Wednesday August 15
Day 4
I’m in the small park down the street, my dog and I walking through wet grass. I would love this in bare feet, the feel of cool green blades between my toes. But now I’m annoyed my sneakers are getting wet. It’s almost 11am. Almost two hours later than when I usually call my grandfather. I think for a moment, preparing myself. There’s always a chance, and a good one at that, he won’t be wearing his hearing aids. It’s also risky calling him when I’m outside, especially when I’m moving around. Even without the tenuous cell reception our conversations take time, require more patience, kindness and a general slowing down of things on my part.
I’ve learned that afternoon conversations are harder than conversations in the morning. Later in the day I get off the phone feeling ashamed, angry that I was impatient, that I wasn’t more present with him. Regardless of whether he senses it or not, and I’m convinced he does, I know the truth: I’m tired and I want time to myself.
I regret all the times I didn’t pick up the phone when my grandfather was calling me. I’d look down, see it was him and think, I can’t do this now. My phone has voicemails from him I haven’t even checked yet. I’ve never listened to them because I know the sound of his voice, wavering and tremulous, full to the splitting seams with love, will feel like too much for me to contain. I also know that hearing his voice like this will be harder to do when he’s actually gone.
The first time we spoke this morning we talked about Mary Oliver. He was re-reading a poem we had read together the other day. He’s already gone through the book a few times (it’s one of her slender ones). I smile at this because it says so much about who he is. I say to him, what a nice way to begin the day, dad. He laughs and says, I thought you’d say that.
We get off the phone after a few minutes and I turn to leave the park. The bottoms of my pants are wetter than my sneakers but I care less about this now. Minnie’s leading the way home and I’m letting myself be led. The phone rings. It’s my grandfather, calling me this time.
M, he says, I was just picking up Ms. Oliver’s book to read another page and I came across this… so I picked the phone right back up and called you. He doesn’t wait for me to respond. His reading is slow, careful and because of this his voice sounds like it belongs to a younger man. I have to stop walking. Minnie stands alert, taut at the end of her leash. She waits for me to make a decision. The sidewalk curb is close behind me. I sit down.
This is what he reads:
If I Were
There are lots of ways to dance and
to spin, sometimes it just starts my
feet first then my entire body, I am
spinning no one can see it but it is
happening. I am so glad to be alive,
I am so glad to be loving and loved.
Even if I were close to the finish,
even if I were at my final breath, I
would be here to take a stand, bereft
of such astonishments, but for them.
If I were a Sufi for sure I would be
one of the spinning kind.
From A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver’s new collection. All rights reserved.
He says sun instead of Sufi.
Sitting down in the heat of morning is the only way I can really listen to my grandfather. I want to remember this. I want to imprint his words, the way the ground feels beneath my feet, the memories that are surging inside me, into every cell in my body, holding onto it, as if letting go would betray him.
I introduced my grandfather to Mary Oliver a few years ago. After we started reading her poetry together, I wondered why I hadn’t done it sooner. Of course he would love Mary Oliver. They share so much of the same heart, they communicate with nature as if nature itself is the poem. I do this often when it comes to dad: feel regret.
Dad is being discharged next Wednesday. A week from today and then the future is unknowable, the details of it, anyway. I haven’t talked to him about his death recently. In the last couple years he says things about it, he mentions how he’s changing, the nuances of what he feels. I wish I could listen without letting the loss of him overwhelm me. I don’t want him to be alone with these thoughts. I want him to know I’m okay with hearing them.
A few weeks ago I visit my grandfather in the hospital. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he tells me how he knows this is hard for me, and even though he doesn’t use the word dying we both know what he’s talking about. His voice is so small. I lean into him because I don’t want to miss a thing. His hands wrap around my hands. They are still larger than mine, still warm. He says, acceptance is the only way, Ris.
I know, dad. I know.
my body speaks 