I realized something last night.
A few things, actually.
The first thing is that my focus for the last two weeks has been almost solely on my father. I guess that's natural enough. He's dying. I took a day off from the hospital yesterday, didn't even call, though the staff has my phone number and instructions to call if there's any change at all, and though I feel some guilt for all that, I couldn't walk yesterday, let alone drive over the mountain and tend to Dad. Today is some better. But that's not the point. The point is that I spent the day, more or less, diverting my focus. Watched a movie with my husband last night, watched a PBS documentary on Woody Guthrie after (the t.v. has to be on channel three for the DVD player, and when we turned it off, there it was), then even the Bruce Springsteen, Seeger Sessions after that. I ate peanut m&m's & put electronic jigsaw puzzles together. I thought only here and there about my father, maybe because I did feel guilty for not going. There's a day I can cross off the calendar as one of his last, and I wasn't there for it. He didn't have me there for it. Alas, it's gone. Nothing to be done about it now.
Beyond that, I also realized that I said to my husband, weeks ago -- three or more -- what had been on my mind for a couple of weeks previous to even that. I told him my father was dying. This was before the acute situation that landed him in the hospital. This was before any confirmation of cancer, though we have suspected it for a long time. This was before Father's Day, when I saw that he was thinner, more wasted than he had been a month before on Mother's Day. It was without any daily contact, in person or on the phone with him, just the sound of my mother's voice when she would relate his latest tirade. There was a difference in the quality of her story-telling. There was an undercurrent of relief, as though she could see the finish line and just had to kick it in and make it there. Then she could rest.
Another clutch (or whatever the term is) of swallows hatched and have become ready to fly. I know it's a different one. The last were more than a week ago, and these are a little smaller, I think. About the same number -- seven or so. I can see them instructing each other. One will take off, make a loop-de-loop, and land again on the wire, facing the opposite direction from the others, and chatter away. It's as though they're instructing each other, bolstering each other's confidence, passing along secrets revealed in their very tentative flights. It's as though they are the first swallows, and they're discovering flight for the whole species. They're so frantic in their chatter. The secrets could be lost if their next flight is not successful. They must pass it on while they still can. They don't realize that so many have gone before, so many will follow.
Sunrise and sundown.
Till later....
A few things, actually.
The first thing is that my focus for the last two weeks has been almost solely on my father. I guess that's natural enough. He's dying. I took a day off from the hospital yesterday, didn't even call, though the staff has my phone number and instructions to call if there's any change at all, and though I feel some guilt for all that, I couldn't walk yesterday, let alone drive over the mountain and tend to Dad. Today is some better. But that's not the point. The point is that I spent the day, more or less, diverting my focus. Watched a movie with my husband last night, watched a PBS documentary on Woody Guthrie after (the t.v. has to be on channel three for the DVD player, and when we turned it off, there it was), then even the Bruce Springsteen, Seeger Sessions after that. I ate peanut m&m's & put electronic jigsaw puzzles together. I thought only here and there about my father, maybe because I did feel guilty for not going. There's a day I can cross off the calendar as one of his last, and I wasn't there for it. He didn't have me there for it. Alas, it's gone. Nothing to be done about it now.
Beyond that, I also realized that I said to my husband, weeks ago -- three or more -- what had been on my mind for a couple of weeks previous to even that. I told him my father was dying. This was before the acute situation that landed him in the hospital. This was before any confirmation of cancer, though we have suspected it for a long time. This was before Father's Day, when I saw that he was thinner, more wasted than he had been a month before on Mother's Day. It was without any daily contact, in person or on the phone with him, just the sound of my mother's voice when she would relate his latest tirade. There was a difference in the quality of her story-telling. There was an undercurrent of relief, as though she could see the finish line and just had to kick it in and make it there. Then she could rest.
Another clutch (or whatever the term is) of swallows hatched and have become ready to fly. I know it's a different one. The last were more than a week ago, and these are a little smaller, I think. About the same number -- seven or so. I can see them instructing each other. One will take off, make a loop-de-loop, and land again on the wire, facing the opposite direction from the others, and chatter away. It's as though they're instructing each other, bolstering each other's confidence, passing along secrets revealed in their very tentative flights. It's as though they are the first swallows, and they're discovering flight for the whole species. They're so frantic in their chatter. The secrets could be lost if their next flight is not successful. They must pass it on while they still can. They don't realize that so many have gone before, so many will follow.
Sunrise and sundown.
Till later....
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