![]() ![]() I bought a plane ticket to fly to Arizona to help them. I earmarked furniture in my own home that could fit into their new, scaled-down space. I put down a deposit on the best one, where the dining hall had large windows overlooking a greenway, and I rented a storage unit and a truck. I scouted out every retirement home in the community, eating terrible dinners in dining rooms that smelled of tuna. ![]() I certainly didn’t anticipate that I would do just about anything - give them anything, buy them anything - to try to make the transition bearable. I imagined having dinner with them once a week and taking impromptu shopping trips with my mother. They seemed helpless in the face of a thousand decisions. While getting ready for the move, my mother wept inconsolably, and my father’s expression remained stern. They had lain on the living-room floor together and agreed that it was time. He had been falling more frequently, and finally he’d fallen on top of my frail mother. It was simply something that had become inevitable due to my father’s heart attacks, his failing legs. When I told friends my parents were moving to Bellingham, Washington, they waited a beat before reacting, as if to see whether I welcomed this or dreaded it. Months earlier, as my brothers and I prepared to move our parents to a retirement community close to my home, both brothers asked me, “Are you ready for this?” I hadn’t lived near my parents since I’d left home at eighteen. I tend to his nails as if I know what I’m doing, as if I’ve always known how to hold his hand. Just the sound of the file scraping away. No footfalls in the hall, no meal trays arriving, no aides coming to draw blood. The edge is a bit ragged, though, so I get out an emery board and begin filing. I continue shaping the nail, careful not to snag his skin, and somehow create an even half-moon flush with the tip of his finger. There is a loud snip, and the clipping flies out of sight. I guide the clippers to his pinkie the nail is surprisingly tough, so I put some muscle into it. And so, as I’ve done many times over the last two weeks, I jumped to my feet and said, “I’ll do it.” I’ve never cut someone’s nails before, but there are many things I’ve never done that I’m doing now. But his hands shook too much, and he dropped the clippers. Finally today I remembered to bring them to the hospital. He’s been asking for his nail clippers for days, gazing down ruefully at his fingers. How can the nails keep growing like this when his heart pumps barely enough blood to keep him alive? They’re the only part of him that seems healthy. His skin feels thin, but his nails grow thick and long, creeping a half inch beyond the rounded flesh. I’m at my father’s bedside, his hand resting in mine.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |