I take the train from Penn Station to Boston.
Balancing my way down the stairs of Penn Station (a step at time, slowly, methodically), I am stopped by a strange man.
He asks if I need help. (He is in search of a tip)
"N0, I'm good."
"Then why are you stopped?" he persists. I am a target.
I spot the kiosk and buy my ticket. And then I realize I've timed this all wrong. I thought I was early for my departure. Looking up at the big schedule board I discover it is (now) past the my train's departure time.
But the train has been delayed! And they are boarding right now! And the gate is miraculously right in front of me!
I find a seat easily.
I have good train karma. I feel safe and content on a moving train.
(I think I love the train because of all the commuting I did as a kid on Metro North.
In the old days, riding the commuter train was a delicious escape. Camped out with your Budweiser and cigarettes, your tab and giant pretzel, your Time magazine or your Sony Walkman, you were unreachable)
At South Station, I make my slug like walk to the Bus Station. It takes me 40 minutes to walk one block, buy a ticket and get on the bus.
Mom picks me up at the charming Falmouth bus station formerly an old train depot.
This station exudes Norman Rockwell.
Getting in the car I make a choice to hug my Mom with a big "Happy Birthday!"
She is stiff and uncomfortable (agitated). She has just left my father at rehab.
My father is sounding delusional. He thinks he is ready to come home.
"Let's go. I'm ready" he says, gathering his things. But my father can't walk without assistance, can't use the bathroom without assistance, can't do many things without assistance.
My mother (who is now 80) doesn't have the strength to take care of him.
My mother's cellphone rings (or barks, my mother has it set to a dog barking)
It is Ellliott (my brother in law). I answer my mother's phone,
"Shall I pick up the fish at Rosche Brothers?" he asks.
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I am in my parent's home, an attached condominium on a big golf course. (The last time I was there I was totally mobile).
This condo (curiously) came with an electronic seat that carries you from the lower level to the upper level, a sort of elvator. It was installed for an old person or an invalid. My father's father used one in their house in Oak Park.
I swear, sometimes I think my father bought this condo just for this device. It reminded him of his father (who he worshipped).
This electronic seat would be a perfect device for me to use.
I refuse to use it. I grip the wall and the railing like I am scaling a small mountain.
My brother in law arrives (with the fish) and then my sister. They have driven in separate cars. My sister will stay the week to help out.
I go upstairs to the top level to gather old clothes I have left in an antique dresser. I never pack enough to wear, so I always leave a supply of clothes behind. I never remember what clothes are there and enjoy reacquainting myself with old polos and cut-offs.
As I hunt through the dresser, my sister pops in. She has a gift for me, a new long sleeve t-shit with a cool graphic. It's snug and not too blousey, the way I like them. This thoughtful of her.
My sister has gifts for everyone. An old CD I had loaned her, a ring for my niece, a box of wine for the family, a wind ornament for and a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap for my mother.
My family has always enjoyed Christmas. We pass objects along the way other families pass around political views.
(My father (in particular) shows his love with symbolic gifts. He has always known the correct watch to buy, the best waterproof parka, the latest Swiss army knife gadget, and of course... cameras.
We are all collectors. Except my mother who enjoys throwing things in the trash. There is mental illness here on both of my parent's parts. My father (even now) collecting outdoor cooking grills and portable folding chairs ... he'll never use. My mother secretly throwing out small antiques, books and boxes of photos because she can't stand the site of too many things, the unending chaos.
I like to collect things and I like gifts, but I rebel against them too. Sometimes a gift feels like a bribe. I lose things deliberately. And the demands of caring for an object, some thing that is so new, protecting it from its first dent or scratch, this is too much pressure for me.
So I have inherited both compulsions. I covet, I collect, I put things out on the curb.
I thank my sister for the shirt. I hug my sister. But I play the role of the brother in trouble. So my thankfulness is forced and labored. I really DO like this shirt. If I was winning (in life) I might be ecstatic, but since I am loosing, it is small consolation.
It's my sister's fault, I seem to be saying.
I carry the shirt and my old clothes (which have the hopeful smell of being packed away, cool to the touch - they smell of some time last year) I carry them down to the lower level where I will sleep on a pull out couch.
I pour a glass of wine, (not Shiraz... that other mixed wine from South America... what is it?)
and sit on the deck overlooking the gulf course. It is a lovely July dusk. There are golfers in golf carts in the distance.
There are the echoes of a far away vigorous high spirited game of golf.
I sip my wine and read Vanity Fair. I read about Heath Ledger - (I went to a private screening of "Broke Back Mountain" and he did a talkback afterwards, he was SO shy) The article about Heath Ledger is juicy and gossipy. My Mother bought this Vanity Fair. My mother confesses to enjoying Vanity Fair. This admission seems odd to me.
It's windy and I am a little lonely. It is lonely by this vast golf course.
I hear my brother and niece pull up in the driveway. I hear them and decide not to announce,
"They're here!!!"
My present voice does not carry. And anyway I've never understood that "They're here" thing. We will all see that, know that, soon enough.
Am I a scroodgy old man in development... Incubating for my final sour old man performance?
My brother and niece join me on the deck.
I don't stand to greet my brother or niece. I stay seated as we hug and joke. So far so good. I am just a brother, an uncle sitting in a chair on a deck. Later, later we shall discover my mumbling tongue, my staggering on the sidewalk, my inability to climb out of the ocean by myself.
My niece looks pretty. She is prettier than the last time I saw her. Her skin has cleared up. She has highlighted her hair, just right. She has studied or been told just what cute shorts and double tank tops to wear. All the kids know what to wear these days.
(Later on in the weekend I ask her, in my oddball questioning way -( I should have been a journalist)- I ask her " how would you dress if you didn't dress the way you dress now?"
She tells me , " i think I would prefer to dress like a hippy. i'd like to wear one of those headbands."
We have a fish dinner, scallops and clams? My sister puts on Bonnie Raitte's newest CD.
My father is five miles away in the hospital right now so we have more control of the music, the wine and when we have dinner.
Instead of my father's jazz, my mother requests the CD of the musical Chicago.
This seems wrong. This is clearly an indication that our family is going through a change.
I notice my niece mouthing the words to all the songs of Chicago. I don't know my niece at all (I realize). I see (now) that she is a nerdy performer. She wants to perform and act funny.
Her parents insist she play the role of a smooth coiffed sorority type. My niece looks glum sometimes.
She is talented at impressions. She is a closeted weirdo. And of course I mean that in the best way. The girl has hidden comic charisma.
Malbec! We drink Malbec! (now I remember)
My brother and sister and mother tell old time family stories.
Seconds are had, wine glasses refilled and topped off.
We talk about New Canaan. But my brother and sister are 6 and 7 years older than me. Their history, (although I am familiar with it) is NOT my history. I have no younger sibling to rhapsodize about my days spent at the pool & tennis club, or my peculiar day camp experience at the local YMCA.
I am mute. Mostly.
This is my way.
_____________________________________________
The next day we visit Dad at Rehab. The rehab place is super nice (I think). It resembles a traditional sprawling colonial home.
Wains coating and bay windows, a large flagstone patio, flower boxes in the windows.
As I walk the halls, as I labor through the halls, I wonder if any of the PT's and special aides observe me, take notice of my issue. I note the irony of my own health decline. But I steel myself. I am stronger (still) than these very old people.
My Dad is in his chair as my brother, my niece , my mother and I enter his shared room. The room looks out to the patio and gabled roof. My father has some difficulty speaking, so do I, but I try to cover it up. I feel ashamed, slightly defended when he asks how I am. (I am fine, don't drag ME into this) is the melody my emotions play.
When my sister and Elliot join us, we venture out to the patio and sit around an umbrella table.
On the patio, we talk about how Dad must do his exercises! if he wants to go home. He must eat! If he wants to go home. He has to have the ability to get up and use the restroom by himself! if he wants to go home.
I lose interest. I am passive to my mother and sister.
I glimpse at my iphone. A message has come from Olivia with suggestions for my OWN health care. I feel violated. I know this is silly... bit i am so independent I can't help myself. I can do this on my own. What health issues? (absurd) What health care? I am sinking. I am in a foul mood.
It is time for us to go. We must leave because my Dad has physical therapy.
Shouldn't we all go with Dad to his PT session? I think? But we don't.
And as we go, it is clear to me to be true to yourself. Be honest with yourself. Take responsibility for yourself.
OR, eventually, others will make choices for you.
_________________________________________________
Elliot, my sister, my brother, and my niece have decided to go on a bike ride to Woods Hole. Four bikes have been secured to the car.
I am livid. I can't look at my brother or sister. We are here for 3 days together. I can't (or shouldn't) ride a bike. Perhaps we might do something that we can all do (together)! Biking would be the FIRST thing I would want to do, if I could.
I end up at the beach with Mom. We have an absurd squabble about Al Franken.
(After their bike ride, my sister finds me at the computer in the den looking at Facebook. I still can't look at her.
She says she is sorry about the biking. It was supposed to be a bike ride for her and Elliot. And anyway she didn't know that I couldn't or didn't want to bike.
I tell her that my lower back and hips aren't right. And I keep remembering what the doctors said, what everyone has told me along the road of my neurological adventure so far, "listen to your body." I have listened, and my body is whispering to me, my body is hinting to me, don't push so hard on the bike.
I drop my guard. I give into my sister. I warm up to my sister. I give in through a window of self pity for myself and show her the message that Olivia sent me about health options.
We review the options Olivia has suggested. And given my decline, given what Shelmutter said to me about how I should get RIGHT on this. Given Mitzimuto's ego and indefensible behavior (that terrible last meeting ... It is now clear to me how wrong and weird that was.
Given all of this, I decide to go home on Monday to begin to make aggressive calls and appointments to see new doctors and therapists.
(Our last night, at Shuckers in Woods Hole, sitting around waiting for the check, my brother, sister, and mother get into an endless conversation about the people who have died from their High School class, some from cancer, some from disease.
I sit at the table white knuckling it. And I wonder at the human brain. Surely one has the ability to edit a conversation in one's mind, surely one can edit what they speak before it comes out of their mouth.
I try not to bring things up that might alarm people. I steer away from it. How genteel of me.
But, I think it is part of our peculiar human behavior to create angst, to mess things up, to stir the pot.
Perhaps by being so bold (with their topic of disease and death) perhaps by speaking so freely, they were reassuring themselves and admonishing the G-ds, that this is NOT something that will occur in their OWN backyard.
I end the conversation with a snappy "LET'S GO!"
and,
we all get up at once, like impatient students when the bell rings.
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