Memory

To the Moms of Jilly's Daisy Scout Troop:

I'm sorry if I was rude the other day.

I wasn't trying to be antisocial by not engaging in idle banter while our five-year-olds walked in single-file through the halls of our local nursing home/rehab center. Those tears brimming to the edge of my eyes, that I willed somehow not to fall, were not because their rendition of "Dreidel, Dreidel" was so beautiful.

You don't know. You just don't know.

You don't know how close I came to becoming completely undone in those hallways.

When I learned that Jilly's troop would be singing holiday carols in a nursing home, I thought we might be standing in the dining room, like we did two years ago with a homeschool group. Then, we had stayed in one place and sung to a dozen or so aged residents who nodded, snapped their fingers and sang along.

This time, though, we were lead through the hallways past room upon room of sick adults. There were a few people in the hallway, sitting in wheelchairs or lying on gurneys, quiet and dazed.

You don't know how hard my heart pounded as I walked. You don't know why I kept my eyes on the ground ahead of me.

Four years ago, I walked halls just like these every couple of days. I held a three-month-old baby boy in a carrier on my chest. I pushed little Jilly, just 21 months, in a stroller while Belly walked beside me. We went to the end of the hall, turned left and walked to the second bed, the one against the window.

"Hi Daddy!", I would say, trying to gauge his state as Belly, my oldest who wasn't quite four, tickled his feet under the sheets; the younger two just watched. Most days in that month of December, he would make a little conversation, but it was hard. He was tired and bone thin. Months of not being able to eat had taken their toll, as had the cancer that was rapidly spreading throughout his body.

The TV would be on and, sometimes, he would get lost in the picture moving on the screen. Sometimes he would shut his eyes and fall asleep. Earlier in his hospitalization, I would read him Dave Barry comics or tell him stories, but not in December. By December, he was ready to go.

And, so, as Jilly loudly caroled in that nursing home on December 16th, I couldn't help but think what life was like four years prior. Our group noisily walked past an old man in a wheelchair. His eyes met mine and he lifted his hand in a sort of low-energy wave. I recognized that wave.

And, then I realized that this might not be an old man. Thinking back to how my dad looked in December '04, people coming into his room might have thought that he was an elderly fellow. I can imagine a troop of little Daisy Scout girls filing into his room to sing a carol. He would've slowly raised his hand in a weak hello, and he would've tried to smile. He was a kind man, even in those last days.

Mothers acompanying those girls may have thought, "What a nice man to wave at the girls, to smile at them. Look at all the adorable pictures drawn on his wall. I wonder if they are by his grandchildren? His great-grandchildren? He looks to be, what, 80, 90? Poor thing, he doesn't look well. I hope he's been able to live a nice, long life".

What they didn't know back then, and what last week's troop didn't know, was that he was not an old man.

He was 63.

And he died four years ago today, December 22, 2004.