The Catskill Chronicle

By Janet Waterston

Dad’s death at age 95 was not a surprise. He’d had a stroke in 2008 that left him confined to a wheelchair and living in a nursing home. My sister, Jude, and I  watched his abilities and spirit slip away little by little until the last six months when he was moved to the dementia floor. There, his decline was precipitous. First he stopped doing crossword puzzles with us; then talking became too much of an effort. In the last weeks, he rarely ate anything besides breakfast. Not even the coffee ice cream we ritually brought him. The only enjoyment we could give him was to play music, either the old standards or Yiddish and Hebrew songs. Even though he rarely spoke, he sometimes sang along or would indicate that we should sing.

On November 22nd, Jude and I received a call saying Dad’s breath was labored and one or both of us should come…before it was too late. Neither of us made it to the Home on Long Island before Dad passed away, but we were both able to take solace from knowing we’d seen him regularly and often, every week since the stroke.

Shirley, one of Dad’s first aides at the Home and now assigned to the dementia floor, walked in while Jude sat next to Dad, waiting for me to arrive. “Gotta wrap him up,” she announced unceremoniously. Jude stared in disbelief. “Could you wait until Janet arrives?” “I’ll leave his head showing,” Shirley offered, but reconsidered and left Jude with Dad’s body until I arrived. Dad would have been the first one to get a laugh over the insensitivity. He would have shrugged and said, “What are you going to do?”

Dad had been ready to die, and we knew his death was the relief he sought. It was time to celebrate his life. We envisioned laughing over happy memories and moving on with our own lives.

And then we were hit by a ton of bricks. Jude and I found a veil of sadness surrounding us rather than a lifting of our spirits that Dad was no longer suffering. Of course we were pleased that he was out of pain and not enduring a life he never wanted, but how could we be missing him so much when he hadn’t been himself for almost six years? The answer came to me. No matter how diminished Dad’s life was, or how much pain or discomfort he experienced, there was never a visit when he didn’t express his love and appreciation for us. His face invariably lit up with a smile when we found him in the dining room or lined up in the hallway with the other residents, and each visit ended with kisses and the words, I love you, even if Dad only moved his lips without making a sound. Long after Dad’s short-term and long-term memory faded, we still filled visits with laughter, and he listened raptly to our stories even if he could no longer comment or follow some of what we said.

We had lost our father and our friend.

As baby-boomer children of the fifties and sixties, Jude and I and our brother Buzz, lived somewhat of the idealized life depicted on television. We lived in the suburbs. Dad went into the city for work and Mom stayed home with us. Mom drove us to music lessons and Hebrew school during the week. Dad  took over the driving on the weekends and tended the barbeque. We took family trips and went to camp, and our parents seemed to have perfected agreement on how to parent. If any of us tried to slip a request by one, the other piped up, “What did Mommy (or Daddy) say?”

The scenario began to change when we moved into Queens. Mom went back to school and then work. We were old enough to travel on our own by bus and subway. Because we could now come and go, within reason, by ourselves, we had our first real window into Dad’s life as an individual, not just a parent. We would meet him in the city and go out for lunch. On those occasions, I felt Dad treated me as another  adult, not his daughter. Did I want a cocktail? No eyebrows raised. In fact, I think Dad liked the fact that I drank Jack Daniel’s, as he did. He talked about his work, and I told him about a summer job for which I’d interviewed or a visit I’d made to a potential college.

One summer, Dad helped me get a job at one of his clients, and I remember sharing with him what it was like to go out for drinks "with the guys," all of whom were may years older than I. Dad loved the fact that everyone was surprised that "a girl" ordered a dry bourbon Manhattan (i.e., Dad’s favorite drink). Dad’s other comment was to ask if I noticed that the more people drank, the less interesting the evening got. I had to agree.

When our mother died of cancer while Jude and I were still in our early twenties, I stayed in my parent’s apartment with Dad while I went to grad school. In retrospect, I think Dad was the best "roommate" I ever had. He didn’t pry or try to exert influence over any choices I made. Instead, he demonstrated avid interest in what I was studying and who I was meeting. He frequently made me breakfast as I rushed to get ready for class, and a couple of times a week, we made a point of eating dinner together to enjoy each other’s company. Eventually Dad began to date, and he was open about his experiences. He described some anxiety and awkwardness after 34 years of marriage. There was the woman whose couch smelled like salami. Or the one who seemed desperate to find a man. When he began to date a little more seriously, we had that parent/child talk about calling if one were going to get home late. Only it was me setting down the guidelines for him. "You’re right, of course," Dad said, "I don’t want you to worry. I’ll call if I’m not going to be home  or will be home late."

Dad eventually remarried and when the second marriage was far from the success of the first, Jude and I would visit Dad for an afternoon to take his mind off his troubles. Or we would call him in his office, so he could talk more freely. He shared his unhappiness and took comfort in our support. And we were honored to be his confidantes as he’d so many times been ours.

Dad ultimately divorced the evil stepmother, and he and I went shopping together to select furniture for his new apartment, just blocks from where I lived. Jude and I frequently visited him in his home where Dad would serve us cocktails and then proudly make us dinner which, most often, was either steak or something he’d purchased from a favorite restaurant and could freeze, defrost, and heat up. Brazilian mixed seafood in a creamy white sauce. Osso bucco. Rottisserie chicken. He always served a small salad with the main course and never failed to mention that he learned to do that from Jude. Dessert, if we were still hungry, was the old family standard, coffee ice cream.

Since I lived only blocks away and Dad was now retired, he would take my clothing to the dry cleaners or pick up groceries for me. If I went away, he’d babysit my cat even though he wasn’t especially fond of pets. Despite that, I think he learned to love Weazer, perhaps simply because I did. He even worried, when I moved into a new apartment in the same building, that Weazer was not adjusting well. "That’s one unhappy cat," he told me. When Weazer had to be put to sleep, Dad insisted on accompanying me, just to make sure I had a shoulder to lean on.

For a surprise birthday party in New Orleans, for Wendy, our sister-in-law, Jude, Dad and I traveled together, and Dad was even game to go to the palmist we found. Usually the skeptic, Dad beamed when the man said, "You worked in a creative field. Perhaps advertising?" Indeed, yes. Sometimes we  drove together to Princeton to meet Buzz and family for an afternoon outing, or we would drive to their home outside Philadelphia. Other times, Dad drove by himself or brought Esther, his "lady friend." Dad got the biggest laugh of us all when Buzz commented that Dad was great at picking women, that is, every other one.

Once, Buzz, Wendy, Jude and I thought we’d take a portrait of the four of us to present to Dad for his upcoming birthday. Buzz assured us he could set up his camera so he had time to run over to where we three sat on the couch and get in the picture frame in a timely fashion. That might have been true except the process of adjusting the camera  and running over to us inevitably had us laughing uncontrollably. So much so that we didn’t realize the time had run out and Dad was showing up at the door. Instead of keeping our idea a surprise, we told Dad what we’d been doing, and he joined us as we attempted to affect serious expressions or donned ridiculous looking hats. We laughed until we fell over on top of each other.

When the weather was nice, Dad drove up to the house Jude and I shared in the Catskills. In fact, Dad made it possible for us to buy it by giving us the money for the down payment. "Why should you wait until I die to have enough money to enjoy the house," Dad reasoned, "And besides, the house can be a good investment for all of us in our old age." When he visited, Dad loved meeting our friends, and just as he’d taken to my cat, he sometimes took a stroll on our road with one of our neighbor’s dogs. "Come on, Zoot Suit," Dad would call to the brown hound/lab named Zuzite. Sometimes, he came with Esther and after she died prematurely, he returned to visiting us solo.

Dad’s stroke in his 89th year was his worst nightmare, but to us and his nieces, he remained the same uncomplaining role model. "What are you going to do?"  he shrugged when we expressed our disappointment at what his life had become. In the almost six years he lived in the nursing home, he never once chastised us for not visiting more often or for the visits being too short. In the early days, he happily acceded to working together on double crostics or playing some other word games we’d always loved. When that became difficult, we switched to easy crossword puzzles. Much of the time we laughed. Sometimes we laughed at Dad’s failed memory or sometimes at Jude’s antics as the family "baby." Mostly we appreciated each other’s company and the lifetime we’d had of love and friendship.

I miss my father, and I miss my friend. And I know how lucky I am to have had both.