As we continue working with those battling Alzheimer's and MCI, recalling past memories has proven a jackpot of words. Last week, we started with a simple prompt of, "I remember my mother...I remember my father..."
If you don't read much Sandra Cisneros (one of many great Texas writers), you should. Her writing is not always beautiful but it's unfailingly wonderful and real. When I read her work, for some reason I feel she does very little self-editing. She just says it:
Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark
Your abuelito is dead, Papa says early one morning in my room. Esta muerto, and then as if he just heard the news himself, crumples like a coat and cries, my brave Papa cries. I have never seen my Papa cry and don't know what to do.
I know he will have to go away, that he will take a plane to Mexico, all the uncles and aunts will be there, and they will have a black-and-white photo taken in front of the tomb with flowers shaped like spears in a white vase because this is how they send the dead away in that country.
Because I am the oldest, my father has told me first, and now it is my turn to tell the others, I will have to explain why we can't play. I will have to tell them to be quiet today.
My Papa, his thick hands and thick shoes, who wakes up tired in the dark, who combs his hair with water, drinks his coffee, and is gone before we wake, today is sitting on my bed.
And I think if my own Papa died what would I do. I hold my Papa in my arms. I hold and hold and hold him.
Carl wrote about his father:
I remember my father as a strong and powerful man.
He was strong in his opinions and support. He knew that the French were the cause of all the German people’s problems, if not the cause of all the world’s problems. He also defended me from abusive authority figures, high school principles, or bullies. He taught me how to defend myself. Yet, he always had a soft, large heart.
My father was powerful physically. He could work hard in his garden all day and still have energy for a full night as a punch press operator. I love my father.
Something about hearing those last four words from Carl struck me. Maybe it was his dignified voice that boomed like the walls of a canyon. Maybe it was his long, white beard. I'm not sure. But it reminded me that no matter how old we get, we are always someone's child. What a simple thing to forget. Like it or not, those who brought us here can never be un-parented.
I think Oscar Wilde said it best:
Children begin by loving their parents. As they grow older they judge them. Sometimes, they forgive them.
I remember my dad was always the best at getting splinters out from the soles of my feet. He took the task very seriously: narrowed eyes looking through glasses at the bottom of his nose. By his furrowed brow, you'd think his internal dialogue was something like, "Clip the red wire. Only the red wire...or was it the green wire?" Even now, I am amazed at how such a large man could be so ginger in handling my little be-splintered footsies. Like water balloons that might otherwise burst in the wrong hands.
I remember folding laundry with my mom. This was something passed down from her own mother– folding laundry together was a time to chat and catch up. Mom would dump the clean clothing onto the sofa and we would set to folding it all for placement in the basket. Sometimes there would be something on TV, sometimes not. But she would sit there –back perfectly erect in that posture particular to ballet troupes and my humble mother– and her expert hands would send the smell of warm cotton up and into the room. The best part was always putting clean linens on mom and dad's bed, when she would hold on to two corners, before letting the flat sheet fly. My little sister and I would dash underneath as the sheet billowed down on us. I thought that must be what it felt like to fall from the sky, parachute all around.
I like that Carl said, "I love my father." Present tense. That love will always be present tense.
I may not ever have a booming voice, but someday I too will be very old. I will have long, white hair. And still I will say, "I love my father. I love my mother."
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