63. If Only This Was Possible

“Dad!  Is that you?”

“Of course, you don’t recognize your own father?”

“Well, …  you look terrific, I mean, … when I last saw you 10 years ago …”

“Ya, Alzheimer’s does that to you.  You look pretty chipper for an old fossil.  I see your hair turned white and you’re putting on a few pounds though.”

“Who are you calling old [grin], you’re coming up on your 100^th birthday next March.  Did you come all this way to tell me I’m getting fat?”

“No Johnny, I came to talk about your book.”

“My book!  You know about my book?  They have Kindles where you are?  By the way, where are you now?”

“Let’s get past that, shall we.  I just thought you might like to talk about it, that’s all.”

“I can’t believe you read my book.  How … when … I have so many questions”

“Johnny, you’ve told many people that when you sat down to write, the stories came to you, and you just typed them.”

“Oh my, … you?”

“Uh huh.  Look, I don’t have much time …”

“Oh sorry, so what did you think of it?”

“A bit severe don’t you think?  You took a number of people to task for their part in your life.  Did you really think that was necessary?  The book started off nice and light and funny, then it turned dark.”

“Well, it’s a memoir Dad, you know, it’s what I remember.  Interestingly, the more I wrote, the more I remembered.  But you’re right, my first ten years were light and funny and wonderful.  I still have friends from those years.  We were grade school kids in the ‘50s.  Life was a lot different then, simple, honest, and genuine.  Not like now.  Then you divorced Mom and my life did turn dark.  Barbara and Janis were already gone so they weren’t affected as much.  It was unimaginable.”

“Yes, I know that now.  But you have to understand that I didn’t know then what would happen.  Izzy had some problems, and I think you described them pretty well.  I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.”

“She never recovered you know.  She died in ’06, 46 years after the divorce, a lonely, bitter woman.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Those five years I spent with her changed everything.  All the promise of a great future was gone.  You can’t just lose grades 6-10, live in six different places, and have no friends and not be affected by it.  Did I blame you for it?  No, I don’t think so.  I know now that life happens and you take what you get.  I think I would have been much better off had you waited 8 more years, when I was off to college that’s all.  But sometimes you can’t.”

“I also thought you treated Elinor a little severely in the book.”

“Dad, I know that from the moment you married Elinor you treated and loved her girls as though they were your own.  You always considered that you had five children instead of your original three.  But did you ever suspect that Elinor did not consider that your children were a part of ‘her’ family?  As you became increasingly sick with Alzheimer’s, she began to take over the family affairs.  By then, Barbara was gone from brain cancer.  It was then that Janis and I first started to notice the change in Elinor.”

“No, I never did.  She and I talked about it many times and we both believed that the five children were ‘ours.’  She never indicated to me that she thought there were two separate families.”

“I remember in the ‘90s you used to play these little games.  You were approaching your 80s and you used to ask us all ‘when I die what do you want.’  Do you remember that?

“Yes, I was looking for some honesty from all of you and I was trying to get a rough idea of how to please as many of you as possible.”

“And whenever you played that game, do you remember what my answer was?  The same answer that I gave every time you played that game.”

“Yes, you always said that all you wanted was the house.  Everyone else could have the money and the stocks, you just wanted the house.”

“Then why Dad, why oh why, did you then turn around and put the house in Elinor’s name?  I wanted to live there.  I wanted to continue the family name there.  I wanted everything to be the same there so the children and grand-children and great grand-children could come to visit and celebrate the memories of the people who had lived there.”

“Well, at the time our tax accountant told us it was the right thing to do.  I had no idea that things would turn out the way they did.  I don’t know if you can believe this, but I do regret that.”

“Yes, of course I do.  But now it’s all gone.  A strange family lives there in the summer and the house is vacant in the winter.  A lifetime of memories, pictures, possessions, and keepsakes were thrown away.  Thank you for telling me that Dad.  I had always suspected how you felt.”

“Listen, I have to go now.  It’s been nice talking at ya.  I know we’ll see each other again.  Probably sooner than you think if you don’t stop smoking.”

“You just had to get that one in didn’t you?  [Grin]  Always my Dad, … always my Dad.”

“Goodbye Johnny.  I’m glad you’ve let most of it go.  I didn’t agree with everything in the book, but I think you’ve accomplished your original goal for your children.  As you were writing, you made me wish I had been able to do the same for you.”

“Goodbye Dad.  I’ve missed our little chats.  And I’ve missed you terribly these last ten years.