"Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose, get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove"
-Tori Amos, "Winter"
It is October 29, 1978. I am seven years old. Tomorrow
I will attend school as a robot in a Halloween costume
my father has constructed from a cardboard box and
some dryer tubing. Later in life, I will look back on
this getup with a mixture of embarrassment and pride.
But tonight, it doesn't matter. Tonight, I am at the mall.
I live for the mall. The latest Star Wars toys
filling shop windows, the adventure-filled books
luring me with their sirens' songs and, everywhere I
look, the Christmas decorations signaling the return
of Santa Claus. I clutch my father's hand, dragging
him from window to window, trying to capture it all,
my too-small eyes failing me once more.
The mall's floor is lined with shimmering pools that
promise wishes fulfilled for the price of one penny.
I surrender my father's hand, tossing my dream
into the mix. I wish my heart's deepest desire,
silently pleading for the Death Star that I must have
to go on living. Satisfied, I take my father's hand
again, letting go again only when a pillar intrudes.
"Bread and butter," we say in unison as we join hands
again. This is our ritual. More than the books, the toys and
the decorations, this game is why I love the mall.
When my brother and I were children, the
Christmas season would officially start with the
arrival of the Sears catalog. We would repeatedly flip
through the pages, marking with an X all of the toys
we knew would make our lives complete. After making
our lists and checking them twice, we would submit
them to our father for approval. Dad would then mail
them to the North Pole, and the countdown would begin.
Christmas excited Dad even more than it did us. He
would set about his yearly rituals with a steely
resolve. He would hook the tape recorder up to the
television and then consult the TV Guide for the dates
and times of every new Christmas special, recording
every single one just in case we wanted to hear it
again. On December 7th, the tree and all of the
trimmings would make their grand return from the
attic, and he would direct our efforts while catching
it all on film, a training manual for later
generations on the proper orchestration of Christmas.
On the eve of the big event, our parents would allow
us to open one gift each. Every year, the same thing:
new pajamas, which we were forced to change into
immediately. Afterwards, my father would take photograph after
photograph, thousands it seemed, of my mother, brother and I
in front of the tree, before sending us off to bed, claiming that
he heard the unmistakable sound of reindeer hooves on
the roof.
My brother and I would lie awake in our room, a room
decorated with treasures from Dad's travels: resin replicas
of Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, pennants from the
World Trade Center in New York City, depicting King
Kong atop the towers, and sand dollars from
Florida's snowy white shores. We impatiently awaited
the sleigh bells from the hallway that told us that
Santa had finally gone. When they finally came, we
would rush down the stairs and eagerly begin the
process of assessing our bounty, eliminating any
present that did not have one of our names on it.
Following our final tally, we would direct Dad as he
played Santa, doling out our precious treasure.
It is December 23, 2001. I am 30 years old. In two days,
I will go to my parent's house for Christmas dinner.
It is the last that we will have together, but I don't
know that now. Today I am sitting in my car, waiting
for traffic to move and trying to comprehend the words
emanating from my cell phone.
"They think….might….cancer."
"Mom, you're cutting out again. What about cancer?"
"They think it is cancer."
"I don't think I heard you right. I thought you
said…"
"I did."
"Oh."
After several days of uncertainty and a sleigh
bell-less Christmas, where my father had to rest
between handing out gifts, we received the official
diagnosis: Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, brought on by
exposure to Agent Orange. Seems that, for Dad, that
jagged scar on his shoulder wasn't the war's only
legacy.
When my father first became ill, we assumed it was
nothing, just a cough. As the days turned to weeks,
and the weeks to months, Mom finally insisted he
go to the doctor, an idea that didn't sit well with him.
But go he did, and we were relieved to discover it was
indeed just a cough. Whenit wouldn't go away, however,
he went back. Over the next two years, his doctor
diagnosed him with everything from sleep apnea to
asthma. Everything that is, except for cancer.
My dad was put through several rounds of
chemotherapy, but none of it worked. He would sleep
for hours on end and became winded just
walking five feet to the bathroom. He couldn't eat, couldn't
work, couldn't do anything but lie in bed and wait to
die. His doctor finally recommended a new experimental drug.
After his first treatment, he felt well enough to return to work
and play a few rounds of golf.
We were ecstatic. Off of deathwatch, we all returned
to our daily routines, secure in the normalcy our lives had regained.
When my mom called to say Dad was being admitted to the
hospital for a minor infection, she just wanted someone to
let out the dogs for her. We were so naïve.
My father was dying; his kidneys had failed, and he was
too weak for dialysis. If that didn't kill him, the just-discovered
bowel obstruction would. It would be a matter of days now, weeks
if we were lucky. We didn't feel lucky; we felt devastated.
It is August 31, 2002. Tomorrow, at 5:48 a.m., my
father will die. When he does, my first instinct will
be to call home and tell him of his passing, but I
don't know that now. Right now, I am sitting by my
father's bed, thinking of everything that I need to
say to him, everything that I should have said years
ago. I want to thank him for the Death Star that
greeted me that Christmas morning, for that
Halloween costume, for those penny wishes. I want to
tell him that everything will be okay, that the doctors will
discover they have made a mistake, that we still many
more memories to come. Struggling for the right
words, however, I take his hand and simply say, "Hey
Dad? Bread and butter." And, somehow, that's enough.
