May 16: Confident Loving Eyes, My Daughter, Unconditionally

Santiago loves the boy . . . 

When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbour from the shark factory; but today there was only the faint edge of the odour because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.

"Santiago," the boy said.

"Yes," the old man said. He was holding his glass and thinking of many years ago.

"Can I go out to get sardines for you for tomorrow?"

"No. Go and play baseball. I can still row and Rogelio will throw the net."

"I would like to go. If I cannot fish with you, I would like to serve in some way."

"You bought me a beer," the old man said. "You are already a man."

"How old was I when you first took me in a boat?"

"Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces. Can you remember?"

"I can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and the noise of the clubbing. I can remember you throwing me into the bow where the wet coiled lines were and feeling the whole boat shiver and the noise of you clubbing him like chopping a tree down and the sweet blood smell all over me."

"Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?"

"I remember everything from when we first went together."

The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, confident loving eyes.

Santiago loves the boy like his own child.  That much is obvious in this short passage.

My daughter called me a little while ago to share some good news she'd just received.  She applied for some donor scholarships from the university she's attending (the same one at which I teach as a contingent professor), and today she found out that she's been awarded three of them.  It's enough money that she won't have to worry next year too much about how she's going to pay for school or books.  She was so excited, and she wanted to share that excitement with me.

Sometimes, I wonder how good of a father I've been to my kids.  I know I've made some wrong choices in my life.  Made a ton of mistakes.  All parents do.  Kids don't come with manuals.  I wish they did.  It would make things so much easier.  

Instead, I've had to rely on the example of my mother and father.  My parents weren't perfect people, either.  However, the one thing I knew through my whole life was that I was loved.  Unconditionally.  They didn't always agree with my life choices.  (Not many parents would dream of the children growing up to be poets.)  But they loved me.  No matter what.

I love my kids.  Would do anything for them.  I hope they know that.  Perhaps my daughter's phone call this afternoon was proof that she does.  She had good news, and she wanted to share it with her old man.  I don't think she realizes how much that meant to me.

Despite all of Saint Marty's failings as a father, he's managed to raise some loving, caring children.  

May 15: Made Fun, Loved Everyone, "Ascension"

Santiago faces polite ridicule from the other fishermen . . .

"Why not?" the old man said. "Between fishermen."

They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry. Others, of the older fishermen, looked at him and were sad. But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the current and the depths they had drifted their lines at and the steady good weather and of what they had seen. The successful fishermen of that day were already in and had butchered their marlin out and carried them laid full length across two planks, with two men staggering at the end of each plank, to the fish house where they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana. Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the other side of the cove where they were hoisted on a block and tackle, their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips for salting.

There's some cruelty in this little passage, but Santiago doesn't take it to heart.  Either he's too old or too wise.  Probably both.  He's lived a long life and has seen a lot, suffered a lot.  Perhaps he's developed a callous around his heart to protect him from petty slights and injuries.  Like a hermit crab retreating into its shell until danger passes.

When I woke this morning in my hotel room in Calumet, there was a memory from two years ago in my Facebook feed.  It was from the beginning of the pandemic, and my wife, kids, and I had walked down to my parents' house to sing "Happy Birthday" to my sister, Rose.  We put our gifts for her on the front stoop, plus a cupcake with a lit candle, and then rang the doorbell.  The video shows Rose standing in the doorway, smiling and singing along with us, raising her arms and cheering.

Rose endured a lot of cruelty in her life.  Kids in school who made fun of her because she had Down syndrome.  Because kids are stupid and cruel at times.  Strangers who stared at her in restaurants.  Because she looked and acted differently.  Here's the thing:  Rose loved everyone she met.  Everyone was her friend.  She handwrote letters to people most of her life.  Hundreds and hundreds of letters. Labored over latch hook rugs for months and then gave them away freely.  Rose never developed callouses.  Never retreated into her shell.

This morning, watching that video, the joy on her face, I found myself breaking a little bit.  She was a great gift in my life.  I don't think I fully realized that until the day she died.  The world was a better place with her in it.  A kinder place.  If you ever had the chance to meet Rose, you know what I'm talking about.  If you never met Rose, know that she would have loved you.  Unconditionally.  Because that's what she did.  What she was.

Marty celebrates a true saint today on her birthday.  Saint Rose.  Patron of latch hook rugs and Diet Coke. 

A psalm for my sister . . .

Ascension

by:  Martin Achatz

for Rose, February 5, 2022

I wonder what Jesus did as he ascended
on that elevator of cloud. Did he wave
to the disciples as he rose and rose
like some kite broken free of its string,
becoming smaller, smaller until he
was swallowed by the great blue
throat of heaven? And did the disciples
keep their eyes trained on him,
unblinking, until tears transformed
that mountaintop into the Sea of Galilee?
After he was gone, did the disciples stand
there, look at each other dumbly, try
to recall his last word? Was it
earth or dirt or air or mother?
They didn’t have phones to take
pictures or videos. Weren’t able to
scroll through their albums
to remind themselves how dark
his skin and eyes were or how
laughing made him blaze
like Pentecost. Instead, they gospelled
each other, tried to recall with letters
God’s whiskered face.
               Today, we gather
in this church for you, dear sister, two
weeks after the metronome of your lungs
ceased and you ascended on that cold
morning. I stood by your bed, held
your hand, mapped its pulse
with my fingertips. I don’t remember
the last word you spoke to me,
or even second to last. It may
have been my name or mother
or ham or simply yes. Like the disciples
now, I’m greedy for every
last scrap of you, your crooked
smile, how you cackled even
when you didn’t get the joke. I
spent my entire life knowing
you, but not really knowing.
Until the end, when you were
rising and rising away from me,
getting smaller, smaller. I
watched until you vanished
from sight, taken back
to that place you came
from, that infinity between zero
and one. Only then did I realize
how lucky I’d been. To have
you with me every day, drinking
Diet Cokes, listening to ABBA
songs, begging me to wrap
my arms around your
shoulders. I could spend the rest
of my days writing gospels and gospels
about how much you loved me.

September 15: The Pequod Meets the Bachelor, My Mother, Dementia

And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoon had been welded.

It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home.

The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended, bottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colors were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm; above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the same precious fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp.

As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most surprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; and these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain's and officers' state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centerpiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests, and filled them; it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled it; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and filled them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction.

As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like poke or stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamental boat, firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been removed. You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed Bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and mortar were being hurled into the sea.

Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the ship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual diversion.

And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other's wakes- one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings as to things to come- their two captains in themselves impersonated the whole striking contrast of the scene.

"Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air.

"Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab in reply.

"No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all," said the other good-humoredly. "Come aboard!"

"Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?"

"Not enough to speak of- two islanders, that's all;- but come aboard, old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound."

"How wondrous familiar is a fool!" muttered Ahab; then aloud, "Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!"

And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor's men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket soundings.

The contrast is pretty stark in this chapter.  The Bachelor, joyous and buoyant and homeward bound.  The Pequod, dark and heavy and White Whale bound.  It's the difference between wedding and funeral.  Reception and wake.  The crew of the Bachelor is sailing toward the future.  The crew of the Pequod, toward imminent, albino-fluked doom.

Today, I'm going to write about a subject that is difficult for me.  My mother has been struggling with dementia for several years now.  My father passed away in February.  They were married for 65 years, raised nine children.  Buried two of them.  They were partners for a very long time.  As my father lay dying in the hospital, my mother was holding his hand, saying over and over, "You were a good husband.  You were a good father."

Sometimes, I think my mother's dementia has been a blessing for her in the last seven months.  It has allowed her to go through her days without feeling my father's absence constantly.  Every once in a while, she will ask where he is.  For the most part, however, she's been not exactly happy, but blessed with only small bouts of grief.

Recently, however, my mother has been focused on my father's death, asking my sisters how he died, what the funeral was like, whether she needs to sell her house, where her car is.  Very recently, she's been repeating one thought:  "I should just die and get it over with."

It seems as though she's giving up.  Instead of sailing into the future, she's headed out into deeper, darker waters.  Perhaps this is natural, but it is difficult to hear and witness.  Her dementia allows her to focus and obsess on certain thoughts and actions.  Right now, she's obsessed with death.

My mother has always been a huge force in my life, even more so than my father.  She was the one who pushed me to excel in school, supported me through some of the most difficult times of my life.  She never judged any of the decisions I made, even if she thought they were wrong-headed.  No, her one wish was simply for me to be happy.

I want my mother to be happy, to be celebrating something instead of mourning my father.  I'm not sure I can do anything to make that possible.  There's a big piece of her puzzle missing now.  A 65-year-shaped piece.  And she's spending her days looking for that piece.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for having a mother who has loved him.  Unconditionally.