February 26, 2002
From : "jdb1946"
To : "Jessamyn"
Subject : tentative plans sound good
Date : Mon, 25 Feb 2002 19:00:13
dear daughter, i would be glad to see you and geoff on the fifteenth weekend. i told grampa you were coming to visit and he said that would be four for cards! he's an optimist. i've pretty much always felt he was on my side, except for some childhood experiences. i think it's correct usage to say that his love is palpable. i'll have to check the dictionary when i go downstairs. it's like an aura. do you ever feel that? lee and betty invited us and he and mary helen for sunday dinner. we played cards and he made a few errors and got confused counting. he had some screws with rubber gaskets on his toilet tank that he couldn't tighten enough to stop the tank from leaking. he said he guessed he didn't have the strength to tighten them. he's thinner now than he was for years. he fell asleep in the chair back by his stove and slumped forward. i guess it's all these images that are getting me down. it's the same kind of feeling i got from mom a year or so before she died. it's like i'm going into pre-grieving or something. he's a sweet guy; i'm going to miss him. i thought, if you didn't mind, that i would go ahead and pass three thousand over to you when you come visit. i figured i'd get a cashier's check. then i'd get you the other two in may. i love you, dad
I've been walking around this morning, thinking about this email from my father. I just went downstairs to buy a diet Coke, and in the time it took the woman waiting on me to turn around and fill a large cup up with ice and diet Coke, my eyes filled up with tears. I wondered if she'd notice, and what I would say if she asked me what was wrong. We're all going to die, I could tell her, or, probably more to the point, My father is going to die. And she would say "when?" And I would say, "someday!"
I don't know where to start. So I'll just start.
I love my father. I love the connections he makes in his mind, and the way that he's interested in language, and how he wants to talk about how he feels, and the way he wants to share things with me. I love the way he said that he would give Geoff and me some wedding funds in a few weeks if I "didn't mind." I love how the way he writes is all strung together in one long paragraph with no capital letters. I love how he goes from mundane to serious with no warning.
I love how, after I read an email like this one, I understand a little more how and why I am the person I am. It's because he's my father.
I miss my Grandma.
I remember the day she died, how we were there at my grandparents' house
when she suddenly couldn't breathe. The next door neighbor, who was
a nurse, came over and started CPR, and we all stood there. Silent.
Watching. The ambulance came and took her to the hospital, and we all
got in our cars and went there, too. She was already dead when we got
to the hospital, but we all went in to see her body, and already it
didn't seem like Grandma anymore.
When we were leaving, I was walking next to my father, and he started
to cry again, and I felt so sad for him, and I turned and hugged him,
and I didn't know anything that I could say to make it better, so I
said, "I love you, Dad." He hugged me back, and his voice
broke, and he said, "Oh, Jess, I love you, too," and I realized
that maybe that was the one thing I could have said that made it better.
I love my Grandpa, and I will miss him terribly when he dies, but as much as I will miss him, my father will miss him so much more. I am so lucky to have my two grandfathers still alive, and to have both of my parents still alive and well, and not to have had to deal with death in any sort of way that has made me re-evaluate my life or my world. Once my grandfather dies, my father will have no living parents. And once my grandparents have died, my parents are next, right? My world will change so much. I can't even imagine.
Dictionary.com gives this definition:
pal·pa·ble (plp-bl) adj.
1. Capable of being handled, touched, or felt; tangible: “Anger rushed out in a palpable wave through his arms and legs” (Herman Wouk).
2. Easily perceived; obvious: “There was a palpable sense of expectation in the court” (Nelson DeMille). See Synonyms at perceptible.
Sometimes when I was a kid, I would ask my dad what a word meant, and I would be irritated and sulky when he would tell me to look it up. And although I do think that partly he told me to look it up in order to teach me a lesson about independence or resourcefulness or problem-solving (which is what irritated me, the "lesson" aspect), I also think that maybe he just wanted to make sure I got the best answer I could get. Maybe he would have wanted to look it up himself, to be sure.
Now, sometimes, I look up words just for fun. Just to see if I know what I think I know.
My father loves me. It's right
there, right in front of me, isn't it? It's palpable. It's like an aura.
Yeah, Dad, sometimes I feel that.