They Were Great

When he was young, my father was a big, strong man with hands like catcher’s mitts, wide and leathery. I know this because my mother told me. The first time she met him she was walking home from her job at the dairy. As she crossed the street, she tripped over the old streetcar tracks. My father, crossing from the opposite direction, scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the sidewalk. Her ankle had already begun to swell so he insisted on carrying her home - eight blocks away. She said he didn’t even break a sweat. Of course, she “barely weighed a thing in those days,” she’d always say. Three months later, they were married.

After my mother died I asked him about that story.

“Yeah, I remember. That was when I still worked at the shipyard,” was all he offered. He didn't talk much about the old days. At least not about the time before he met my mother.

She would say, "some people just prefer to look ahead Buddy, and that's your father."

I saw a picture of him from back then. It was an old black and white, with the names of the other men in the photo written in delicate, cursive handwriting, certainly not my father’s. There were five of them, standing in the shipyard, shirt sleeves rolled up tight around young, bulging arms, draped over one another’s shoulders. My father standing on one end of the group, his lean, chiseled face, chin up, smiling, confident in his youth and strength. I remember studying that old photo, wishing I had known him then - he was already in his fifties by the time I was born.

Looking at him now, I can’t imagine him as that young man. His yellowing face, gaunt and expressionless, bears no resemblance. His hands, now rake-thin, eroded, scabbed and splotched with deep purple bruises that appear with barely a touch. The hospice nurse tells me it won’t be long now.

“But don’t worry,” she says, “he’s comfortable.”

I nod my head, assuming she’s right.

Yesterday he came to. His body jerked and his eyes opened wide, searching.

“Millie. Millie!?” he called, startling me.

“It’s okay Pops. It’s okay.” I said jumping up from the recliner that had become my home over the past three days. “She’s not here, Pops.”

His eyes closed again and he let out a long, slow, rattled breath.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, “Yeah, yeah. I remember.”

“Are you okay Pops? Do you need anything? Do you want me to get the nurse?” I asked in quick succession.

“I’m okay.” He exhaled, barely moving his lips.

Terminal lucidity. That’s what the nurse called it.

“He may wake up and be alert and talking,” she warned. “It’s normal. Just let him know you’re here, listen and talk to him.”

I pulled my chair closer, and laid my hand on his arm, which now wore his skin like an oversized shirt

“Hey Pops? Remember that time we went to the Grand Canyon? And mom got dizzy looking over the edge… and you kept pretending you were falling in? She was so mad.” I said laughing, not even sure he was still conscious.

“Yeah, I remember,” he said after a beat, with a hint of a smile. “You got car sick on the way there.”

“Oh right! Ugh, I forgot that part.” I said with a shiver.

“They were great,” he said, smiling again.

“What’s that, Pop?”

“Those days. They were great,” he answered. Then added, “I never got sick when I was young. Did you know that?”

“Is that so?” I had actually heard that my whole life but I wanted to continue to engage him.

“I was tough Buddy - a brick shit house, ya know?” he said with clarity. Then he sighed, “Oh well.”

“Yeah Pops, but you’re still a tough old goat.” I said but he had already drifted out again. I just stayed there, watching him breathe, struggling to hold on to life just a little longer.

Once I knew he was out for sure, I settled back in my chair and let out a deep sigh myself. This was harder than I ever imagined. Harder than when my mother died. I was so much closer to her than him but her death was sudden and I had him to grieve with. Not that he would talk about it. He never even let me see him cry, though I did catch him once just after her funeral. I stayed at the house for a few days to help him get some things in order. I got up early that last morning and saw him sitting on the bed crying into her robe. I wanted to go to him, to comfort him and to bury my own face in that old, threadbare pink robe that she wore every day for the last eight years - even after we bought her a new one. But I didn’t. I just stood there and watched him, until the breath caught in my throat and I quickly turned away. But at least we knew the other was there, feeling the same feelings. Now, I’ll be alone. An orphan.

This morning when I got here the nurse told me he’d been a little agitated overnight but so far, he’s been quiet. I’ve been sitting here watching him for an hour now, wondering if I’ll get another conversation… a few last words of wisdom. Just as I decided to get up to take a walk around he shouted.

“Buddy! Buuuuuddyyy!

“I’m right here Pops,” I said, running to him.

“Oh, Buddy,” he cried.

“What is it Pops? Are you in pain?” I asked, stroking his forehead. His eyes, filled with tears, were wide open, staring straight into mine and he grabbed my arm.

“I don’t want to be here Buddy. Please, get me out of here! Please, Buddy!” he begged. “Take me out of here. Take me home.”

“I know Pops, I know. Shhhhh, it’s okay,” I said trying hard to soothe him. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here.”

The nurse came in and gave him some morphine and he immediately calmed down.

“I gotta get him out of here,” I said to her.

“I know how hard this is Mr. Burke. Why don’t you take a little break? One of the volunteers can come and sit with him?” she offered. I stared at my father and shook my head. “Okay, well you let us know if you need anything,” she said, patting me on the back.

I sat on the edge of his bed, looking around the room that was meant to feel more like a hotel than a hospital but didn't quite accomplish it. Three of the walls were a very faint twilight blue with nondescript framed art you’d find in a dentist’s office. The fourth wall was covered in a textured beige wallpaper with a window that looked out onto another building separated by a grassy area - not exactly your best, last view. There was a hospital bed with a dry erase board above and to the right of it, displaying the name of the nurse on duty and some medical abbreviations I didn’t understand in red marker. My chair, in the corner to the left of the bed.

Across from the bed was a tall dresser with five drawers. In the top drawer was a few pairs of his underwear, a sweatshirt and pair of sweatpants though I don’t know why I chose them. They told me I could bring some of his things from home. On top of the dresser was a framed photo of him and mom from my cousin’s wedding nine years ago - It was her favorite. There was a vase of flowers and a card sent by that same cousin just the day before. And then there was the owl. A wooden figurine of a barn owl about the size of my palm. Its talons wrapped around the carved branch that jutted out from its base; its wings wide open and tail feathers fanned out - with a small piece of the delicate wood missing. I never knew if it was landing or about to take flight. I don’t even know why I brought it. I hadn’t seen it in years but when I went to the house to get some of his things, it was sitting out on the kitchen counter, next to his watch. I knew it meant something to him, though I never knew what. Some token of those old days he kept to himself.

That owl lived on a bookshelf in our living room. One day, when I was about six or seven, I asked him if I could hold it and he told me simply that it wasn’t a toy. Later that day, I asked my mom about the owl and she told me that it was my father’s, a gift from a friend. That was the only explanation I ever got. When I was 10, I took it upon myself to take the owl from its perch high on the shelf to show to a friend who’d come over to play. I pulled a chair over to the bookshelf, hoisted myself up onto it and no sooner did I have the owl in my hand that I lost my balance and it flew out of my grasp, as though escaping. As it hit the floor, a small piece of the tail feather broke off and bounced in the other direction. I panicked, putting it back immediately and hiding the broken piece behind it.

About a month later, Pops came into my room with the owl in one massive hand and the broken piece in the other. He didn’t even have to say a word. I confessed through pathetic tears of remorse and apology. He just stood there listening to me with a look of disappointment I’ll never forget.

“I told you this wasn’t a toy, Buddy,” he said walking away, shaking his head.

That was it though, no punishment. Other than the gut punch of regret and guilt. From that point on, the owl lived on the dresser in his and mom’s bedroom. I never did find out why it was so important or who this special friend was. And now, I never will. The owl will keep the secret. But it will become mine to treasure, high on a shelf… with its broken wing.

I went back to my chair and poured into it. The tears I’d been holding back for days came out in heaves. The dam could no longer hold back the reservoir over-filled with sadness and fear. Was that it? Were those the last words of my father? Pleading with me to take him away from this strange room with nothing of him in it but some underwear, that picture, and the owl. Suddenly, a torrent of thoughts and memories washed over me; the time he carried me on his shoulders at the parade so I could see over the crowd; when he taught me how to swim at the quarry and ride my bike in the park; when he showed up to my high school graduation a week after his back surgery. Then I imagined him, young and solid, carrying my mother eight blocks. I wiped my eyes and opened them to see him, eyes wide, looking right at me.

“Pops?” I said leaning toward him. He didn’t say anything, he just stared at me, then straight ahead to the dresser. I followed his gaze to the photo of him and mom, and the owl, wings stretched wide, and I knew what to do.

The charge nurse followed me down the hall as I carried my father away.

“Please, Mr. Burke, we can arrange for home hospice but we just need some time,” she pleaded.

I just kept walking down the hallway, through the lobby and out of the automatic doors. My father's frail body, drowning in his grey sweatsuit, cradled in my arms.

He opened his eyes again as we approached the 35th Street bridge. I pulled over once we crossed and lowered his window. The setting sun melted into the harbor, casting a pink and orange glow on his face. The old shipyard, now home to a luxury high-rise, glowed golden in the fading light. A flock of grackles darted back and forth in the distant sky the color of the hospice room walls, as seagulls watched from the top of lampposts. We sat there silently watching too, my hands, like catcher’s mitts, on his.