I don’t know how I ever lived somewhere that didn’t have changing seasons. Growing up in Arizona I never saw the fall leaves or the winter white blanket of snow. It was either really nice out or just too damn hot. At Christmas time we would use spray-on “snow” for our window sills and of course here in the Midwest we have plenty of the real stuff.
The transformation from Winter to Spring is even more bittersweet with my 90-year-old Dad living with us.
This truly is the Winter of his life, the slowing down and shedding of ambitions and thoughts. Last month my father lost both of his surviving siblings, his 94-year-old sister and his 96-year-old brother.
He told my mom, “Now I’m the only one left.”
Like my father, I didn’t shed any tears when I heard about their passing. I had only seen my aunt a few times when I was a child and we visited the small town where she and my Dad had grown up. And I don’t think I ever meet my father’s brother, except for possibly at a funeral I never committed to memory. I think the reason my Dad did not shed any tears was because he thought they were better off with no more suffering.
I have tried to imagine what my Dad feels like being “the only one left.”
He was such a force to be reckoned with when I was young. Always on the move selling something or buying something. I remember an acre full of bicycle parts and poodle puppies. He was so strong it was rumored that he lifted a car off the ground once. He raised four very different girls. He never had time for museums or parks. He fought in the second World War and had his own auto dealership. His life has indeed been long and filled with old-tyme songs and stories that he still recites.
Now he shuffles more than walks, going from the bedroom to the bathroom and back again, during this long and cold Winter.
