My father isn’t just a frail 89 year old man who likes to
sit in his darkened room with round-the-clock caregivers and the TV on non-stop
like light-particle medicine. I see him in many phases, like the diagram of the monthly changing moon..He used to be big and heavy and cuddly. I still
cuddle up to him, and though he’s thin and bony now, it still feels like Daddy when my
head is lower than his, like on his chest. He only gets up from the chair, with
help, to go to the bathroom, with help. He has some dementia now, and I just
nod my head at the strange things he says, because I don’t want to be
disagreeable, and my Dad has always been a little strange anyway. The one thing
that hasn’t changed is his love for my sister and me, which is now extended to
his caregivers. He has outpourings of love and gratefulness for all of us, and says
he loves me about a 15 times a visit, and I believe him. I didn’t used to
believe him and thought he was being phony, but that was years ago, when I didn’t
know better. Now, he says it right to my heart, and I say it back, heartfeltly.
I’m glad the TV is on all the time because we watch Turner
Classic Movies together, and try to remember the names of the actors he used to
identify so well, and sometimes I quiz him by giving him the first name. We
watch Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant or Judy Holliday or Jack Lemmon or Katherine
Hepburn, but the ones he always instantly identifies are “Bogie,” Spencer
Tracy, and Tony Curtis. The black and white films with the actors so
well-dressed and the men wearing hats always make me feel nostalgic, though I
never lived in that era. But Dad did,
when Mom briefly loved him, and he still adores her to this day. Or at least
her memory. Though they divorced when I was 5, he surrounds himself with her
photos to this day, and it kind of seems normal to me now.
My Dad was so handsome as a young man, and had girls chasing
him. He still carries that memory of being desirable, and I’m glad. He has told
me his memories of being a Coney Island kid who moved to L.A. as a young teen, and
how they teased him for his Brooklyn accent at first but then he became the
leader of the gang on the block on Ardmore. How he said, “sure, I smoke,” but
then had a coughing fit. But in a few months, they would ask him, “So, what
should we do tonight, Marty?” He would win people over with his likeablity and
easygoing nature. He lived in a 1-bedroom bungalow with my grandma, and Dad
slept on the couch. This is how he looked at 17:
He is half Italian and half Jewish. See what I mean about him not being just a fragile old man with large hanging ears and skin that bruises easily? This young dude is inside of him, as is the slightly older man who became the father of two daughters. He took us everywhere: Disneyland many times, Magic Mountain, Knotts Berry Farm, the Wax Museum, Marineland, the park to play catch. He took us to Palm Springs, San Diego, San Francisco, and Hawaii, to countless restaurants, from hippie health food to KFC. And we went with him to work, way out to Tehachapi and Victorville where he sold plots of land. We stayed in motels with my sis and I in one bed and him in the other, trying to get to sleep before he started snoring like a bear. He always talked about Mom and the old days, but she never mentioned him. After the divorce, he was never the same: depressed, living on yogurt and salad, wishing he still lived with his wife and girls. He never remarried and never had another relationship that I knew about. He did used to play tennis and had a circle of tennis friends he saw often until he turned 70 and his doctor told him to quit playing in case he fell. And then his world got so small. He did lead a kind of secret life, at least from us. He got mysterious phone calls and locked his bedroom door with a deadbolt.
Now, he sleeps in the tiny front bedroom, his master bedroom used for storage and his dresser is just how he left it years ago, with his 8-tracks and his trophy for being the best sales manager from 1976. When I visit and he naps in his chair, I go to the back bedroom and look around at the stuff just as he left it, with a layer of dust. It's amazing how few items he owns, compared to the clutter I have.
He grew up during the Great Depression and still talks about it, and it's still in him, the loss and deprivation. He used to buy too much merchandise at the 99 cents store and just hoard it.
I can't imagine him not being on the street where he lives for much longer. He has lived there for 45 years. And his New York accent is still as strong as ever. Whenever I visit and ask, "how are you?" he always answers, "I'm fine, because you're here."
Why does a daughter has to watch her young Daddy grow old and pretend it's the most normal thing in the world? His caregivers are his best friends now because he's with them more than anyone. I have my own family to take care of. I'm so full of love for him, and he's across town sleeping in his own apartment, with the caregiver on the couch. I haven't slept under the same room as him for many, many years. My heart swims with adoration now, though we had our troubles in the past. Our daily lives don't really intertwine, and haven't for so many years. He never got that involved with or inquired about what I was doing, what my passions were. We talk in generalities because he lets my details just fall to the ground, and I gave up.
He is outliving his old friends, and the movie stars he watches on the small screen. He says my mom phones him, but she tells me that she doesn't. I believe her.
He never got into computers. Someone gave him an iPad, but he doesn't touch it. My Daddy...I just hugged him two days ago, and now he feels as far as when a young girl watches her father unwillingly move out of the family home because the mother fell out of love with him. We saw him every Sunday, though.
Our phone conversations used to be too long for me because he'd go on and on; now they are so brief because he talks in little circles, and he's just as happy to hang up. He doesn't remember what he did an hour ago. That beaming, mellow, bursting feeling when I think about him is pure love. He's my funny, lovable Dad who has always, always, been there, way over there for my 56 years...and counting.
