Last week I wrote about alotness.
This week, I’m writing about alotness again.
I suspect, here in the latter part of my forties, that the alotness never stops being a lot. I also suspect that, here in the latter part of my forties, that I will care less and less about the red lines WordPress has placed under the word alotness.
In the words of Eric Cartman: I do what I want.
***
I got a Facebook message from my father’s wife last weekend. I read the words Alzheimer’s, congestive heart failure, and hospice. This words are alot.
I wasn’t with my mom when she died. That’s something I am both at peace and not at peace with. So I drove 5 hours to be with Dad. I sat with him and looked at pictures of his old cars. I strummed Moonshadow on his electric guitar. We watched Nascar. I handed him a cup of water and helped him sit up. I spent the night in an Americinn in southern Wisconsin that smelled like cat urine and drove home the next morning. Fell into another week of being a parent, being a husband, being a department chair, being a professor, etc.
“I don’t think this is it, Sam,” Dad told me when I got there.
“I don’t know, Dad. Hospice is a scary word.”
Dad agreed.
“We all have to face death at some point,” Dad told me.
I agreed.
As I was leaving, I gave Dad a big hug. I told him I loved him. I told him that, in spite of it all, I was so glad he was my father.
“If I see you again here, great, but if I don’t, please know how much I love you.”
Dad paused. He looked at me earnestly.
“Wait, Who are you again?” Dad said.
Dad waited for a perfectly timed, comedic beat, and burst out laughing.
I admired Clayton Tanner for being able to sit in what may be his death bed, and make a joke about Alzheimer’s to his son. I hope I can do the same.
***
I’m grateful for Dad’s wife. I suppose she is my stepmother, but it is also true that they got married long after I left Dad’s house and, in some ways, his life. She’s kind, caring, and with my father in this moment that might last a day or might last a year.
It’s important for us to have people with us as we move through this alotness. Kurt Vonnegut wrote that his son gave him this important piece of advice: We’re here to help each other through this thing, whatever this thing is.
Love is the only thing that matters. Sitting with Dad and looking at pictures of his old cars is love. Standing in a circle with a class of undergraduates on Thursday night and talking about the relationship between improv, transformation, and teaching is love. Falling asleep on my wife’s lap is love. These things matter more than any alotness. So I’ll keep heading towards love.
