The Catskill Chronicle

By Janet Waterston

Saturday mornings, I do the laundry. More specifically, I do my father’s laundry. He’s 92 and lives in a nursing home since a stroke three years ago took away his ability to walk or even transfer himself from bed to wheelchair.

I also work in my home office on Saturdays, so I’m a bit impatient that the process of washing and drying, hanging and folding, takes longer than I expect and conflicts with my need to answer e-mails or write reports. I throw the laundry in the washers and run back upstairs to my apartment and manage 24 minutes at the computer before it’s time to transfer the clothing into the dryers: sweat pants and socks in one and the shirts in another set on low so they don’t wrinkle. Until his stroke, my dad never had any piece of clothing that remotely resembled a sweat suit. He was a man who took pride in his appearance and was observant of how others looked, quick to give a compliment. Elastic waistbands and loose fitting pants, I was told, were easiest to pull on and off his half-paralyzed body. I picked up running pants and then had to replace his socks. “Not so tight,” his aide told me, “I can’t pull these up over his feet.” I was relieved when I realized that the black, lightweight socks I buy myself have just the right stretchiness to slip on lifeless feet and are apparently gender-free in their appearance. I replaced all his socks.

I stand by the dryer with the shirts and, when I think enough time has gone by, I press the pause button to remove them, one by one, when they are dry but have not yet wrinkled. I pull out a long-sleeved shirt of rich, deep-blue stripes. I smile and then am overcome with a feeling of warmth and happiness. When my dad sees this one, he never fails to say how handsome it is. Often he adds, tentatively, “You picked that one out, didn’t you?” His short-term memory is almost shot, but he seems to still retain which shirts he bought himself before the stroke and which I have subsequently selected. Recently, when I bought new pants he asked, “Doesn’t Wendy (my sister-in-law) usually get them for me?” Small kindnesses stand out in the undifferentiated days at the Home.

When I’m overwhelmed with my own work and schedule of visits to the nursing home, I think about letting the Home do my father’s laundry as they do for most of the residents. Then I recall the times that an aide has accidentally thrown his clothing into the general wash. A black ribbed sock comes back paired with one of stripes. A shirt is hung inside-out and pants are left in a plastic bag, a paper towel on top indicating Waterston. No. The staff isn’t going to care enough to check to see that cuffs aren’t frayed; that pants haven’t shrunk or become too stained; and ribbed socks are paired with ribbed socks.

I hang the blue-striped shirt and am overcome with love. What could be more mundane, more quotidian than doing the laundry? And what could be a more apt way of saying I love you; I care about you. Isn’t this the way we, as children and parents, show our love, day in and day out? It is not grand gestures or pretty speeches that communicate love. It’s the small acts, the repeated acts, which are the true testament to our love and being there for one another.

When I was in high school, I sang in the choir of a Long Island-based organization and played my French horn in a New York City-wide band. Friday evening, after his full week of work, my father drove me and my friends to any location at which the choir was to perform, and on Saturday, he got up early to take me from Queens to my band rehearsal in Brooklyn. Not only did he not complain, he often assured me that he enjoyed listening to us sing or play. When I was younger, both my parents took turns carting me and my two siblings to Sunday School and music lessons; concerts and visits with friends; and for my brother who grew into dating before we moved to the city, even on his dates.

Dad took us for Carvel, and Mom cut up carrots and celery for a snack while we played in the den. On the first day of sleep-away camp each summer, there was always a letter from my father who’d had the presence of mind to write earlier in the week, so we’d have some reminder of home to help us through the first moments of homesickness. And every two or three days, there was another letter from Mom or Dad or both. Little acts. Repeated acts.

How many lunches did my mother pack and how many meals did she cook, even when she returned to college while my sister and I were still at home? How many loads of laundry did she do before we were old enough to pitch in? How many times did my father take us to the arboretum or the zoo or to MACY*S Thanksgiving Day Parade?

How many times did he type our school papers or sit with us, albeit somewhat impatiently, helping us understand long division?

The first time my cousin, Marylin, and her husband, Sherm, visited my dad at the Home, a ritual they have repeated every month for three years, they brought coffee ice cream, my dad’s favorite. On Thursdays, I fill out the menu for my dad and Alex, his former roommate. Last week my sister and I brought them pastrami and pickles. Irene, the daughter of another resident, sits in the dining room each evening with her mother, holding her hand while they watch the large screen television. Every morning, wherever she is and whatever she is doing, my sister calls my dad to wish him a good day. He’s not much of a conversationalist any more, but neither hangs up without concluding, “I love you.”

I pack up the blue striped shirt and new running pants to bring to my dad on our next visit.

Small acts. Appreciated gestures. Love.