Blame it on Rio

Chapter 13: Day 3: 4:35PM continued

I Iook over at Del and say “When I asked you to say a few words today, I told you it would be just about Con. I told you that I would leave Duke’s eulogy to others. And I will. But with your permission I would like to say a couple words about my nephew.” Del stiffens. No doubt she is worried about what I am going to say and yet she cannot really deny me. Liam puts his hand on her arm to reassure her of my good intentions and with that she gives me a nod to proceed.

“Covid took so much from all of us. Everyone in this country, in the world for that matter, we all  have a story or many stories about how Covid injured them. Everything from the inability to do day to day things like going to the grocery store or losing their source of income to losing someone they love. In Con’s case it was probably merciful. Covid ended his suffering. But Duke died of Covid too. Not from the infection itself but its side effects of fear, isolation, and despair. They conspired with his brain chemistry to create a toxic mix that ended him.”  

“Perhaps it was a blessing for him too. All of us here know how he suffered.”

Moving my gaze to Del I say “And for a very long time I blamed myself for his loss. I practiced tough love with him. I would not talk to him unless he was sober. I did that because the family felt that was the best way to approach his disease. I did so despite the fact that Conor told me that approach would never work on his son. That it would just make Duke want to prove us wrong.”

“Had we lost Con and Duke in normal times it would have been much easier for us to bury the pain of their loss. We could have immersed ourselves in our work, friends, exercise, shopping, chores and all the mundane minutiae of everyday life so that the sorrow and grief we felt is diluted like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Covid would not allow us to do that. Coffee breaks were held in your kitchen. The gym was in your basement or spare bedroom. Your supermarket was Instacart. Your favorite restaurant, Doordash. Amazon became your mall.

For most, it was the first time in our adult lives, if not our whole lives, where we were forced to take a beat and evaluate our life and what we wanted from it. Suddenly people were stuck with partners that they had been escaping from every day through work and other means and forced to spend time with their significant others. Not surprisingly divorce rates skyrocketed which in my mind is a positive outcome.” And looking at Del I add “People who don’t belong together shouldn’t be together.”

“You don’t need to look far for other positive things to come from Covid. Like the “great resignation” where people left their jobs because they had the opportunity to realize that what they were doing did not give them anything more than money and they wanted more from life. They resigned in search of greener pastures. It created the “gig economy” where people were willing to earn less to have a better quality of life. Jobs became remote and instead of being tethered to a job that required hours of commuting every day or living in a place they did not like, folks could use that time for things they enjoyed or finding a place to live where their heart could soar when they stepped out their front door.”

“Covid did not give me those gifts. I was already a part of the gig economy. I did something I loved when I wanted to do it. I lived in a place I loved. What it gave me, as it gave to so many others, was an overwhelming amount of alone time. Twelve months where the only human company I had was two dimensional and on screen. I was alone. While Nadine and I talked multiple times a day and wrote each other lengthy emails it could not replace physically being with someone you love. When someone is in your arms it is far easier to share your fears and doubts. When someone is far away, and alone just like you, you don’t want to burden them because there is no hug to steady them, and you don’t want them to worry about your troubles because you know they have their own challenges.”

I chuckle ruefully and say “Turns out spending all that time alone when those you love are dying and the world is locked down in a global pandemic will play with your mind. Who knew? For me I started having lengthy conversations with Fennie. Nothing really all that unusual. She and I have had one sided conversation since she was just a puppy. But as my time away from others lengthened, and my ability to distract myself diminished,  hurts, slights, wrongs, missed opportunities and even lost loves began to invade my thoughts. They became the things I interacted with each day and wove themselves into the fabric of my life. I called them my ghosts because they haunted me. I guess I could have buried them if I had tried hard enough. Hide them away in some psychic cubbyhole. But they would always be there, and past experiences taught me they would escape their hiding places at exactly the time you wanted to see them least, creating more regrets, more hurt and bigger problems. “

“I decided, since I had the time and had nothing better to do instead of burying my ghosts, I would get to know them and try to figure out why after years and even decades they were still with me. And, if I could, come to peace with them. Understand the paths I chose and perhaps, if I were lucky, help me come to terms with my mistakes, so the road ahead would be a little less bumpy.”

“This morning, I went to Mt. Haleakala to see the sunrise. I went because it was a place Duke thought was special. A place he loved and shared with me in one of his epic text rants about how seeing the sunrise changed his perception of the world. I went there because I hoped I might be able to have a “conversation” with him. I needed to come to terms with his decision to leave because, I still feel guilty about his death. I had far too many unresolved could haves, should haves and would haves for his spirit to rest easily with me.”

“Haleakala is an improbable place. According to Hawaiian mythology it is where the god Maui convinced the sun to slow down so his mother’s laundry would dry, and the crops would grow faster. It snows there despite sitting on the equator and it is where they have a view on the universe found nowhere else on earth. Not surprisingly, at least for me, I ran into Duke’s spirit. When I asked him why he was there, he laughed and said, “where else would I be.” Of course he was right. I had conjured him. For a while we just stared into the stirrings of a new day and enjoyed each other’s company in silence.”

Just before dawn, as the clouds down below were bathed in the pink of the newborn day, I finally had the courage to tell him the reason I had summoned him. I told him how angry I was with him for leaving us in the way that he did. He had so much more he could give us. So much he could have contributed to the world. Giving up like he did was selfish and horrifically painful to those he left behind. The Duke I loved was compassionate and kindhearted. How could he have done such a thing to us?  He was patient with me. Of course he was. He said I could not understand because I did not share his brain disease. His bipolar disorder took him places, dark places, that I could never understand because our thought processes were so much different that his.”

“I told him I would continue to try to make sense of his departure, but I was not confident that I ever could. As we spoke dawn broke. It was more glorious than he described to me. More magnificent than the pictures he had shared with me. It was then, in the light of the new day I told him the real reason I had come to Haleakala. I needed his forgiveness. I should have known tough love would not work for him. Con had told me, that compassionate engagement, not confrontation, was the way to reach him. I should have listened better. Tried a little harder and maybe I would not have failed him.”

“I thought he would forgive me. He knew how much I cherished him. Forgiving me was a nice thing to do. He said that if it was in his power to forgive me, he would, but he could not. The only person who could forgive me was me.”

I looked up and looking at our small congregation and said “I miss my brother Con. He has been a part of my life for so long and I love him so deeply that I doubt there will be a day in my life when I won’t think of him. But he had a good run. Better than most and I am at peace with that. Duke’s death is still too hard for me. Despite our conversation I still struggle to understand and perhaps I never will, but I will continue to try. Just like I will continue to try to find a way to find forgiveness for myself for being nice when I should have been kind.”

Del was glaring at me. I told her I only wanted a few minutes to speak about Con. A eulogy that she had lost the right to give years before. I should have mentioned to her that I also wanted to say a few words about Duke, but I didn’t want to have a fight with her about it. She would have wanted to know what I was going to say and there was no doubt in my mind she would have fought me about it. Not only were the metaphors I used not a part of the fundamental Christian liturgy but the words I had chosen carefully may have hit to close to home. Surely, if I felt personally responsible for my nephew’s death she should have felt more. And no matter how carefully I chose my words, she knew that I was telling her I felt she had forsaken her son when he had needed her the most. I also knew that at some point, if I were to find peace, I would need to find a way to forgive her. Which is why, despite her clear anger with me, I give her a wordless hug.

Chapter 13: Day 3: 4:35 PM

I am startled out of my reflection when Liam calls my name.  “Uncle Danny do you want to say anything?”

I replied, “Sorry. Just lost in the moment. I do.”

I look around at our group. Sam is holding Del’s hand and looking at the deck as if he contained the secret of salvation. Hadley and Liam are also holding hands, but they have their eyes fixed on me as do Con and Duke.”

I clear my throat and say “Con and I talked about what I would say at his funeral. I told him that whatever I said it would be without hysterics, chest pounding and wails. I would try to remember him as how he was with stories that humanized not beatify him. The person we loved. Not a fairy tale version who bore no resemblance to the one who lived. “

“With that in mind, let me begin by saying the obvious, Con was not a perfect person. He had glaring and massive flaws. For example, he was way too charming for his own good, and he knew it. No doubt his charisma was rooted in his Irish heritage and perhaps a pinch from the time we kissed the Blarney Stone. He would use his charm to his advantage despite the consequences to the person he was charming. Such as the night he convinced me to steal an industrial size jar of pickled onions from the snack bar at the Hill Club where I worked, and his family were members. I cannot remember how he convinced me or why, except that pickled onions were, for some reason, a favorite snack. Karma bit us on the ass that night. Somehow the1/2-gallon jar of onions broke in the back seat of his father’s car. Needless to say, his old man was furious. He made us detail his car and then reported our shenanigans to the management of the club as he sat on their board. The result was I got fired and his father got a clean car and Con had a new story to tell.”

I look over at Con, he is chuckling and gives me a thumbs up. I continue “Please do not get me wrong. I have free will. I could have said no, and over time it was something that I became adept at with him. I mention this story because it is symbolic of a bigger truth about my buddy. There is not a single person I know who loved Con who hasn’t felt the backside of his charm.  Where they have done something that they should not have done because Con convinced them that it would be a good idea to head down that path.”

“The amazing part of this is not that Conor had used his charm and lied to us or betrayed us in some way. The amazing part is we almost always forgave him for it. So complete is that gift, that now, a little more than a year after his death, I struggle to remember any of the bullshit he managed to foist on me or on others. I only remember the laughs and fun we had before, during and after our little adventures.

“Suffice it to say, that wherever Con was, there was a party, or a good time was to follow. As a disciple of Hunter S. Thompson, he insisted on it. For years, whether it be in Stockholm where he got a party started by telling a group of Swedes gathered for a wedding how fucked up their country was or in Key West the night Ronald Regan was elected President and he kept pouring “Hurricanes” down my throat to ease the pain brought about by that victory, he insisted on calling himself the Dr. (as in Hunter S.) and me his attorney based on characters from Con’s favorite books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. .

“I never asked Con why he loved the Dr. so much. I did not have to because I knew. It was the Gonzo writer’s code for life. He believed that “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What A Ride!” And “the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived rather or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed.”

I look over at my friend. He has one arm draped around his son’s shoulders and with the other is pointing to his nose and then at me.

“Con, and for that matter Duke would have wanted a funeral like Thompson’s. His carbonized remains were shot from a canon placed upon a 150-foot tower accompanied by red, white, blue and green fireworks while accompanied by Norman Greenbaum’s” Spirit in the Sky” and Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” That is the type of finale my buddy would have loved only he probably would have substituted Bruce Springsteen’s “Growing Up” for Tambourine Man. Unfortunately, Thompson’s funeral cost an estimated $3M and that was not in our budget. Which is why his carbonized remains will be quietly placed into the sea on a boat in the middle of the Pacific. Not quite as spectacular but I have no doubt that Con would have approved.”

Duke and Con both give me a thumbs up.

“I do not want to leave you with the impression my friend was a complete hedonist. He wasn’t. That was only the part that showed above the surface. For as long as I can remember Con was seeking a bigger truth. Whether that was embracing transcendental meditation and the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi when we were in high school or reading the poetry of Kahlil Gibran to becoming “born again” and his embrace of evangelical Christianity he sought deeper meaning for his purpose on earth.”

“The bigger meaning and what came next was very much on his mind after he received his diagnosis. Shortly after he began his first round of chemo, I flew out to Manhattan Beach to hang out with him. Sitting out in the California sun, eating donuts, he confessed to me while he was telling everyone else that he was going to lick this thing “even that had to give him a new brain”, he knew the score. The clock was ticking and getting louder every second. He was staring into the abyss we all will face, and he was scared about what came next and he wanted to know my thoughts.

I told him that I was the last person in the world he should be asking that question. I was a heathen: a non-practicing Jew. But he insisted that he wanted to know my thoughts. I told him since my dad’s death I had spent a lot of time thinking about it. I told him that it made no sense to me that the essence of who we are would not be preserved in some form.  Newton’s law of the conservation of energy state “energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. I told him that science suggests our energy will be converted into something new.

“I asked him if he remembered a book we had read together in our humanities class in high school called “The Razor’s Edge” by Somerset Maugham. There was a quote I loved from it “Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely, we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. … “

“I told him none of us knew when we would die. For all we knew I could pass away before he did. Our sacred obligation to ourselves and to those around us is to delight in our life while we have it. He had the greatest capacity for delight in life of anyone I knew. He should not abandon that just because of a cancer diagnosis.”

“I have no idea whether what we talked about that day gave him any comfort. I hope so. I can tell you that when Liam and Hadley took over as his primary care givers, he found joy every day because they were there for him every day. Perhaps it was in the comfort of his care that he found the true meaning of his existence. To paraphrase Maugham

“The man I am speaking about is not famous. He never will be. When his life came to a close, he left no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water. But it may be that the way of life that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength and sweetness of his character may have an ever-growing influence over those who knew and loved him so that, long after his death perhaps, it may be realized that there lived in this age a very remarkable creature.”

I can’t hold back the tears and begin to cry. Liam puts his hand on my shoulder. I steady up and continue.

“Con you were a remarkable friend and father.” Pausing for a second, I chuckle and say “No doubt there have been better at both, but you left your mark on everyone who knew you and loved you. And even though your time with us has ended, who you were and, what you shared with us, carries on.”

I look over to where my silent audience has been watching. Duke is patting his father on the shoulder and my friend Con nods his head, acknowledging my words.

Chapter 12: Day 3: 3:35PM

On April 24, 1873, Sheriff William Owen planted an Indian Banyan tree directly adjacent to the port of Lahaina to celebrate the 50ths anniversary of the first protestant mission in the town. The area around the tree was designated a park. A place where sun weary citizens could rest in the shade. The tree thrived. Just eight feet tall when planted, it grew over time and is now over sixty feet tall, covering almost two acres, and has sixteen major trunks in addition to its primary one. Its circumference is said to be over one quarter mile and over one thousand people could find shade under its two-third of an acre canopy. At night, the tree serves is a roost for thousands of mynah birds whose chattering chirping and cries celebrate the setting sun.

I am sitting on one the many park benches located around the tree.  In preparation for what is to come, I am wearing a pair of Maui Jim blue mirrored sunglasses, a well-loved Red Sox cap and  a black t-shirt that has written on its front “Hunter S. Thompson, authors of Hell’s Angel’s, Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas, A Savage Journey To The Heart of the American Dream” below which is an iconic Ralph Steadman illustration in black and white of the driving in desert with his faithful companion Dr. Gonzo. 

This tree is one of my favorite places in the world. I first encountered it nearly twenty years ago on my first trip to Hawaii. On the eve of going to Maui for the first time, Conor, who had been there many times, told me that I should go out of my way to visit the tree in Lahaina. This was completely out of character for him. Telling me a great restaurant to eat at, a good bar for a Martini, the right beach for watching girls were all part of his repertoire. Visit a tree? Not so much. He was not a tree hugger. It was so out of character that I had to see what had inspired him.

The day my girlfriend and I went to Lahaina was a particularly hot day with temperatures in the low 90’s, a cloudless sky and little wind to cool one down. Katherine had been eager to melt a few credit cards shopping the stores along Front Street. Knowing she got a lot of joy out of this type of activity and I so little that it would likely ruin her experience, I volunteered to go in search of the Banyan tree and wait for her there while she finished her retail therapy.  

The tree was not hard to find, it was just a few blocks down Front Street and was immense. It took up a full city block and looked as if it had been designed by Rube Goldberg with an able assist by Dr. Seuss and a final edit by Escher. It’s sprawling canopy supported, multiple trunks, aerial roots that descended from the branches into the ground and a network of branches so interwoven it was impossible to follow their path. It was an amazing sight to see but that is not what struck me the most. It had a presence. It was an entity and like the tree in Shel Silverstein’s classic adult children’s book it seemed as if it wanted to give joy to those who saw it. Its shade was filled with the laughter of children playing under it and not a frown in sight for the adults who lingered underneath.

I called my father from a bench under the tree that day and described it to him and the joy I felt sitting under its branches. Eighteen months later on a trip to Maui with my parents I took him to visit the tree.  My father, whose happiest moments of childhood were spent playing in the forest near his grandmother’s home in Fahrafeld, Austria, and still thought of trees as friends, said, after circumnavigating the Banyan, in his typical understated fashion“You weren’t wrong about this tree.”

It is the memory of that first visit and the visit with the old man that brought me to the tree today. The last eighteen months of pandemic had been a journey of loss, and sorrow. My trip so far had been anything but relaxing and comforting. Confronting your ghosts rarely is.  What was to come later that day promised no respite. I needed an oasis of comfort and peace. I hoped by sitting underneath this miracle of endurance and survival would give me the resolve to complete the task that brought us to this island in the first place.

My bench is near the original trunk of the Banyan.  I watch a group of small children play hide and go seek among the multitude of trunks.  Parents, their faces reflecting the joy of their children, look on in amusement with iPhones poised to catch every moment for their feeds and personal archive. A newlywed couple sits close to each other on a nearby bench holding hands, kissing, and cuddling. Do they see the tree as a metaphor for their new life together and the legacy they hope to create. A single tree branching out over time becoming many and immortal. Like the tree my parents created with my brother, sister, and me. Only my offshoot would have no branches and would not grow. I am eternally grateful for the love I found with Nadine, but it had come too late for children. A fact that has weighed heavily on me over the course of the pandemic.

These dark thoughts will not do. I do not need them today. I pull my baseball cap down, lean back on the bench and close my eyes. It has been a long day already. I napped when I returned from Haleakala, but it did little to relieve my weariness.  I need to meditate and let my darker thoughts drift away. Back in college, when I learned Transcendental Meditation, I had been taught to repeat my mantra in the rhythm that called to you until a thought carried you away. When you became aware that you were losing your refrain you return to the rhythm of the mantra until another thought or idea brought you somewhere new. I am not an ardent follower of TM it is useful when my thoughts are gripped in a whirlpool of despair, sadness or hurt. It doesn’t provide answers or solve problems but allows moments of peace to reduce the problems I think of as mountains to hills.

The first thought that drifts into my mind after I began repeating my mantra is Nadine. It is my first trip to Brazil after meeting her on an eighteen-day cruise up the coast of Brazil and crossing to Morocco, Portugal and Italy. We had both been on the cruise to find a little peace after being prime care givers to our fathers. It was a small break in our battle to make our dad’s final days easier. That peace would end the minute we left the ship. We were both returning to goodbyes and heartache. It made our romance torrid and intense. Its afterglow left us wondering whether this was just a shipboard dalliance destined to fade and crumble like a rose placed in a book from a forgotten paramour or a true love affair that would fill the emptiness in our lives.  Just weeks after goodbyes on the docks of Savona, Italy I flew to Rio to find out. I was nervous as I left customs. What would I find when I walked through those swinging doors where loved ones anxiously awaited the arriving passengers. At first, I could not see her among the throng and then she stepped forward looking radiantly beautiful with an incandescent smile that immediately erased my anxiety and answered every question I had about our relationship. It is an indelible memory.  The one I tapped when our Covid enforced separation seemed insufferable. 

“Buddy Boy!”

I opened my eyes. Not entirely to my surprise, sitting next to me is Conor. He is wearing a very loud Hawaiian shirt patterned with amply endowed topless hula dancers, floral board shorts, reflective aviator sunglasses and a trucker hat with an image of Hunter Thompson smoking a cigarette in a long holder with the motto “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

I said, “I figured you would show up here.”

Grinning from ear to ear he said “I did tell you about the place.”

“You did. But that isn’t the biggest reason I thought you might show up here this afternoon.”

“Was it because I told you I would see you yesterday morning when I was swimming?”

“Partially…” my voice dropping off at the end.

Smiling he said “And…”

I start to laugh. “You know, every time you say that it makes me laugh.”

Laughing himself he says, “The night in Venice.”

“Of course, the night in Venice! Del, Phoebe, you and I were completely blitzed and you got it your mind that we had to find this disco and dance. The rest of us were too drunk to argue and  you led us on this forced march through the labyrinth of old city streets, map firmly in hand over one canal and then another, down dark and creepy streets until we were completely lost. Del finally insisted you ask someone for directions, and we watched from a distance as you stood on the top of one of these arched stone bridges over a canal and asked a stranger for directions. All we could hear was your voice booming “And?” repeatedly. Maybe a dozen times. When you finally finished talking to the good Samaritan who had given you directions and came walking back to us we asked you what he had told you and you said “I have no idea I don’t speak Italian.”

“We never did find that disco did we.”

“No, we didn’t but we managed to have a good time anyway. I seem to remember us drinking a little bit more and then leading a conga line through a flooded Piazza San Marco.”

“We created a lot of memories together didn’t we budrow.”

With the sadness that nostalgia often brings I say, “Yeah we did.”

Conor smiles and replies “You didn’t answer the question why did you think I would put in an appearance here?”

“Two reasons. First, there is not much time left.”

With a twisted smile he nods his head and says, “Well there is that.” Chuckling he adds “And.”

I smile too and reply “I talked to Duke this morning.”

“Oh? What did he have to say for himself.”

“I did most of the talking.”

“Well, there is a surprise.”

“Nice. Eat me!”

Conor laughs and says “Seriously, what did you talk about?”

I looked down at my feet for a second before answering him and said “I told him that I was pissed off at him. He had so much to offer and he just gave up. And while I can not grasp what was going on in his bipolar effected brain he didn’t understand the hurt and destruction his suicide created.”

“And…”

“Don’t start that again.”

“Well?”

“I told him. I was sorry.”

“For what?”

“Remember, after you first told me about Duke’s diagnosis you told me that Delilah had wanted to turn him out until he got his act together. And you wouldn’t let her. You said you know your son. That the traditional way of treating his alcoholism would not work for him. Turning your back on him, would just makes him more determined than ever to continue the path he was on if for no other reason than to prove everyone wrong. You knew that because that is the way you would react and Duke, at least in that regard, was exactly like you. With Duke you needed a more bespoke approach. One that helped him exorcise his demons and put-up guardrails that kept him on the right path.”

“I remember.”

“Instead of listening to your advice about your son I took my lead from Liam and Del. They asked me to practice “tough love.” It was a mistake. Liam loved his brother and wanted to do his best but didn’t have the life experience or tool set to deal with his problems. Del who as much as she loved Duke never understood him. They asked me not to speak with Duke unless he was sober and getting treatment. Instead of fighting them, which would have been the right thing to do, I went along with them.”

Conor took off his sunglasses so he could look at me eye to eye and said, “Why did you do do that.”

I looked down, avoiding his glare and said “You mean why did I do the easy thing, the nice thing, instead of taking on the challenge of doing the right thing, the kind thing?”

“Your words.”

“Oh, I have great excuses. My mother and two of my best friends had just died. There was a global pandemic killing millions. Nadine was thousands of miles away. I was alone and didn’t have the strength to take on another emotional challenge.”

“But?”

“Cold comfort. At least to me. They are just obstacles. Little fairy tales that one tells oneself, so you don’t feel bad. They don’t absolve me from not doing more. I should have found the strength…”

“And…”

“Always with the ands…And I thought I was better than that. Stronger than that.  But I was not. And my lack of will may be understandable to others. It isn’t for me.”

Con nods and puts a hand on my shoulder and says “Sure you could have done more.  Everyone can always do a little more. Even in situations where you feel like you have done everything that you possibly can at some point you realize that you weren’t creative enough. You lacked imagination or followed the wrong path. You were not strong enough to try one more thing. There will always be something more you can have done. Those are the should haves, could haves and would haves everyone faces when the shit hits the fan. My question to you is why are you flagellating yourself over being imperfect?  Aren’t we all. Lord, knows I certainly was. Sure, you made a promise to me to look out for him. And you did. Could you have done more? I guess. But would the outcome have been different? I don’t know. You don’t know. But the truth is Danny, you were not the only one who should have been looking out for my boy. Del was there. Duke is her son. I told her the same thing I told you. She should have done more than hoping he would suddenly discover the path to sobriety and his mental health would spring spontaneously from prayer and tough love. She should have gotten on an airplane, found Duke and dragged him by his hair to rehab. She didn’t. She failed as a mother. This is not just about accepting your own responsibility. You are really good at that. You fuck up. You learn. You move on. That is you. There is more here. What is it?”

Chapter 11: Day 3: 5:47AM continued

Dawn had broken over Haleakalā.

The sky had turned crystalline blue with cirrus clouds painted in peachy orange, crimson, and deep violet. On the horizon a bright yellow disk emerged above a roiling sea of cumulus clouds that obscured the ocean below. The caldera was now bathed in the glow of the new day and its peaks and valleys accented in pastel shades. It had happened every day for the last million years but was brand new to me. It was by far the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen.

I turned to Duke who was still standing in the shadows of the Visitor’s Center’s eve and said “Well, it’s no green flash but it’s pretty all right.”  

He laughed and said “Amazing, right?”

“Amazing. Remarkable. The most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. As ancient as this mountain. Yet brand new. It makes you feel so connected to the here and now but somehow it makes you feel intimate with the universe at the same time. Does that make any sense to you or am I just being an old guy speechifying.”

“No. You got it right.”

“But it begs a question.”

“What’s that?”

I took a beat and asked, “Why did you give it up?”

It was a Thursday evening, and I was sitting on the couch in my home office, a glasss with three fingers of Tullamore Dew in one hand, and the television remote in the other. All I wanted to do was veg out on the couch and do as little thinking and feeling as possible.

It had been another rough day clearing out my parents’ home. Not physically, my goal for today had been to pack up Mom’s study. The challenging part at least initially had been that office was her. It was as she left it. Every item in its place. Her favorite tchotchkes and nicknacks arranged just so. Pictures of her children and grandchildren strategically placed for optimal viewing. Her office chair still carried her scent. Every item was a reminder she was gone and not coming back.

Which is why I was on the couch with a glass full of three ounces of Ireland’s amnesia juice and very reluctant to pick up the phone when it rang. But the screen said it was from Duke and if he wanted to talk, I needed to listen.

I said, “Hey Duke, what’s up?”

He replied slurring his words “Not much Uncle Danny. I just wanted to call and tell you I love you. You are the best Uncle in the world.”

I put down my drink and I said “Thanks buddy. I appreciate it. But how come you have been drinking?”

“What makes you think I have been drinking” he said with a touch of belligerence.

“Come on. We are not going to play this game. We love each other too much to bullshit. What is going on?” 

Duke replied “Morgan’s parents threw us out of their home. Well, they threw me out and she came with me. Same diff.”

I asked, “Why did they throw you out of the house Duke?”

He paused. The same type of pause Conor used to have when he was trying to figure out how much of the truth he wanted to tell me. “Well, he said, I wasn’t following house rules and I disagreed with him about that and then he invited me to leave.”

He and Morgan had been invited into her parents’ home under two conditions:  1) They needed to take their meds. 2) They could not drink. Conor’s death had created an emotional crisis and Duke then Morgan had found their way to the bottle and shortly thereafter due to their altered state had made the decision to stop their meds. It did not take long for her parents to discover the rules had been broken. A confrontation ensued in which Duke became belligerent and argumentative. There was a physical altercation. The police were called. Duke was arrested and spent the night in jail. When he was released, he, Morgan, and Pete the cat returned to Pasadena where they could do what they wanted.

But, I knew none of that then. I said “Duke, okay you are at home now. How are you two taking care of each other? Do you have enough money? Food? What can I do to help?”

“It’s all good. The University is still paying me my stipend and I am doing tutoring over Zoom. Morgan has money too. So, we are fine money wise.”

“Okay. “

“I just needed to know that you were around. That I could call if I felt like I needed a hug.”

“Always.” And after a momentary hesitation I added “You know Duke, I am here if you want to talk about your Dad.”

“Yeah. I am not ready to do that yet.”

“It might help.”

“I know. I am just not there yet but I promise when I am, we will talk.”

I told him I loved him. He said, “Right back at you.” and we ended the call. I called Liam and I said, “I just got off the phone with your brother.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what is going on with him?”

“I do. He called yesterday. He told me what had happened.”

“Was he drunk when he called you.”

“I don’t know if he was drunk or not, but he had certainly been drinking.”

“You know what I mean, and it doesn’t matter whether he was drunk or not. He shouldn’t be drinking.”

“Sorry. Yeah. You are right.”

A little exasperated I said “Well, have you talked to your mom about this? Have you come up with a plan of action or anything?”

” We talked. She said that she told him that she loved him but wouldn’t talk to him while he was drunk. That when he sobered up, she would happily speak with him.”

“Tough love. I get it. Do you think that is the right approach? Your old man never thought that approach would work with Duke. He said he was too stubborn for tough love. It would just make him dig in his heels harder.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. I kinda of see both sides.”

“This really isn’t my place to say but don’t you think it would be a good idea for your mom to get on an airplane and see him face to face. Perhaps convince him to go to rehab.”

“Duke won’t go. I talked to him about it. He is scared shitless of being locked in a place with a bunch of people he doesn’t know who have been living on the streets. He believes the only thing rehab would do for him is give him Covid.”

“That sounds like him. Your Mom has money now. Maybe she could help foot the bill for one of those smaller rehab facilities where they send celebrities…”

“She won’t do it. She calls it “throwing good money after bad.”

“I don’t Liam. Making sure that your son stays alive is probably the best use for money. Whatever, something has to be done. And I am willing to do whatever you and your mom decide. If that is tough love, so be it but in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that will work. I don’t know. Maybe it is just because I have lost my mom so recently, but I think that a mother’s hug will go a lot further in getting Duke back on track than tough love. In person will always work better than Facetime. Don’t you think?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I could go either way, but I just don’t know.”

I understood my nephew’s confusion. There was no right answer. There were no assurances whatever course of action he and Delilah chose would be the right one. There may be no answer at all because at the end of the day the only person who could make the decision to stay sober and take their meds was Duke. I said “Liam, remember what Yogi Berra said.”

“He said a lot of things.”

Laughing I said “Yeah, he did. The one I was thinking about though was “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I could you tell the back story on that but I have always taken it to mean that when you are faced with a decision make one. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong. But at least you are moving forward and if you end up making the wrong decision then with any luck you can backtrack and make the right one. “

“Okay.”

“What I am saying is whatever decision you and your mom make just let me know and I will take your lead.”

Two days later I got a text from Liam. They had discussed Duke’s situation and decided on tough love. They asked me to respect their wishes and feeling like I had no other choice and much to my later regret, I agreed.

Duke called me a week later. He was monumentally drunk spouting a theory about how people would not be able to take the isolation much longer and food riots were likely to start and that he hoped that I was prepared. I said “Duke, you know that I love you like a son. And everything you are saying to me could be completely true. But I cannot believe a word of it because you are drunk off your ass and clearly off your meds. “

He replied with anger “What the fuck does that have to do with believing what I am saying.”

I said as calmly as I could manage. “Credibility is based on a sober assertation of the facts. You are not sober so how can I believe you?”

“Touche Uncle Dan.”

I said “You know I love you more than life itself. I will do anything I can to help you get sober. Tell me what you need, and I will get it for you. Tell me that you want to go to rehab but you want me to take you, I am on the next plane regardless of the pandemic. But I can’t make you want to stop drinking or take your meds. That is up to you. And I know it sucks but that burden is one only you can lift. You understand.”

“Yup. I know.”

“But Duke the one thing I won’t do anymore is talk to you while you are drunk. It empowers your drinking, and I can’t be a party to you destroying yourself. You understand.”

“Sure.”

“If you want to talk. I am here. 24/7. The only thing is the price of our conversation is you being sober.”

“Okay.”

I said, “I love you Duke” and ended the call.

We never spoke on the phone again. He would call and I would let it go to voice mail. He began texting me. Wild tomes like:  

“Music makes sense and doesn’t sound like noise or nonsense to us because our ears are capable of processing the mathematical ratios of frequencies, in tons and tons of independent sources at once. For example, a simple pentatonic scale of five notes for one octave breaks down into ratios of 1/5 … btw all human cultures came up with that scale first as far as we know. Observational. All of this calculation happens before it hits the speech centers of our brain, or we would hear only noise. So… like it or not, by the virtue of just hearing alone… you’re making a zillion calculations a second. It puts any human language so far to shame it isn’t even funny. We currently have the ability to be supercomputers. Seriously. We just use it for artistic pleasure not normal data transfer. It blows vision away even for the most tone deaf person. “

or

“Danny, I think you might be needed. In WW2, the UK started drafting 50–60-year-old men to fight on the front line before the US stepped in. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. These are extraordinary times. You may or may not see coincidences soon. They are not accidental. They don’t advertise. Your location, life, loyalty, and linguistics kind of make you ideal for many things. So… sorry. Tag you are it. Dream team time. You won’t be any good front line in a war. But your brain… I mean come on dude. Your beautiful brain and true as gold soul. “

I didn’t respond to his texts. I had made a promise and was determined to keep it. Sadly, his texts became more erratic.

“Breathe buddy. I love you. All gonna be ok. How’s credibility going now? If lacking, I WILL send the aliens. But I do need a phone hug. The wonderful things about Conors is that Conors are wonderful things. So are Dannys. Dad ALSO always said he hated games because life was more than enough of a game. Tried to tell Liam. No dice. Really wish I could make him see it. He is needed. And especially Hadley. Maybe that’s your job. Liam isn’t a reader. Especially not sci fi. 

I seriously don’t know how or why, but Dad is in my devices and the airwaves. 100% sure. When I told him, briefly before death on Skype, that I was going to be ok, we locked eyes. Steely. He was back. And he smiled an amazing smile. More to tell on that one but it makes me cry. 

Later, Liam texted me and told me that dad had raised his arms to heaven and let out an incredible, deep sigh, as if a great weight had been lifted from him, and he suddenly became more coherent. Oddly so. And Liam told me it made him believe in something out there. For sure. It MEANT that all those years of deception. His dad. And so on. Would be passed on to me. I’m sorry you couldn’t know while he was corporeal. I’ll work on letting you chill with Robot dad but absolutely no promises. Even if successful it’ll be decades. But we have eternity to try. Lol. Call.”

His comment about needing a hug broke me. It was all too easy for me to imagine what it was like to be alone and mourning the death of his Dad. It broke me. I needed a hug too. I texted him.

“Duke, I love you and cherish you. Nothing would make me happier than giving you a hug or talking to you on the phone. But it would be like putting a band aid on an arterial wound. It might make me feel like I was doing something positive when in fact I was getting in the way of a treatment that could be useful. It is clear to me that you are having challenges with your meds and perhaps other things. These are your burdens only you can carry them.  I encourage you to take hold and carry them. When you do, I will be happy to hug you and talk to you but doing so now will not help you. I beg you to find your way to treatment.”

At the time, it seemed the right response for his text. I thought it was the kind thing to say. His response was to send me a selfie. He was wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt, sporting a full blonde beard, dark Ray Ban aviator sunglasses, smoking a Pall Mall cigarette and giving me the peace sign. It was a coded message. One he knew I would understand. The cigarettes were a reference to my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote “Even though I have been chain smoking Pall Malls since I was fifteen, I still think I have enough wind to run and catch happiness.”  The rest was a tribute to his father and his favorite author Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It meant, when the going gets weird, the weird go pro.”

That was the last text I received from Duke.

Three weeks later I was walking in the woods with Fenway. It was a beautiful sunlit early afternoon in the middle of peak leave season. The trees were conducting their annual gaudy display, and I was in as good spirits as I had been in months. Donald Trump was down in the polls, a Covid vaccine was undergoing emergency trials and looked like it might help bring an end to all this madness. I was savoring “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copeland on my earbuds, music that always brought me calm joy and peace. Fennie was expressing her inner puppy by dashing in and out of a particularly large pile of leaves. It was a beautiful day. The type you remembered for a lifetime and one I would never forget for other reasons.

My phone buzzed. Its haptics letting me know I had a call. I had no intention of answering it but but when I saw it was Liam, I answered, “What’s up Shrimpy?”

Liam blurted through sobs, “Duke’s dead.”

I know we spoke a few more words to each other. But I can’t remember them. Eventually, we ended the call with words of love and support. Then, for an uncertain amount of time, I let the silence of the woods engulf me. Leaves drifted down from the branches above and settled silently on the forest floor. The river flowed in its perpetual motion onward. The world was carrying on as if nothing had happened. Isn’t that always the way after tragedies, especially personal ones? You think the hold world should stop. Take a moment. Understand that what has happened has fundamentally changed your universe. But it never does. And you are left with your own grief, your own thoughts, your guilt. He wanted a hug. Just a hug. Not a lot. Just that. And I had given him words. I had done the nice thing, the easy thing. I should have done more. I should have flown to California and convinced him to go to rehab and take his medication. Maybe it would have changed things. Maybe not. But it would have been the right thing, the kind thing, to do.

It took months for us to get the full picture of Dukes final days.

In the weeks leading up to his death he and Morgan had been drinking very heavily, a bottle to a bottle and half of vodka every day. Duke developed a theory “the military” was up to something nefarious. He tweeted “Nothing to see here. I am just a man and a patriot doing my duty. No valor. I’m nobody. We deployed a small star over the Pacific last night to demonstrate.” It was followed by a clip from “Inglorious Bastards” where Brad Pitt is looking for volunteers and says “We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us.”

Off their meds and the wildly drunk couple drove to Camp Pendleton, one of the largest Marine bases in the world. They tried to breach the gates with their car. The attempt failed and when the MP’s tried to pry them from the car they turned tail and fled at high speed. About a mile from the base, they lost control of the car, and it flipped several times before ending up in a culvert next to the road. When the MP’s reached them Duke, completely naked, was trying to crawl away. Morgan, also naked, was unconscious in the passenger seat covered in her own urine and feces.

They were not arrested. Whether that was because the MP’s lacked authority to do so off base or another reason is unclear. What it meant was when they were taken to the hospital they were treated as normal patients and not handcuffed to their beds. Duke escaped. Why he did this unclear. Perhaps he was frightened of being placed in a 5150 psychiatric hold or some other reason we will never know. Somehow, without clothes or money he made it back to the motel room in which he and Morgan had been staying. There he showered, dressed, and was crossing the parking lot when he paused for a moment before falling face first onto the pavement. Paramedics were called. They tried to save him but their efforts failed and he was pronounced dead at the scene.  

Duke’s autopsy concluded that he died of liver failure caused by chronic alcoholism. He was thirty years old. It also showed that at the time of his death there were no alcohol or drugs in his system. It meant that his attempt to breach Camp Pendleton was done while he was sober. You don’t attempt to breach a heavily secure military installation without understanding the consequences.  The guards will open fire on you. It was suicide by cop but on a grand scale.

The yellow orb of the sun sat on the lip of the horizon bathing the world with the light of a new day. I turned to Duke barely visible in the deep shadows of the visitor hut’s eaves and shaking my head said “I don’t understand. You had everything. You were smart, good looking, charming, funny. The whole fucking package. Why give up? Why?”

“We have had this conversation before. Many times.”

He was right. In the year since his death I had often found him lurking nearby and I always had the same question for him. But nothing he said made any sense to me. I said “I know. I know. I know. But tell me again. Isn’t that why I am here.”

“I am sure. But nothing I will ever say to you will make you appreciate the pain I felt. Before Dad’s death I had been on the edge more than once. You know that.  Life was equal parts overwhelming pain and rapturous joy. When he died, it tipped me over the edge. There was just the pain. Ending the pain and moving on to what was next seemed far more appealing than living the life I was living. And you know I thought I discovered that after this life ends, we join the universe. That I was ready for the bigger adventure because no one was seeing what I was seeing.”

I said, “And is that what happened?”

“You know I can’t tell you that. Besides Uncle Danny that isn’t what you really want to know.”

“Oh?”

“What you really want to know is whether you could have changed things. If you had done something differently would there have been an outcome that you could have lived with more easily? Right?”

“You wrote to me. You asked me for a hug. A simple fucking hug. It would have been so simple to give it to you. Something that would have given us both joy. But I didn’t give it to you. Instead, I went along with the flow and did what was easy. The nice thing.  A plan that your dad told me would never work with you. If I flown to California and given you that hug and demanded you go to rehab would we be here now?”

“You want absolution. You know that is not mine to give.”

Angrily I replied “Then whose is it? “

Duke, pointing at me, replied “You know the answer to that.”

We stare at each other in silence for a moment when he says “Gotta go. Marisol is on her way over here. But Uncle Danny you need to follow your own advice.”

“And what’s that?”

“Be kind to yourself “and then proceeded to walk down the trail into the caldera and towards the rising sun.

I yelled to him “Will I see you later?”

Without turning around, he waved and shouted back “Of course!”

When Marisol reaches me, I am looking across a sea of golden clouds at the snow-covered peak of Mauna Loa. She stands there with me in silence for a few moments before asking, “Worth the trip?”

I smile and say “Remarkable.”

Chapter 11: Day Three: 5:47AM continued

A new day was imminent.

On the eastern horizon, light grey had been replaced with bands of bronze, orange and yellow. The barren landscape of Haleakala’s caldera absorbed the colors. Its boulders, crags and craters looked as if they had been painted by Peter Max or any of the psychedelic painters. Far off in the distance on the island of Hawaii the grey shadow of Mauna Loa emerged from the darkness. Below us was a sea of tied dyed puffy white clouds that obscured the ocean but gave a sense that you were standing in heaven or the very least Olympus. A place for the gods.

“It’s amazing Duke.”

From the shadows of the visitor’s center’s entrance my nephew replied, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

I turn to look at him. He was barely visible from where he stood. I said, “Thank you for this but I am still angry with you.”

“Why shouldn’t you be. I didn’t listen.”

I was not fine.

It seems so obvious now. Within three weeks of each other both your mother and best friend die. Two of the three people who formed the tripod of your support were gone. The people you turned to most for advice, comfort were dead and while Nadine,  the tent pole that held kept you upright remained, she was also six thousand miles away.

In normal times I would have distracted myself from my loss. But where could I hide? Newspapers, television and the internet were an endless flow of the death and despair of the Covid pandemic. The bulldozing of mass graves in Sao Paolo. The massive death of the elderly in institutions meant to care for them. Children trying to learn without school rooms and play with their friends while alone in their rooms. The blithe denial of science and fact from Donald Trump and his acolytes. Normal human contact has stopped. No office, no gym, no trips to the grocery. My only social engagement, if it happened at all, was walking Fennie, and waving at the other mask wearing members of the poop bag posse.

Life, took place on the flat screens of your computer, tablet, and phone. Zoom calls, Facetime and Skype were your only connections to the outside world and while they were godsends of technology, they contributed to a sense that reality was not a tangible thing. It only existed in your mind’s eye.

It had been a rough day.

It had started, as had so many days since my mother’s death, at my parent’s house. I would go there every day to work on the process of organizing the home in preparation for getting it sold. Most of the simple work had been done. Mom’s first edition book collection had been catalogued, boxed, and transported to my basement until we could decide on how to divide them among the three of us. Her clothes were gathered and delivered to the local Good Will organization. Items that had no value and were not desired by us were placed in a skiff we had placed in the driveway. That day, I had begun the process of going through the boxes, steamer trunks, and suitcases that contained thousands of family photographs.

My goal had been to identify what it is that we had before turning them over to Legacybox.com for digitization so we all could own our family’s pictorial heritage. I thought this would be a simple task. How hard is it to look at photographs, note what you have found, and repackage them? I had not factored in how emotionally raw I was from the death of mom, Con, and the disintegration of the world I knew and the lack of human contact. Every box I opened wore on my brittle psychological state whether they were pictures of my dad as a child in Vienna before the war, or my siblings and I in scenes common from any childhood like birthday parties, holidays, and life events such as bar mitzvahs, graduations, and weddings. All reminders of a simpler, better more humane world when the ones I loved were still here and hugs were only an ask away.

What finally had stopped me and put me into an emotional tailspin, was finding a scrapbook my then nineteen-year-old mother had put together about her and dad’s courtship. There was a picture of my twenty-three-year-old father smiling and looking like he belonged in GQ taken on the day they met. Playbills from shows they had seen together. Even a silly picture booth strip with each making silly faces at each other for the camera. But it was not a photograph that tripped my emotional circuit breaker. It was a Western Union telegram my Dad had sent Mom on the anniversary of their first meeting. It read “Hopelessly, ineluctable modality of the visible, auditory, tactile, and proprioceptive on September 5, 1948, plus one year. I miss you very very much. Hope we have many many more Love Zach.” It evoked my parents’ sixty-four-year journey together perfectly and left me desperate for just one more moment with them. It also sent me scurrying for the door as I could take no more.

Our townhome development was built on the site of a former farm directly adjacent to the Passaic River Park, a thousand acres of untouched woodland and river in the heart of suburbia. Trails meandered through the park and close to the river. It is where, as a boy, I would go on canoeing expeditions with the day camp I attended or go on short hikes with my father when he needed exercise or Mom ordered us out of the house. It is where Fenway and I would often ramble when the confines of the house became unbearable, or the day was too pretty to stay inside.

When I got home from my parents’ house, I decided what Fennie and I needed was a walk in the woods that still held the shadows of my childhood. It was a beautiful sun filled late summer day. The type of day mom would have described as positively Swiss as the oppressive heat and humidity of July and August had been replaced with an early glimpse of the fall. I thought exercise and the beauty of nature to help dim the sadness and sense of loss the photographs had created.

When we arrived at the park, I let Fenway off her lead so she could romp, play, and explore the woods at her own pace and interests. Strictly speaking, this was forbidden. But one of the few benefits of the pandemic was there were not a lot of people about to tsk tsk about these flagrant violations of the rules. When I heard other people, I called Fennie, she was never far away, and put on her lead so the folks I encountered were none the wiser. The trail we followed was one that shadowed the river’s bank. I found the flow of water soothing and relaxing and Fenway loved splashing in the shallows her joint heritage of Labrador and Poodle fully expressing itself.

Fifteen minutes into our walk just after Fenway had been for her third splash in the river I saw through the trees and the brush that lined the river bank a tall young man making his way on the trail in front of us. He was dressed oddly wearing a pair of khaki-colored shorts that resembled those worn by British forces during the second world war, a dark blue polo shirt and  brown ankle high hiking boots. He had a branch in his hands that he was using as a staff to help navigate the rougher parts of the trail. There was a familiarity to him I could not place. None the less I called to Fenway to “come” so I could put her back on lead.

Fennie is a good dog. She is smart and when you talk to her, which I do often, she looks at you with her dark brown eyes intent on understanding every word that you said. On occasion she would pause before obeying one of my “commands” as if processing whether my request was valid, but she always complied. This time she did not. Instead, she went bounding down the trail in hot pursuit of the man with the walking stick. I took off after her. After about a quarter mile the trail emptied into a small field with shoulder high grass which made it impossible for me to see my dog. In near panic, I picked up the pace.

Five minutes later, and in a state of near panic, I found her and the man sitting on a small concrete bench in a small grove of trees that overlooked a small rapids in the river. My bad dog was laying at the feet of the man, raspberry colored tongue hanging out looking incredibly pleased with herself. I was about to scold her when the man looked up at me and smiled. It was my father. Not the familiar dad of my childhood or even the one I had grown to know as a man during our journeys together. It was the twenty-two-year-old whose picture I had seen in my mother’s scrap book a few hours before.

It was disorienting. My father had been dead for over eight years. Had I lost my fragile hold on reality or was this something else? Whatever it was, young Pops was patting the bench next to him, a nonverbal request to join him.  Too stunned to do anything else I accepted and sat down. For a long while we did nothing but sit and watch the river. This could not be real. How could it be? It was likely a manifestation of my isolation and the sorrow I had managed to tuck away in a corner of my psyche for months. Or was it? I did not care. My father had always made me feel safe and loved. Nothing bad could happen if he was present and after feeling vulnerable. and alone for so long just sitting next to him, real or not, felt like I was just where I wanted to be.

I was comfortable in our silence. Over the years he and I had gone on adventures to Israel, Alaska, and Austria where we spent weeks alone with each other. When he got sick there were endless hours of sitting together often in silence. We knew each enough well enough that quiet did not bother us. I did not feel the world crushing me. The constant threat of Covid, ever present, was a shadow. Mom’s and Conor’s deaths,  as devastating as they were, lay easier with me. For the first time in months, I was at peace with the universe.

A male mallard duck with its gaudy yellow, blue, and green markings gently drifted by on the river and I turned to Dad and said “I never thought you would come back for a visit. When you died, I thought that there would be so much new to discover that you would set out to explore it all and never look back. I thought you would forget all about us.”

He turned his head and smiled and said, “Not possible.”

Trying in vain not to tear up I said “Thank-you.”

He remained smiling and impassive.  I knew this expression. He was saying I did not need to thank him. That is what you do for the ones you love. You show up. If you do that, everything else takes care of itself.

In the distance, I heard a dog barking. Fenway sat up in an alert pose, head pointed in the direction of the sound, ready to challenge any dog who came her way. I quickly bent over and snapped on her lead. When I looked up, Pops was gone.