First Grade

     I was in first grade when Dad showed me some Mexican jumping beans. "There's a small worm inside," he said. We also experimented with magnets. He explained about the north and south pole. There were little magnets and one larger one that had a red handle. There was a cellophane-like "fish" that would rise up from the counter as you stroked it, "face" first to tale. And a white furry critter that did the same. There was also fun with balloons. "Static electricity," he told me as we rubbed them on our pants legs and then stuck them to the wall. We also made static by scuffing across the rug as we walked.

     I went outside once to play with some neighborhood kids. I didn't know them well. They started fighting with acorns. They flung them at each other across the driveway. I didn't like that. I was afraid of getting hurt by the sharp acorn points. So I went back inside.

     Dad has been forgetting more and more about the old stuff. He struggles to recall how old he is. He no longer knows the town he lives in. His brain is stumbling over newer memories. He remembers things from four days back [usually, after a fashion] but not three days back. And certainly not what he had for breakfast.

     Dad's veins in his hands are shriveling. His bones are very prominent, almost skeletal. Even his coloring is off. What used to be a rich olive complexion is now rancid.

     Some days he is aware that he is dying. On other days, I find him planning his escape into a new job, new apartment, old relationship. He can be quite adamant about some land that he thinks he still owns [which was sold off years ago] which he thinks will yield him about three or four thousand dollars to start over. During one of my visits last week, he complained to me vigorously that he had wasted his time by signing up to live [in the adult home]. Today, he was content that a relative had paid him a surprise visit on Friday [but he denied having the visitor return on Saturday].

     A staffer had stopped in today with two little ones in tow. Dad was delighted to see them-- he loves babies-- but they were not delighted to see any of the old folks there. The older one who I took to be around pre-school age hid behind her mother's legs and insisted that she wanted to go say hello to the people in the kitchen only. The toddler demanded carrying and turned her face away from Dad and his housemates.

     Dad insisted upon walking me out. He doesn't walk so much as stagger around. With me holding his hand and a staffer spotting him from behind, he managed an awkward lurch to the front door. He is receiving hospice now. Death is at the back door quietly waiting for him to be done with life. I will miss him forever after he dies.

     ~ sapphoq on life

Mexican Jumping Beans

It was a Sunday in the fall.  Dad and I were in the large room of his studio apartment in the kitchenette by the window.  It was a sunny day.

"Look," Dad said, holding out his right hand.  I was fascinated by the little red things that were moving around on their own volition.  "What are they?" 
"Mexican jumping beans."
And Dad went on to carefully explain about the small bug inside of each one of them that made them jump.  It was the bug trying to get out.  He didn't know what kind of bug.  I figured they had to be from Mexico.

Dad pulled one of my teeth that year with a string tied to his bathroom door handle.  We read the comics.  I ventured outside but the kids were having an acorn fight so I came back in.  I knew acorns had points and I didn't like getting hurt.

That was the year Dad introduced me to static electricity.  We scuffed our shoes on the carpet and then made balloons stick to the walls.  We made cellophane "worms" rise up from the counter by running our fingers down the middle.  We had fuzzies-- they looked like bits of shag carpet and you bought them in the store-- that did the same thing.  The fuzzies were the most fun.  It was easy to pretend that they were some kind of pet.

Later on, in seventh grade I was disappointed when the Hungarian science teacher decided we would skip the chapter on electricity.  Girls didn't learn that sort of thing in school back then.  The teacher-- one of two highly educated teacher-refugees from the Communist regime who taught in the school-- must have had to do what she was told.  I studied the chapter on my own and found it easy to understand.

sapphoq on life