When you go home to visit your parents, the one that is very much alive and the one who no longer walks the earth you might choose to dig through boxes of stuff by choice and because your mother asks for help cleaning the garage.
You might come across hidden treasures such as the ones illustrated in the photo below. Those three baseball mitts cover more than a decade of time starting with the far left, moving to the center and ending on the right.
I still remember going with my father to buy that first glove, all of about six and the smell of neatsfoot oil as he taught me how to break it in.
I still remember being told not to touch it and the thrill I got when I finally could. The moments in which I buried my face in it and inhaled and the feeling I got from catching balls in it.
Those three gloves extended from t-ball to baseball to playing intramural softball with my fraternity in college.
So many memories tied into these gloves, the boxes in the garage and then I hear Don McLean singing Crossroads and I am taken to another place.
There is a woman I dated who is with another guy who suggests my calling him a muppet or placeholder isn’t nice.
In fact she suggested that my ill feelings towards him had to do with jealously. Now I won’t say that this is true but I admit to suggesting that if she hoped for more than simple companionship she might consider spending time at the produce market.
Apparently this is not advisable nor is suggesting that he would probably die in robbing a drug store for used condoms.
Back in the present Donny Mac’s lyrics feel appropriate for the moment.
I’ve got nothing on my mind,
Nothing to remember,
Nothing to forget.
And I’ve got nothing to regret.
But I’m all tied up on the inside,
No one knows quite what I’ve got,
And I know that on the outside
What I used to be
I’m not
anymore.
I am at the cemetery by myself, going to have a private audience with my father. This is just father and son time, no responsibilities to look out for anyone or focus anywhere but on telling him my story and asking my questions.
There is a series I have read many times in which characters can go to a place called Andelain to meet their dead.
Sometimes the communion is good and sometimes it is less good. I know it comes from a work of fiction but I wonder if maybe Dad will reach out. He told me if it was possible he would do it.
I am prepared for silence and it is what I expect but the big surprise for me is I can’t find him. I walk all over the place and wonder what the hell happened.
There is quite a bit of construction going on there so I know the usual landmarks are off because the spots I used to mark the way down the hill are blocked off by a fence.
Inside my head I bark, “Who gets lost a in a cemetery” and then yell ‘Marco’ just to see if someone responds with ‘Polo.’
There is no one but me in this part of the cemetery so after I yell ‘Marco’ I mutter “this might be the first opportunity you have had in years to protect me Dad, how do I fight a bunch of Jewish ghosts. Should I put out a plate of food for them to nosh on.”
I notice multiple gravestones with names of people I know and whom I know are buried close to Dad and then say ‘screw it’ and call my mom to ask for help ‘reorienting’ myself. She reminds me he is up and to the left of Barry and 90 seconds later I have spotted him.”
I Forgot My Creatine
I wash the dust from his stone with the bottled water they gave me at the office and drop some stones on it and tell him I forgot to bring my creatine with me.
But instead of telling him why I am taking it and how I think it helps I say “you know you could be pretty hard on me but I didn’t think you’d hide from me. Pretty good trick for a dead guy, I am impressed. Maybe I’ll pull that one myself when I am gone.
And then I sit down and tell him to come close because I want to fill him on the stuff I don’t share with anyone and the plans I am making for the future.
Time passes but I don’t see any sort of ghostly presence but I almost can hear his voice. I stand up and tell him not to worry, I am upholding my promises and will do so until I join him wherever we go or don’t go when our time here is up.
*****
When I finish with Dad I head back to the car to hit the 118 so I can return to the Valley. Got dinner plans with a dear friend at Tel Aviv Grill in Encino.
The amount of traffic and time in the car to get there is intimately familiar and shocking because I haven’t made that ride during rush hour in a chunk of years.
As I roll along Stevie tells Lindsey how she’ll begin to stop loving him and as Silver Springs continues to play I wonder if that really played out that way, wonder if people really stop loving those people who meant so much to them.
My reverie is interrupted by an F150 cutting me off and I wonder why Texas drivers are so bad and then I remember I am home and that we have lots of trucks here too.
Later at the restaurant I listen to the mix of Hebrew and English around me and smile. My dinner companion is my friend Michael and it occurs to me forty years ago we were in Jerusalem together and easily could have had this same meal.
But the teenagers we were then probably couldn’t have pictured the men we are today. We have a short meal together because he has more work to do and I have a 30 drive back to mom’s house.
As we walk out the door I hear think back for a moment to how lucky we were and how lucky we are. Life has had some challenging moments for both of us but 43 years after we met we’re more than just ambulatory and that is a gift.
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