across the ocean

Kate S. visited Dad last night while I went to work on my sculptures, and she said he was doing really well. Apparently he asked her when the air-cast was coming off her leg, and when she said four weeks, he said “that’s before we go to Mohonk,” a pretty good piece of remembering (both that we were going and when) and making connections. Then he asked her if he was invited to Mohonk! When told him that of course he was, he said “I thought it might be a cozy, cozy, cozy girly thing.” When she told him that we wouldn’t go without him like that, he pointed out that he had been on many cruises without us! She told him Mohonk was “a family trip” and he said, “and you’re my family.” A very hallmark moment.

The long-awaited couch arrived today – at 7:30am!!! I went to great lengths and managed to get here about 10 minutes ahead of the couch, while Dad was still asleep. The doorbell woke him up and he stumbled out of his room, half-asleep and sans pants, thinking that the doorbell was a fire alarm. I guess he went through too many fire drills during his teaching years. Then, upon seeing me, at a totally unexpected hour (I wouldn’t even expect to see me someplace that early!), he thought that he was dead and that we were in heaven! I managed to explain that it was just the couch being delivered but he still kept asking, over and over, “how did YOU come to be here?” The idea that the couch people had called me and that I had come just for this purpose totally eluded him. Eventually, he went back to bed, after calling the whole thing, “the surprise of my life.”

He slept for about three more hours, then woke up when Marie arrived at 10:30am, but was totally confused to find us both here and kept asking us who was who. He said that one person was fine, but two people were too much to figure out!

When I got back here this evening, Dad was still a little discombobulated and tired. I demonstrated the sofabed for him, pulling the mattress out and then lying down. He joined me and for a while we just lay there like two beached seals. Once I put the couch back together, he sprawled on it with his legs stretched out in front of him. He said, “Tell me, do you miss five stories?” I was pretty baffled, but I just went with the “miss” part, and thought, what would I be missing right now? The answer, of course, was the old job, so I asked him “are you asking me if I miss my old job?” “Yes!” he answered. “No, not really,” I told him. “Maybe it’s too soon.”

We listened to a few pieces from the NY Times video selection, including a piece about Bronx housing court that was so depressing it left us both totally dejected. The next one, a piece about multi-drug resistant TB in Pakistan, wasn’t much better. Wanting to leave Dad with pleasant thoughts before he went to bed, I went to the travel section, and played a piece about traveling to Europe with a baby. The sound of the baby crying made Dad smile and I guess thoughts of Europe made their way into his sleepy, drifting brain, because after I shut off the computer, and started getting things ready for him to go to bed, he asked me, “What do we take across the ocean?”

I hope he has a good trip.