the grave of my father was just a symbol, a memorial to the fact he once existed.  I came to realize that my father lived inside me, and that I didn’t need to see a marker of his life, as I had the proof: my memories, even though there were not that many, and that they faded a bit each year.  I have no emotional attachment to the place where his remains are.  My dad lives in my thoughts.  But, for my mom, there is still a desire to visit his stone.  It somehow reestablishes her connection with him.

Eight inches of snow had fallen over the city two days before, and not much had melted away, except on the major roadways. This day, Christmas Eve, was my favorite type of Colorado winter day: a cloudless sky, bright blue, with blazing sun, and a chill in the air.

As we drove through the cemetery, I am instantly struck by the beauty ahead of me: a snow covered hill, sloping slightly upward, bordered by a brilliantly blue sky, with row after row of the iconically familiar while marble military gravestones. The blanket of snow on the hill is undisturbed, and the solitude of the scene addes a bleakness to it all, a sad reminder of all those who’ve served and died for our country. We make our way to the road where my father’s grave lay, park, and I get out of the car. Mom waits in the car. On the best of days, walking over the lumpy earth around the tombstones is tough for he; with eight inches of snow on the ground, we agree it would be safer for her to remain in the car.

Usually it takes a minute or two to find dad’s stone, one among all the other identical stones. Is it this row? No, maybe it’s that one there? Wait, it’s this one, yes, this one here.

This day, however, I walk right to it.

I use my foot to clear the snow away from the base of the marker, and slide the plant holder, containing silk poinsettias, into the ground.

As I kneel there, looking at the stone with my father’s name engraved on it, I am suddenly overcome with such a sense of grief and loss that the tears begin running down my cheeks before I am even aware of them.

“I miss you daddy.” I might have said this aloud.

I have never cried at my father’s grave before. Do not confuse “never crying at his grave” with “never crying for my father”. I’ve cried for my father. Many times.

More than thirty years after my father’s death, there are moments when I’m overcome with feelings that are so overwhelming that they can only be expressed in tears. The grief and loss nearly takes my breath away, and, if I wasn’t already kneeling, the pain that pierced my heart might have brought me to my knees. Though the emotions that attack me are stronger than any I’ve felt before, the emotions, are like old friends; I understand them without ever having to exchange words, a simple glance tells me in an instant all I need to know. It took me many years to finally understand the complexities of the emotions I felt about my dad’s death. The feelings and thoughts that take hold of me, there at my father’s headstone, are familiar, complex, and simple — it’s a sense of loss for man I know in a general sense as My Father, but, more profoundly, it is the certainty of the loss of a man named John, a man I’m named after, a man who is very much a stranger to me, a man I’ll never get to know.

For most of the years of my childhood, both of my parents worked two jobs. They worked so much that I didn’t have much time with them.  My mother was a high-school teacher by day, and taught classes a few nights a week at the adult education center, so she had more time off than my father, since she didn’t work during the summers.  My father worked full-time in a hospital lab by day, and, for many years, he worked full-time in a hospital lab at night.  We didn’t know it at the time, but the brain tumor that would eventually claim his life at age 55 began taking it’s toll about two years before the doctors discovered it.  He was more tired than usual, and fell asleep at work, and, while he never got test results mixed up, he did forget to run tests. He was asked to step-down from the lab, but, in order to not lose his pension, he was offered a janitor job at the hospital.  The news travelled from one hospital to the other, and, instead of two lab jobs, my father had two janitor jobs.  I remember once, hearing him tell my mom, his voice rather trembly, that he was sorry about the change in his jobs, and my mother, in an uncharacteristically tender voice told him that she would always love him, no matter what his job.  It was a moment that has stayed with me all these years, as it’s a moment that defined what kind of people my parents were.

Are.

This sense of loss that often catches me unawares is grief, and an anger, an ache that I will never know more about who my father really was as a man.  I know he was a father who loved me.  Who worked hard to provide a good home for his family.  Who went to church.  Who never drank.  Or smoked. I know what kind of father he was.  I never got to find out who he was.  Did he follow any football teams?  What did he think of Nixon?  Even though he changed from being in the Navy, to being in the Army, because he couldn’t swim, did he miss the Navy?  Did he like being on the sea, in the big ships? I never got to talk to him in an adult way, just a father-to-young-son way.  I never got to ask him about his political beliefs, or his spiritual ones.  I never got to talk, as two grown men, about what it was like for him, coming home that day, when he was about 5, and he and his brothers found their mother hanging in the basement, a victim of suicide.

The feeling of loss that grabs ahold of me is a sense of being incomplete. Teenage boys learn from their fathers. Sometimes it’s basic skills: changing a flat-tire, repairing a leaky pipe, changing the oil in the car, how to shave. Sometimes, the things you learn from your father are more esoteric, things that only a man, most likely your dad, can teach you: explaining to you that the wonderfully intense feeling that woke you up and left you covered in sweat and sticky white stuff around your groin and on the sheets is a perfectly natural thing; teaching you, I suspect by example, how the world expects a man to behave, to react, to speak. I never learned any of those things from my father, many of them I’ve never learned at all. I can’t change the oil in the car, or, I should say, I’ve never bothered to learn. I have tried to teach myself how to do handyman things, and the results have always been less than adequate. I finally learned how to change a tire, when I was in my mid-twenties, out of humiliation, rather than desire. I had a flat and called AAA. That’s what my mom did whenever she’d had a flat. I had no idea one changed the tire on their own. The serviceman arrived, and when he saw that I was a young, able-bodied man, his attitude became contemptuous, his remarks snide. When he remarked that my dad would be disappointed that I couldn’t change my own tire, I told him sobbingly that my father had died when I was 14, and he’d never had the chance to teach me, and I hoped that he’d not be disappointed. To his credit, the serviceman was sufficiently embarrassed and contrite about his attitude and remarks, and took the time to show me what to do. Perhaps if I’d had older brothers, or uncles who lived around us, I’d have learned things from them.  We had no relatives here in Colorado, and, the men in my life, friends of the family, were all older, and had raised their own children already.  With one exception, a man named Mel, who is one of the kindest, most gentle of men that I’ve ever known, I had no male role models, no one to teach me those things that men seem to know.  As an adult, I still get funny looks and stares, when talking to other men, and have to admit that I don’t know how to solder pipes, or I’ve never used a power saw.  It’s funny the things that diminish us in other’s eyes. Whether my father could have taught me any of these things, I do not know.  I never knew him well enough to know what he did or did not know.

The grief that engulfs me in those moments, like in this moment at the cemetery, is knowing that I missed bonding with my father. Men of my father’s generation, and in generations prior, as well as many of the men today, don’t express emotion in an obvious way. Dads of a certain upbringing don’t hug and kiss their sons, don’t say “I Love You”. Instead, fathers and sons have a thing that bonds them together. This thing, an interest in old cars, maybe; or fishing; camping; making birdhouses; golf; any of a number of things, is something that allow a father and son to spend time together, and gives them common ground in which they can relate to each other. These things that sons do with their dads, that they constantly talk to their dads about often make daughters and mothers roll their eyes, (as they share their own thing, creating that bond that mothers and daughters have).

Forgive me if I sound as if I’ve stepped out of “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It To Beaver.” I don’t wish to give the impression of holding on to some unrealistic ideologic image of how parents and children should be — I have no illusions. I’ve seen enough of other families to know that the bubbling, happy family is a rare thing. But, I also know, that in spite of all the drama and problems in families, there is, more often than not, something that binds a child to his parents. My mother and I have developed a bond. My father and I…well, my father and I had the bond a small child has with his or her father: a knowledge of safety and security and love.

Beyond that, there is nothing.  Sometimes knowing I was loved is enough.  Most often, though, it’s not enough, because I know so little of this man who loved me.

All that remains is an image, that gets fainter every passing year, of a man I once knew and loved in a childlike way.

Christmas Eve. I’m kneeling in the snow in front of my father’s grave. An enormous sense of grief and loss overwhelms me, tears flow, the emotions and feelings flash through my mind in a few brief moments–I’ve experienced them all before, so they don’t have to spend time explaining themselves to me. I understand in the briefest of moments where all my grief and anger come from. I feel their power, but, I no longer need the words to describe them.

I stare at the stone bearing my father’s name, and the whiteness of the stone makes me think that white is a good color for a gravestone. White is an absence; so is death. When you take color away, you’re left with white. When life is taken away, you’re left with a white stone bearing your name.

The grief vanishes as quickly as it arrived. I gather my thoughts, wipe the tears off my face, and make my way back to the car, careful not to look directly at mom as I get in, lest she sees a glimpse of my pain.

Each lost in our own thoughts, the drive home is as silent as the cemetery.

Who I Remember and Give Thanks To on Memorial Day

This Memorial Day, I’d like to share a post I wrote for Memorial Day 2010. I’m grateful, and thankful, to all the men and women who have served our country.  And, I am especially proud and thankful to all those in my family who have served.

********

Though I was not an “Army Brat,” moving from base to base, state to state, country to country, I am a child of the Army. Much of my life has been shaped by the military, and by the people who’ve served our country. It would be thoughtless of me to let this Memorial Day go by without mentioning (and thanking) those special people.

My mom joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) on her 21st birthday. The year was 1944, and, at that time, for her to join, she had to be 21. She enlisted for “the duration of the war, plus 6-months.” At the time, no one knew how long the war was going to last. During the war, my mom worked on the bombing range, working with the surveyors, working to make the bombs more accurate in striking their targets. The war lasted less than a year after she enlisted. Perhaps, if she hadn’t met my father, she might have done more Active Duty time. Instead, she did 20 years as a Reserve Officer. Because my dad was the one who was Active Duty, my mom had to go from base to base, and, thus, her time in the Reserves was varied, taking whatever duty she could at the local post.

My father joined the Navy during WWII, though he eventually switched to the Army. You could say that my dad gave his life for his country, though not in the typical “on the field of battle” way. My dad was a medic, and was on one of the medial frigates during the testing of the Atomic Bomb, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. At the time, it was assumed they were a safe distance from the site of the explosion, but, in later years, as more and more was learned about radiation and it’s effects, they were indeed in harm’s way. On my dad’s ship, they all stood on deck and watched the explosion, in just their uniforms; no special equipment protected them. As the years went by, more and more of the men on those ships died of cancer and other diseases which, it was later determined, were all caused by the exposure to the radiation. My dad died of brain cancer, in 1980, at the age of 55.

Both of my parents were done with their military service by the time I came around (my mom was 42, dad 41, when I was born) so I missed out on the life of a military child. Which, perhaps, might be a good thing. I was painfully shy as a kid, and had a tough enough time making friends living in the same place all my life. Moving around every few years might have been even worse, though, maybe it might have helped my shyness. I guess I’ll never know.

The military was an important part of both my parent’s families. My father was one of 5 boys, and my mom (who was an only child), grew up with her 4 cousins, and they all felt like they were brothers and sisters. Out of the 10 then, 9 were in the military. All 4 of my dad’s brothers served: two in the navy and two in the army (and my dad, who was in both branches.) On my mom’s side, of the 3 who served, they were all army. I’m quite proud of all of them.

There’s quite a history among them all. My mom was among the early number of women who were allowed to serve, helping to pave the way for women to serve in the capacities they do today. My dad, as I said, was at the Atomic Bomb testing. I have an uncle who was among those who landed on the beaches of Normandy, another landed at Iwo Jima. I have an uncle who served under General George Patton. I have an uncle who won two purple hearts. Two of my uncles were in the Infantry.

Of course, growing up with a military family, one becomes friends with other military families. My mom’s two best friends were military wives, one’s husband was in the 10th Mountain Division during WWII, and the other served two tours of duty in Vietnam. A non-family member (though he’s quite dear to me) was wounded on the landing at Iwo Jima. And, then there are the children and their children, and I know veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Desert Shield, Desert Storm.

My parents were never pushing for me to join the military. Of course, I was 14 when my father died, so I don’t think I was ever old enough for him to encourage to join. My mom, while never pressuring me, did like to mention that it was a good place to learn new skills, and find out who you are. There was a time when I had thought about it, though, being gay makes you think even more seriously about it (especially back in the 80s, before being gay was fashionable.) Then, of couse, there is my bad eye, with it’s blind spot and 20/200 vision which may have kept me out (or at least away from a gun) and, then, when I was 22 I found out that I was HIV+, and, in the early days of AIDS, we weren’t accepted most places. So, any thought I had about the military pretty much ended. I would like to have joined, to continue a family tradition, and to make my parents proud. She’s never actually said so, but, I think, mom’s a bit disappointed that I didn’t join (though, in her own way, she understands about my being gay and the HIV thing keeping me out.)

It was probably for the best that I didn’t join. I’m not sure I’m military material. I am, however, very proud, and very thankful to be surrounded by so many who have been in the military. I am humbled and honored to know so many people who have served in our country’s military. For those in my family, for those friends, and for those soldiers I don’t even know, on this Memorial Day, I offer my sincerest thanks for all that you do.

Death Of A Child, Birth Of An Adult

Close your eyes and try to remember what you were doing in 1980. Maybe you were celebrating the birth of a new decade, the election of a new presidential administration, the new things the eighties promised to bring. Maybe your life went on as usual, the newness of the decade not really meaning anything to you.  Maybe you were doing something uneventful.  Perhaps your life was changing.

In 1980 I became an adult.  My adolescence ended one year after it began.  For me, 1980 would be a disembarkment from child to adult.

On February 1, I celebrated my fourteenth birthday.  My day of celebration was spent in a hospital waiting room, waiting for news about my father.  I passed the day pacing the room, wondering what the future of the next few days would bring.  But, by their very nature, hospital waiting rooms provide no answers, only more questions.  That day, my birthday, was the beginning of the culmination of events that had begun almost a year earlier.

The Spring of 1979 was a time when my family (my mother, father, brother and I learned the lesson of living for the present, not waiting for tomorrow.  As the flowers were beginning to poke through the soil, we were dealing with the aftermath of the operation that removed the majority of a malignant grapefruit-sized tumor from my father’s brain.  While the leaves were beginning to populate the trees, we were helping my dad re-learn to walk, re-learn to write, re-learn to use his right hand.  As the April sun was conquering winter’s death, we were learning to accept the fact that my father had five to eleven months to live.

Spring melted into Summer. Summer ran into Fall. Fall rushed into Winter. Before we realized it, my father’s five to eleven months had dwindled down to the final two.

January 1980 brought with it a miracle: Dad’s cancer was in remission.  He could write again and had regained the full use of his right hand.  My dad walked with the vigor of a man half of his fifty-five years.  But the miracle was to be short lived.

1 2

A Pair Of Silent P Stories, And The Krautbuger That Started It All

I knew mom’s recovery from her eyelid surgery was going well when she asked to go for a krautburger ,something she likes doing 2 or three times a week.

.

A krautburger (a.k.a. runza, bierock) is a yeast dough pocket stuffed with beef, onions & cabbage

.

.

While we were eating and chatting, I was looking at mom’s eyes, trying to remember the medical term for her (formerly) droopy eyelids.  Ptosis, she said.  That’s it.  That was the word.  Once it was introduced into conversation it seemed like a natural progression to talk of spelling.

Mom, former school teacher that she is, was reminded of a time when one of her students asked her how to spell something. Mom replied with the Standard Teacher Answer, “Look it up in the dictionary.”  The girl returned to her seat.  When mom glanced at her a few minutes later, she saw that the girl’s eyes were filled with tears.  At that moment mom realized that the Standard Teacher Answer is flawed — if one doesn’t know how to spell a word to begin with, the chances of finding said word are questionable.  Sure, certain words you can certain words you can find easily — is occasion spelled with one c or two? or is it two c’s and two s’s (I have to look this up all the time).  But ptosis? If you were unaware of the silent p you would never be able to find it in the pages of your Webster.

The conversation played in my mind as we were driving home, and I recalled that I had a pair of silent p stories.

.

Silent P, Story One: “A Brief Interlude.”

.

Mrs Campbell: intelligent, classy, wildly liberal, wickedly funny.  She was the 70-year old grandmother of my first lover, Will.  I met and fell in love with Will when I was 18.  The fact that he was twelve years older than me isn’t really relevant to the story other than to provide a glimpse into my 18 year old psyche — I was looking for someone to take care of me, maybe a surrogate father figure, and I was looking for a way to get away from home.  Will was just what I was looking for: a man with a job.  The fact that the probable reason I got involved with him was that we spent all of our free time having the most intensely amazing sex isn’t really relevant either as I suspect that when you are 18, any sex at all seems intensely amazing. I mention him only because the story is about his grandmother

Mrs Campbell was the most fabulous 70-year old woman I have ever known.  She enthralled me instantly, and I knew that I would do anything to be a part of her circle; there was a sort of “Pick me! Pick me!” feeling that she created within people, leaving behind broken hearts among those not lucky enough to be picked.  I’ve never been entirely sure if she didn’t pick me, or if Will just kept us apart because he was jealous — he was jealous of most anyone I came in contact with; he was even more jealous of all the imaginary people I was supposed to have come in contact with.  (As I write this, a thought I had not had before popped into my mind.  What does it say about a relationship when you mourn the loss of a lover’s grandmother more than you mourned the loss of the lover?)

One afternoon we were having lunch at Mrs Campbell’s house, when the phone rang (this was pre-callerID and pre-cellphone).  She answered the phone, and, from the sound of it, the call was some sort of business call. Toward the end of the conversation, she said the following: “Yes, that’s right. Campbell. No. Campbell with a p. The p is silent, as in swimming.” I very nearly became intimately acquainted with the silent p, as I was laughing so hard.  I heard her utter this witticism a few more times during the three-and-a-half years we were together — Will and I, not Mrs Campbell and I. Though I think that had it been Mrs C. and I, we’d still be together.  Of course, she’d be in her 90s by now.  I always laughed when I heard her talk about the silent p in swimming — and, I laughed hysterically at the people who had no idea what she meant.

.

Silent P, Story Two: “Longer Than An Interlude.”

.

Flashback: Seventh Grade English Class. We’d been instructed to write an essay of some sort, one of those “What I did this summer” types of assignments.  I do not recall what the actual assignment was, though there is a vague memory that I was writing something to do with my father.  What I remember is that I wanted to use the word pneumonia, but I had no idea of how to spell it.  This particular teacher was big on the Standard Teacher Answer, “Look it up in the dictionary.”   So I, being a diligent student (at least at that point in time), got up from my desk, made my way to the teacher’s desk, and grabbed the big Webster’s dictionary that she kept enshrined on the corner of her desk like some sort of religious reliquary.

Returning to my desk with the Holy Grail, I began my search for ‘pneumonia.” I spent at least ten minutes searching for the word. I tried new-monia, nu-monia, and na-monia first. No luck. So I tried looking under no-monia. Nope. Then I thought for a minute. Knew-monia seemed far fetched but worth a try. Yep. Far fetched. I reviewed my thoughts and wondered if it was the monia part where I was wrong. So I tried new-moania and new-moan-ya. That wasn’t it either.I tried the various monia spellings with all of the various new spellings I could think of, even going so far as to try moan-ja, and feeling rather pleased with my cleverness (even though it didn’t provide the correct spelling). Then, suddenly, the thought struck me! I flipped the pages of the dictionary, feeling sure that I had the correct spelling this time: gnu-moania! Not it. I was crushed and at a loss.

Frustrated, I brought the dictionary back to the teacher’s desk and asked, “How do you spell pneumonia?”  Instead of offering up the spelling, or even a hint, as she had watched me take the dictionary, she said simply, “Look it up in the dictionary.” I’m fairly certain my eyebrows went up, and the tone of my voice went right up with the eyebrows. “I’ve been trying, that’s why I took the dictionary, but I can’t find the word.” It’s been thirty years, but I can still recall the look of distaste she gave me, as if I had just farted in her face, the tone of her voice matching the look on her face,”Then I suggest you stick to writing about things you can spell.”  That was definitly not the proper response.  I walked back to my desk, shoved my things into my backpack, and slung it over my shoulder.  I grabbed the essay, walked back to her desk, and with a flouish threw my unfinished essay at her, saying in a very loud voice “You can take this essay and shove it so far up your tight ass that it’ll take an a big fucking enema to wash it out!”  As I turned to walk out, she stood up and grabbed my arm, which, quite frankly, is not something you should ever do to a person who is angrily walking away.  My hand involuntarily became a fist, and my arm came around in a swing as I spun around to face her, somehow finding control in the last few moments, a control that kept me from doing something I’d never done to anyone before. “Get your fucking hand off my arm.”  She looked at me, stunned, although her grip tightened on my arm. I knew I was trembling, and the control I’d found a moment earlier was starting to slip.  I’ve never wanted to hit someone so badly, as I did in that moment. “Take your fucking hand off of my arm.” We glared at each other in silence for a few long seconds. I had an awareness that every eye in the room was glued to the melodrama being played out before their eyes. I’m sure there wasn’t a sound in the room until, finally, I said in a small, deadly voice, “Take your fucking hand off of me you stupid bitch!” (Was that a gasp I heard from somewhere in the back of the room?)

She let go.

I stormed out of the classroom.

I remember having this even more irrational moment of anger when I realized that the doors had such hinge-control that I couldn’t slam the damn thing on my way out!

.

Interestingly, incidents like this have a way of reaching your parents before you can get home. My mother was none to happy with me. Memory says that I was grounded for two weeks.  Only when I was older did my mom discover that being grounded was not something I thought of as punishment.  Being grounded was supposed to mean that I couldn’t go anywhere, except with my family, which, considering I had no friends that I did anything with, was not an inconvenience for me.  Being grounded meant I could watch no television, and, I had to stay in my room — this was the best part of being grounded!  I’d go to my room when I got home from school, where I’d usually finish my homework before dinner.  After dinner and chores, I was to go to my room.  I spent the rest of the “being grounded” evening reading. As someone who has loved books since he learned how to read, being confined to my room with nothing to do but read…well, I am unable to think of anything that is less of a punishment than this.  There was, however, a punishment handed out that I did indeed consider punishment: I had to apologize to my teacher.  The apology was given, though, even now, it’s still not really meant.  Yes, I will admit to a quite dramatic overreaction, but, with as condescending as she was, I’m not sorry I called her a stupid bitch.  I am sorry for embarrassing my parents, for disappointing them, and for adding some unneeded stress to what was already a stressful time for us all.

My father was dying.

Lest you think I’m just a raging, violent man, an understanding of my life at this time is in order. This incident took place during a time in my life that can only be called A Very Bad Point. In the six months prior to my dramatic departure from English class, my father had gone from being the solid, dependable man he’d always been to being a man who was dying.

It began, as so many stories do, with a phone call in the middle of the night.  The voice on the phone told my mom that dad was in the ER.  My dad had left his day job, driven to his night job, parked the car in the employee parking lot that was a couple of blocks from the building he worked in.  While walking to the building, he developed serious chest pains and shortness of breath.  Thankfully, the building he worked in was a hospital building.  He didn’t have a heart attack, but the walk on a bitterly cold December night brought his heart problems to light.  A treadmill test later in the day confirmed it all, and within a few hours he was in surgery, a quadruple bypass.  This was in December 1978, back in a time when surgeries were bigger, and recovery times were longer.

By April of 1979, his recovery from the heart surgery was going better than expected.  His scar healed faster than expected, and his energy returned quickly.  He was the picture of a very healthy man.

Until that April morning when he had a seizure.

We knew there was going to be snow overnight, and, when the alarm clock woke us, my little brother came into my room, crawled into the bed with me, and we listened to my radio, and let out a whoop of delight when we heard that school had been cancelled.  Keep in mind, this is Denver, and we’re used to snow, so there needs to be a good deal of snow on the ground for schools to close.  We also heard that mom’s school was going to be closed.  We laid there for awhile, trying to decide if we wanted to sleep or get up, when all of a sudden mom literally threw the door to my bedroom open. “Get up. Get out and shovel the walks. Now.”

This was a surprise.

Yes, we knew we’d need to shovel, but, we’d never been made to go out so early.

“But mom,” I began, protesting.

“Go. Now.” She left.

David and I looked at each other.  Mom had said her few words in such a tone that there was no doubt that we needed to shovel. Now.

We shoveled down the walk, from the door to the street, and, just as we were starting on the sidewalk that ran parallel to the street, a fire truck and two ambulances pulled up to the house. I stood there, stunned, and watched as all these men got out of the vehicles, some with bags of gear, two others hauled out a stretcher, and headed up the walk to the house.  I thought for a moment there was a mistake, until I noticed that mom was standing at the door, holding it open for the men to enter our home.  I remember standing there, watching all the men go in the house, and watching the door close.  I remember looking at David.  We both stood there, not sure of what to do.  The moment passed, and we both dropped shovels and ran into the house.

“What’s going on?” I demanded of mom, who was standing in the doorway to their bedroom.  Behind her I could see the men all bent over my father, though I couldn’t see what exactly they were doing.

“Dad had a seizure. That’s all I know.”  She turned back to watch what they were doing to dad.

In a matter of minutes he was on a stretcher and being wheeled out of the house, and into the ambulance.  Mom told me to watch David, and she got into the ambulance.  David and I stood there and watched everyone get back into the emergency vehicles and drive off.

We didn’t know what to do, so we did the only thing we could think of: finish shoveling the sidewalks.

In the days to come, we learned that dad had a brain tumor; we sat for hours in a waiting room while they operated to remove the tumor;m and we learned the worst: it was cancer; it was serious; it meant he had five to eleven months to live (he was to make it to the tenth month).

My outburst in English class happened about a month after this, perhaps just before school was to let out for the summer, the summer that was probably to be the last summer I’d spend with my father.

I see you nodding, and hear you saying “Uh huh, anger displacement. The trivial event in class was really a reaction to a much larger problem.”

I see you nodding, and I hear you.  I’ll give you full credit, even though it’s an easy answer.

I’ll give you a hint too: if you need to look up displacement in the dictionary, you don’t need to worry about the p in swimming.