Old Hands, part 9

Again we flew to the states to visit family and friends, but we were worried about my dad and how he would be. Chicago was our first stop, and the days spent there were surprisingly upbeat. Dad was often tired and clearly not feeling very well, but we passed a lot of time just sitting and visiting in the living room. He was a little cranky—he spoke sharply to Lisa for sticking out her tongue—and he seemed concerned that we not cause more trouble for Mom than his illness was already causing. “He’s actually doing much better than I expected,” I told Mike back in our hotel room, relieved.

We went on to New Jersey to see Mike’s folks for a couple days, and then we spent a few days in Stamford. There was a lot of running around there, getting Julie and Lisa together with their school friends while Mike and I tried to see as many of our friends as we could fit in. The culmination was the traditional New Year’s Eve party at the home of Judy Harris and Mark Kaufman, with several families in attendance. The adults chatted and relaxed upstairs, and we made our yearly predictions—where would the Dow be next year, who would win the World Series—and read the ones we had made the year before. The kids were in the basement preparing their annual show for us—dancing, singing, flicking the lights on and off, and whatever else they could think of to amuse us.

We were back in Madrid by January 6, the end of the holiday and a time for parades. It was amazing to stand on the sidewalk of Pozuelo Estación and watch the nighttime procession of lighted floats illuminate the drab little village. The kids scrambled for candy thrown from the floats sponsored by El Corte Inglés and other local merchants.

Once I was back in Spain I started to think about how I could help Mom, when I should return for another visit to Chicago. I called my dad’s oncologist for some advice. “I wish I could tell you how long this will last,” he said sympathetically, “but there’s no way to do that. It could be weeks, it could be months.” Somehow I decided in my own mind that Dad was going to last about four more months, so I would plan to go back in about two months and again two months later, when he died.

So it was a shock when I was wakened in the middle of the night a week later by my mother’s call, but I knew what she would say before she said it. My dad died on January 13. Mom and Sally had been there, but not in the room; a hospice nurse had been there the last few days, and she was the one with him when he died.

Putting my sorrow aside, I called TWA immediately and made my reservations to fly home in the morning. My sister Sally had a terrible cold and would go back to Indiana at once. I would help Mom with whatever arrangements had to be made. Mike would call my friends to let them know what had happened.

In Chicago, Mom was of course shaken and sad, but very determined about how things were going to go. No funeral, no memorial—Dad wouldn’t have wanted it, and she didn’t want it. My grandmother had to lean on her to allow even one night for friends to come and give their condolences. Mom showed me the obituary in the Chicago Tribune, which detailed his years in the newspaper business and the community service he had done. She had already made arrangements to have the body cremated, and we worked together on getting copies of the death certificate and having cards made up to thank people for their sympathy. We ordered cookies for the evening when people would come over. We found out that Sally had promptly been diagnosed with pneumonia and was out of commission for a while.

Mom and I went through all these motions quietly and efficiently, with feelings mostly under wraps, because that was the way we usually did things. I steeled myself for the trip to the funeral home to pick up Dad’s ashes; the box was shockingly heavy, and I had to still my mind in order to be able to pick it up, knowing what was inside.

I followed my mother’s lead and tried to be helpful whenever I could. She was focused on tying up financial loose ends, which was a big and detailed job. I stayed about a week and then went back, grateful that my sister and my aunt Jill would still be there to help.