January 20, 2012

We have had our first significant snowfall. Though scant, 2-4 inches of white stuff it looks and feels like winter, finally! I am not a huge fan of winter but it has become such a substantial part of my psyche I think I really need it.

Through the window and into the sun, first snow or 2012

As I sit on the couch waiting for the sanding truck to rumble up the driveway I have been thinking about how my Mom and Dad are evaporating from my life. I have been estranged from my Mom for about 4 years and my Dad is in another world. My wife's parents are also dealing with issues of dementia and things are evolving in that realm as well.

Although my parents are both alive I no longer have the kind of emotional support I had been afforded for so many years. My Mom was mostly a detriment to my creativity and my Dad really never cared to get a grasp on it. Otherwise my parent and son relationship was probably pretty normal. There were times when I didn't see my Dad for a year or more. Something always pulled us back together though, usually a chance encounter at the post office, hardware store or general store.

He instilled his love of tools and fascination for the woods in me. He also influenced my spirituality by sharing his. My mom told me we had no room for a piano and that I couldn't be a writer. Later, she did help and encourage me to get into art school which opened up a whole new dimension of creativity. My Dad would never invest the time into trying to understand my love of art. Though his love was so easy. Go out into the woods, start cutting trees and splitting them into manageable pieces and toss them into the trailer and hopefully drive out of the woods without getting stuck and arrive home smelling like chainsaw exhaust. I got this and really took a liking to it.

There were many times as I was becoming an adult I cut ties with my parents in order to liberate myself from their dogmas. At first it was tenuous as I was a newbie. Initially the pain was terrible as I had to imagine them as dead. I still loved them but realized the hindrance was stagnating. The only way for me to become an entity unto myself was to stand alone, singular. It took me a while to realize that we could co-exist but I had to learn this through experience. 

As a parent now, I appreciate my own parents for their efforts and realize how difficult it can be to try to shape our existence into some type of normalcy. I am not a proponent of normalcy, status quo or otherwise trying to be like everyone else, but it is the only way we can become socially adept. Communities are bound by co-dependence, hopefully a mutually satisfactory one.

My family has evolved to such an extent I can easily become awed. My three children are becoming adults. I am exactly between my parents and children. As with most situations I need to adjust, to understand my responsibilities and to offer whatever support I can. And of course the challenge is to encourage the human spirit to flourish and be successful at it. Each person with a different set of circumstances, with different desires and purpose.

January 15, 2012

Today was cold. Mid teens, I think. 18°F +/-. I walked into Sentry Hill and found my dad asleep on the built in seats next to the windows in the common area. His head falling downward, his body slumped and silhouetted before the large windows looking out toward the glass looking frozen pond. I pulled off my jacket and turned to sit down next to him. He instantly awoke and looked at my face. He said, "Oh, Kev!"

He then, with a smile said, "I, didn't, huh...know, huh."

I was happy to be recognized so quickly. He asked how I got there. I told him in my car and offered him a ride. He readily accepted. We checked out with nurse Judy and I lent my Dad my coat and in no time we were off, cruising Long Sands Beach. My Dad kept saying, " That is a lot of boats, Kev," as we drove along Route One A. The ocean on the right and houses and motels on the left. I said, "Dad! those are motels!"

"No, they are boats," he acknowledged as he watched the houses bathed in crisp winter lights pass by us. 

We turned right and headed toward the Nubble Lighthouse. When we got there we stopped and thought about getting out of the car. But when I opened my door and walked around the back of the car and to my Dad's door and opened it I realized it was far to cold and windy. So I reorganized my thoughts and we drove along the coast. At each intersection I asked him for directions and he always indicated a direction that was furthest away from where we had started. 

I haven't had my Dad out for a drive in at-least a year, maybe two. I constantly challenged his memory and asked all along the way if he knew where we were, if he knew who lived in that house or where this road would take us. He asked me if I had been at Albert's (my great grandfather who died in the 1940's). I said no and asked if he had. He replied, "Yes, and what a bunch of stuff that happened there."

As we drove along I thought of how he drove me in his car when I was his young son. How we would whistle Amazing Grace in unison and how that I knew then neither of us were tone deaf (in spite of what others told us). On the same roads we were driving now and then, 40 years later. Finally, we came to my driveway. I asked if he would like to drive out to my house. He said yes. So we drove along the half mile ice and snow crusted road that I had first found when I was 10 years old or so looking for a fishing hole. Back then there was no gravel and no pot holes, just a soft bed of rusty pine needles. There was barely a road at all back then. It only the easiest way to walk out here and ghostly impressions of wagon tracks form many years ago. 

We pulled up to the front door and I asked my Dad if he would like to try a gun that I had recently acquired. He shook his head in agreement and I asked him to wait in the car as the icy snow had made everything treacherous. I ran into the house and grabbed the gun and ran back out to the still running car. I opened up the box and carefully unlocked the gun. I checked for shells though I knew it wasn't loaded and then passed the gun to my Dad. 

He looked like a child at Christmas who had been handed a toy gun. His face lit up and he declared it was real! I said, "It sure is." I asked if he would like to shoot it. He said, "Ah, let me see, why not, Yes."

I took a magazine and loaded 3 rounds into it. I don't know why 3, it seemed like not too many and not too few. I opened my car door and put the gun into my back pocket. I walked around the car and opened his door and released his seat belt. He maneuvered around and pulled himself out of the passenger seat. He stood up on the slippery surface. Once he was comfortable I withdrew the gun from my back pocket. I put in the magazine and told him it was loaded and ready.

I passed him the gun and he held it like it was his own. I told him to shoot at the target that I had placed 15 feet in front of him. He didn't understand. I told him it was the big black circle on the white board. He couldn't recognize it. I asked him to pass me the gun and I would show him. I fired a round into the target and passed it back. He held it again as if he were going to shoot but could not find the target. I suggested he fire into the air. He declined. I fired the remaining rounds into the target and we got back into the warm car. I locked the gun.

As I drove back down the driveway he said he had had a dream last night. In his dream he was holding the gun we were just using and he was in a place that he couldn't quite describe. I asked him if it was at his home. He said no. What about my Aunt's? He said no. I said what about Thompson's Meadow. He said yes. To clarify I asked him, "With my gun?" He said yes. He then asked if I could believe it. I said yes I could.