Month: September 2005

The Church Lady and Miss Manners Go To a Wedding

As we approached the park, several almost-empty large beer bottles caught my eye. I could feel the Church Lady in me rising up in judgment. A fine way to start a wedding, she said. Isn’t that special?

And then, I saw the groomsmen and the bridesmaids in their formalwear. “Kids these days!” I said as I poked my husband. He laughed and so did I. I recognize this weird phenomenon happening more frequently. I’m channeling adults or at least that adult voice I used to hear outside of me. Now she’s lurking somewhere inside.

Miss Manners pushed aside the Church Lady and pointed out (inside my head) that when bridesmaids wear sequins on strapless gowns, they ought to wear shoes. She also noted with dismay that strapless gowns smoosh most women, even those with lovely figures. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of men’s hairy toes exposed for the world to see.

She counted the bridesmaids (nine) and the groomsmen (6)–what about symmetry?!–and shook her head at the white gown on the flowergirl and the off-white gown on the Junior Bridemaid. Very disconcerting, indeed.

And then I couldn’t listen to either the Church Lady or Miss Manners anymore because the processional began. Pretty soon, I felt a little dizzy from the hypnotic and endless repetition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major . . . played by a steel drum. I really have nothing against steel drums, but this song played by this instrument reminded me of when my children leave the electric keyboard stuck on the demo song, which happens to be Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are.”

The entire wedding party disdained footwear, including the pastor. The only one who would have been quite adorable barefoot would have been the flowergirl, who was wearing ballet flats.

During the wedding, I listened to the vows and thought that brides and grooms seldom really understand what they are agreeing to. Even though the pastor says “in poverty and riches, in sickness and health” in a loud, clear voice, those words are more like the fine print that anyone hardly ever reads because they don’t think it really applies to them.

The ceremony took place at a park overlooking water. Fluffy clouds–made to order by the bride, no doubt–floated across the sky, offering brief respite from the sun. The blue of the water and sky contrasted with the wine-colored dresses and the vivid yellow of the bouquets.

And then, the bride and groom boogied their way down the aisle to the recorded sounds of Barry White crooning, “You’re My First, My Last, My Everything.” What joy! What optimism!

At the reception, we waited two and a half hours to eat and during that time, the microphone was passed among the wedding party. At one point, the groom pledged that his sole purpose would be to make his bride happy. She squealed and jumped into his arms and I thought, Happy? For there will be days when he makes her anything but happy and I hope she is prepared for those days. Will she think he broke his word when he’s no longer making her happy? Or will she realize that being happy is not what life is about?

But last night was the time for being happy. Which explains why I stripped off my pantyhose and left them in the bathroom trash. Then I proceeded to sit with bare feet while I waited for dinner.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

Written for an Audience of Helium Balloons

I sit at my desk with an array of six helium balloons looking over my shoulder. They look quite festive and I feel the pressure of their airy expectations, but I have nothing.

I mean, I thought about talking about my near-paralysis in picking out the next book I’ll read. Or about my determination to scrapbook my neglected pictures–which fades by the time the kids go to bed.

We’re going to a wedding tomorrow, which seemed like a lot of fun when I RSVP’d, but now . . . now I am worrying about what to wear and about how my daughter will fare under my mother’s care. My daughter is shy and a mama’s girl. She’ll do fine. But what will I wear? And will my feet hurt?

My daughter’s party was fun. She said, “I am so happy!” when we put her beach ball cake in front of her and lit the candles. She insisted that everyone wear party hats. And then today, she was ready to do it all over again. I’m just happy that we won’t do it all over again for a year. Today I spent most of the day attending to all the things I neglected yesterday while I was baking cakes and whipping up frosting.

Someone pointed out to me in the comments how amazing it is that my daughter was born almost exactly sixty years after my father was born. I never noticed that before, which is odd because I did notice that my mother was 37 when I was born and I was 37 when my daughter was born. I noticed that my mother was 59 was my daughter was born and my grandmother was 59 when I was born. Sometimes, I listen to my mother talk about her mother and about the heavy burden she bears caring for my grandmother who lives alone, still, at 99. And I think, will that be me in thirty years, complaining about taking care of my mother? Will my mother live until she’s 99? And then my thoughts begin to wander far into the future and I rein them back in. Live here. Live now. Let the future unfold without my constant fretting.

Well. See? I really have nothing worth saying tonight.

Happy Birthday

I stood at my kitchen sink, washing the bowls from the cake–and cupcakes–and thought, today, I should be making this cake for someone else. I would have made chocolate frosting, as fudgy as possible, and worried about what to get someone who doesn’t care about cologne or neckties. Today, my dad would have been sixty-three years old. He was born in 1942 and died in 1989.

I reminisced about him while I beat the butter and sugar into frosting and I tried to remember celebrating his last birthday, his forty-seventh. But I couldn’t. Did I bake a cake? I don’t know. Did we go out to eat dinner? I can’t remember. The last few weeks of his life, he slept up to twenty hours a day.

I hate that I can’t remember. I probably have something written in a spiral bound journal somewhere, but my stack of journals in my bedroom closet doesn’t have a search feature like google, unfortunately. All I can really remember are the last eleven days, starting with that day after work when I returned home. He stood waiting, told me he needed to go to the hospital immediately. His shoulder pain (due to steroid treatments) was unbearable. He needed better medication.

He insisted I drive his car to the hospital and I made uneasy smalltalk on the way. We waited in the waiting room for a long time and he grew more and more aggravated. Finally, an intake nurse asked him a bunch of questions and when he admitted to chest pain, he was whisked back to a room.

A different nurse walked in, focused on a clipboard. She said, “Mrs. M_____? What seems to be the problem?”

And he said wryly, “I haven’t had my period.”

Then she looked at his face and said, “Oh. Mr. _____. Sorry.”

I kissed him goodbye right before he was admitted. We were not a touchy-feely family and that is one of the only times I remember kissing him goodbye. Now I wish I’d stayed longer, held his hand, asked him about his life and and been some comfort. How difficult it is to shift roles, though. He was still my father, that impenetrable fortress of a man who didn’t cry or shake with fear or loneliness. I figured I’d pick him up the next day. No big deal.

The next day, when I called from work, I was transferred to critical care. What? Critical care? The nurse said, “Oh, we are so glad you called. We’ve been trying to reach you.” My dad had a seizure during his MRI and they’d injected him with morphine to stop the seizing. He’d been sedated ever since.

But the news was worse. We knew about his brain tumor, but now they knew that cancer had obliterated his liver. He had only a short time to live. The doctors couldn’t offer any further treatment. That night, I still didn’t go to the hospital. He was unconscious. He wouldn’t even know if I were there or not. I stayed home and made phone calls, rallying support.

His best friend drove two hours to sit by his bedside. The entire eleven days he was in the hospital, I’d find my grandmother sitting vigil, or an uncle standing solemnly in his room. Sometimes we’d have odd makeshift sort of parties, a group of us laughing and joking and him, eyes mere slits, either asleep or awake, who could tell? One day, they moved him to a chair. His hands were like giant starfish clinging to the arms of the chair. My mother (yes, divorced from him for thirteen years, the same length of time she’d been married to him)looked at him and joked, “I bet I could beat you in Pictionary now!”

(My dad and I were unbeatable. He was talented, could draw like a cartoonist. I am an imaginative, intuitive guesser and a pretty good drawer. My mother was a liability in that game, a horrible guesser and a worse drawer. We showed no mercy.)

My dad sat slouched in that chair, trapped in his dying body and shook his head no. And we all roared with laughter.

I remember the details of those somber days and the rare moments of laughter. But I can’t remember his birthday.

A hole gapes in my heart where he should be. And so I celebrate my bright sunshiny daughter’s third birthday–she is a miracle, the unexpected baby girl the doctors said it was unlikely I’d ever conceive–and I cry for the grandfather she never knew. Joy and sorrow, side by side, hand in hand.

Happy birthday, Daddy. Happy birthday, Babygirl.