smalltimore

Life just seems to be getting away from me these days. But that has been going on for so long that it is probably time that I accept that as the norm, and stop waiting for the day when it all slows down. Today, for example, I am working from 7:00am to noon, somewhere in there I have to do a week's worth of studying French, then duck out for my French lesson, coming back to work until 3:00pm or so, then I SHOULD attack my kitchen, currently a disaster area, but, we'll see. I probably should send a few nasty memos to my maintenance department, but I don't have the energy to be all that nasty today. Monday is a better day for nasty memos. Laundry. I have to do some laundry. I am down to the uncomfortable underwear. Oh, yes, and I do have dinner plans tonight, don't I? I'm surprised I have any friends left at all, I don't seem to be spending much time with them these days.

But Tuesday I took a little break. Sort of. Well, it was a break from the usual, anyway. My young cousins, ages 6 and 8, are off all week for Spring Break. Being a bit young to head to Daytona, their parents had to figure out what to do with them, so a series of relatives and friends were called in for one-day tours of duty. I got Tuesday.

Joey (8) and Sean (6) are the youngest of my generation in my family, I am the oldest. Since I am more than old enough to be their mother, people usually assume that I am exactly that when I am out with them. The last several years I have taken them to a baseball game on Mother's Day, to give their mom a break for a few hours, and so she can go and visit her own mother. "She (meaning me) likes it because she gets the free hat," Joey said the other day. It's funny the things kids remember. I forgot about that. Just the other day I was gathering baseball caps scattered around my apartment and throwing them in a closet (as I MIGHT wear a baseball cap five days out of the year), and I was wondering how I ended up with not one but TWO pink Orioles' baseball caps.

I can honestly say that in my decades of babysitting experience, Joseph and Sean are the best-behaved children I have ever watched. That is an unbiased opinion, despite being related to them. When my cousin Christopher was the same age, I would be the first person to tell you that he was the Spawn of the Devil. Really. He was the only four-year-old to ever make me cry. Joey and Sean are a BREEZE.

And they are also HYSTERICAL. I was sitting in the kitchen at their house on Easter Sunday, trying to have a conversation with their mother. The boys hadn't seen me for awhile, so, as boys do in order to show their affection, they also sat at the kitchen table with us, making various noises for no reason at all, squirming in their seats, and ocassionally opening the fridge to see if anything new had appeared since they checked it three minutes ago. Finally my aunt Irene couldn't take it any more and said, "I wish you boys would calm down!" Joseph (and remember, he is EIGHT), with perfect dead-pan delivery, said, "What is this, 'calm' of which you speak?"

Sean is not only funny, but an accomplished liar. The boy can lie at the drop of a hat, right to your face, and he will stick to his story no matter what. He came home from school one time and was assigned to write, "I will respect Ms. Smith and her belongings," ten times. When his father asked him what he did  wrong to receive this punishment, Sean swore up, down, and sideways that his teacher made the whole class write this because a few bad apples were misbehaving. Sean told his dad that everyone else had to write it 20 times, but he only had to write it 10 times. He stuck to that story relentlessly, until his dad was about to call Ms. Smith and gave Sean one more chance to come clean. Still, a pretty impressive and complicated lie for a kid who was barely six years old at the time.

So on Tuesday, their mom dropped them off around 8:00am. I let them play a game of pool, then we made a quick visit to my neighbors just to say hello, then we were at Fort McHenry by 9:30am. If you get to the Fort before 10:00am, you can walk around before they start charging admission, and before the busloads of tourist begin overrunning the place. It was a crisp, dewy morning, and a nice walk along the water. The boys enjoyed walking along the ramparts of the Fort and examining the cannons and gunpowder magazines. We were inside the Fort when the guy came to change the flag. A handful of tourists walked in with their stickers on their lapels that showed that they had paid admission. I thought we might get kicked out, but the park ranger asked the boys to help him change the flag. So Joey and Sean held the corners of the small flag that came down while the ranger and another tourist gentleman folded it, then they helped to make sure that the gigantic flag that flies over the Fort in good weather did not touch the ground as the two men pulled it out of the bag they store it in overnight. The boys thought that was a pretty big deal.

Afterwards we headed to the mall, got some lunch and saw a movie ("The Last Mimzy," - NetFlix it if you must). Then we wandered around the Bass Pro Shop, watched a guy try to climb the rock wall, checked out the waterfall, and took a picture on my camera phone of the boys holding up a pillow that looked like a swordfish as if they had just caught it themselves. Though we were busy all day, it is not like we were running a marathon or anything. I think it was the BAJILLION questions that Sean asked that really wore me out. "Where are we going?" "Where are we going now?" "Why?" "Why?" "Why is there a bathroom there?" "Why is that guy wearing that hat?" "Is this candy?" "Why are you buying those sunglasses?" "What does this thing do?" "Why is your car red?" "Why are there cushions on your seats?"  OH. MY. GOD.  Finally, I told Joseph he was in charge of the questions. In the car, with both boys in the back seat, Sean asked for the third time where we were going. As I had already answered this question twice in the same leg of the journey, I did not answer him. He asked again. The next thing I heard him say was, "Ow!" There was a moment of silence while Joey waited for me to yell at him for hitting his brother. I didn't. Joseph said to Sean, "That's for asking dumb questions."

When I got home, I ran into my neighbors, who are expecting their first child in July. "Good luck with that," I said, referring to her belly. I adore my cousins, and I always have fun with them. But as for having my own...thanks, I'm good. For now anyway.

It has been almost four years since my father died. It has been three years ago today that I finally began to grieve.

Don't worry, this isn't going to be too horribly depressing. At least I hope not. It is the most beautiful day of the year in Baltimore to date, and I don't want to spend it sad. But this is a special day. It would have been my father's 60th birthday, and I want to remember him for a moment, and share that with you. If you ever met him, I know you liked him, and if you didn't have the opportunity, I wish that you had.

When Daddy died on August 9, 2003, after an excruciating battle with pancreatic cancer, perhaps it was a relief not to see him in pain every day. I was fortunate enough to spend the last month of his life with him, and though I don't regret a moment of that, it was very difficult. So when he finally passed, I was just...numb. I returned to Baltimore and everything was just as I had left it. Since my Dad lived in Florida, and he therefore wasn't a part of my daily life, my life didn't feel like it had changed much. I felt guilty for not feeling horrible. It just seemed to be too easy. It didn't make sense.

Then, nearly 8 months later, came April 3rd. What would have been Daddy's 57th birthday. My parents divorced when I was 13 years old, but remained the best of friends until the day my Dad died. Every year on April third, I would get the same call from my mother without fail. "You know it's your Dad's birthday today." But this time, of course, the phone didn't ring. This was a very long day of deafening silence. That is when it finally became real to me. That is when I realized I would never, ever, get that phone call again. By Father's Day, I was a basket case.

Losing a parent is something you cannot understand until it happens to you. I have more than one friend who at this very moment are dealing with parents with terminal illnesses. I feel rather helpless, knowing what they are about to go through and that there is not much I can do to help. All I can do is be there, to be a friend. That is all any of us can do, really. It never feels like enough.

Anyway...I want to tell you one of my favorite memories of my Dad. I have many. Some of my very earliest memories are of my father, sitting on his lap in the rocking chair in my parents' bedroom, in front of the 13 inch black & white TV, watching the Pittsburgh Steelers trounce someone, or Muhammed Ali doing the same, or John Wayne movies very late at night while he tried to get me to go to sleep. This was a tradition that started at the very beginning of my life. The rocking chair was a gift to my mother from her parents, when I was born. It belongs to me now. When I was an infant, my Dad worked a late shift, and when he came home he would give me my three a.m. feeding in that rocking chair, watching whatever classic was the late-late movie. My mother says this is why I have such a penchant for Cary Grant and the like. Perhaps it is why my Dad always reminded me of Clark Gable. But that isn't even the memory I want to tell you about.

In 1999, I took my first overseas trip to London, Scotland, and Paris. The travel bug bit me hard, and decided to spend every dime I had traveling my ass off in 2000. I booked trips to Spain, London, Paris, and Scotland, with future plans to see Ireland, Germany, and Italy. My Dad was very excited for me, and mused that he had always wanted to go white-water rafting on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. He asked me if I might be interested in doing that with him. I had never been white-water rafting, and my Dad hadn't gone since I was a kid. I remember when he did, I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. My Dad was always larger than life to me.

I said I'd look into it. I found a great company, figured out how much it would cost, and called Dad. All told it was going to be almost $2000 each, not including airfare or hotel in Vegas the night before and night after the 8 days on the river. There was a $500 non-refundable deposit per person. Dad hemmed and hawed. That is a lot of money. He said he'd think about it.

Well, I thought about it and decided we were doing it. Period. Dad called me a few days later. "All right," he said. "What the hell." That's good, I told him, "Because I sent the deposit in three days ago." He laughed. "What if I decided not to go?" he asked. "Yeah, no, that wasn't going to be an option," I replied.

We had ten months to daydream about the trip. I envisioned us sitting around a campfire in the evening, bonding with some serious, deep, heart-to-heart, father-daughter talks. We never had those kind of talks. Not really. But we were very close regardless.

We never did have those talks on the trip. And I learned that you are not allowed to make campfires in the Grand Canyon. But Daddy and I made friends with some people on the trip (the ones who brought cases and cases of beer). There were about 28 people in the group, on two big rafts, and after getting tossed around on the river all day we would make camp in some mind-bogglingly picturesque spot. After dinner we would sit in a circle and talk, all of us, and toss the empty beer cans into the center and call it our, "campfire". We referred to our evening gatherings as, "The South Rim Tavern." It was a blast.

One morning, our guides told us to suit up in whatever raingear we had, as we were going to hit some rough rapids early. This would have been fine in the afternoon because by then it was so hot that you welcomed any relief the icy cold river could give you, but this morning the air still had a chill, and there were threatening clouds in the distance as well.

Dad's raingear was a bright yellow slicker and matching floppy hat. We were all ready to go, all our gear locked up, including cameras, in our waterproof ammo cans. I laughed at Dad and told him he looked like the Gorton's Fisherman. I had claimed my spot on the raft, as most of us already had. Dad had just stepped onto the boat when a hummingbird, which are plentiful in the Canyon, started hovering around his head. It had been attracted to his bright yellow slicker, which stood out like a sore thumb among the earthy tones along the riverbanks. The bird poked at him, thinking he was a gigantic flower. Then there was another one. And another. And another. And another!!! "Hold still, Dave!" someone shouted at him, while five frustrated hummingbirds tried to figure out why they couldn't find a drop of nectar when they thought they had just hit the jackpot. The poked at his hat and his armpits relentlessly. "I hope someone is taking a picture of this!" my Dad said, but all the cameras were locked up so they wouldn't get damaged in the waters that were about to douse us. It is a shame, really. But that image could not be burned onto film in more vivid color than it is burned into my memory. It was an amazing moment for so any reasons.

There were a lot of moments on that trip, a lot of my favorite memories of my father from those eight days and nights under the stars. I'll probably tell you more of them someday. Maybe on Father's Day. But I'll leave you with that one for now.

Since that time, I have continued to spend nearly all of my disposable income on travel. Some people think I am crazy not to sock more away, or to buy a nicer car, or real estate, or whatever. But all those sorts of things are exactly the things that can be taken away from you, those are the sorts of things you can lose. When you have traveled, no one can take that away from you for as long as you live. No one can take those memories away from you, and they are memories that, no matter how well you tell the story, you only really share with the people that were along with you. My Dad bragged about that trip to anyone who would listen for the rest of his short life. I miss him terribly. But no one can ever take him away from me completely, because of those times that we shared.

The problem with parents, particularly the good ones, is not that we all expect to outlive our parents. It is that we just never expect them to die.