3. My dad …

December 21, 2009 at 4:27 pm (Uncategorized)

… is a pretty dignified and private person. He is quiet. He used to come home from his office after a day of interaction with dozens of screaming, wriggling kids (he was a pediatrician) and, seeing our wild bunch up to the same tricks, often retreated to his study until dinner. We were a pretty rambunctious crew, especially around dinner time, when my mother, cooking dinner, also had to get after us to do our chores, and deal with the mountains of laundry, and unpack endless bags of groceries, etc. So, as an adult, looking back, I can’t say I blame him for trying to extract a little peace and quiet from the day. (I don’t have any kids myself, and I can’t say I’ve ever spoken to him about any of this, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he was up to.) I used to go with him on Saturdays to work in his office – I put charts on the examining room doors, checked people in, put the throat culture plates in the incubator, stuff like that. It was pretty cool. Afterward, I would drive with him over to Providence Hospital, where he would do rounds. I usually sat in the car. Sometimes, after that, we would go over to the St. Anne’s Infant Home, which the Catholic Church operated as a home for unwed mothers. I didn’t even know what that meant, back then. There were a lot of nuns around, and they were all pretty impressed with my dad. I would have been, too, but I think I was too busy basking in the reflected glory. Sometimes, if it was a Sunday, and late, he would have WMAL, and Felix Grant’s jazz show, on the car radio. (He drove an Oldsmobile, and then he upgraded to a Town Car, and then, late in the game, a Mercedes. He always had neat cars – but early on, they were troublemakers. One, a little red Renault, had the door fall off. And another, a cream colored Corvair – unsafe at any speed – had other issues.

I can’t say I felt I knew my dad all that well — what he thought about things – growing up. That was how he’d been raised by his father, and that’s how he raised us. He was the dad, and there was a certain formality that he tried to enforce (though we tested it constantly). But even though he was something of a mystery at times, I always trusted him to be there, took his presence absolutely for granted. And he was the one we kids all went squalling to when things were really bad, and we needed a Solomon like decision on any particular thing. He was a ’50s Dad and we were ’70s kids.

He has never spoken the word “Alzheimer’s” in conversation with any of his six children, my siblings, and he hasn’t used it but once with my mother. The most he’ll say, sometimes, is “My memory isn’t serving me too well these days.” And then he will smile, and look embarrassed and rueful. Sometimes I say, “That’s okay, dad,” in hopes of reassuring him, letting him know we understand, and we’re all going to be there for him and my mom.