Christmas with Dad

   “The snow reminds me of the ashes of all the people who were burned.”

            My father wasn’t talking about the Holocaust; he usually didn’t because it wasn’t something he taught or studied.  In any case, he had neither served in World War Two nor was in any way part of it, as he was a professor at the time, and therefore exempt.  So I knew he was talking instead about one of his vivid, fanciful dreams, which I’ve heard he has been having, as of late.

            “What people were burned, Dad?”

            His eyes wandered from mine to the window and the falling snow outside, then to the plastic cup of chocolate pudding he hadn’t finished, which was resting in his hand on his lap.  In a moment, he began to urinate via his catheter into the urine bag.

            As in many times over the past five years, he had forgotten what he was just talking about. 

            When I first moved him in, he was still somewhat alert, remembering the names of the nurses who took care of him throughout the week.  He even had a little crush on one of them, Pauline, having forgotten that his wife had died, or that he even had a wife for forty-some-odd years.  It made me upset to see that his eyes were wandering so quickly after Mom had died, but then again, I knew I shouldn’t be upset with him.  With a forgiving laugh, Mom had told me that Dad was a man who was bound to his animal instincts and that that was, in fact, how he caught her in.  Therefore, when he began calling Pauline his sweetheart, I knew he didn’t know what he was doing, only that what he was doing was a thing of habit.

This was back in September of ‘99.  Five years and three months have passed and I see he’s only gotten worse, which was to be expected. 

Well, his eyes aren’t wandering for the ladies anymore, but they are still wandering, albeit, aimlessly.

*****

            In many ways, I’m just like my Dad.  Unawares, I tend to be chattier around women than men.  That is not to say I chase after women as if that in itself is my primary life goal.  Simply put, I find myself instinctively putting my charm on when a beautiful woman crosses paths with me.

            Charlotte is one such woman.  She works at the gift shop in the nursing home my father stays at.  She is no gangly figure, but is in no way overly obese either.  When she talks, she looks you in the eye, as if targeting you.  But this fleeting feeling of being besieged by her aggressive and dynamic eyes is combated by her earnest and comforting smile – a smile that invited you to have a seat by the fire place to warm your body.

            Each time I drop by the nursing home to visit Dad, I stop at the gift shop first to buy him some candy – a small bag of black liquorish, an old favorite of his – and to talk to Charlotte for a little.  During each encounter without fail, we talk about my father and how he’s doing.  Working at the hospital almost every day, Charlotte’s able to eavesdrop on the nurses’ conversations and glean any gossip worth putting in her pocket and saving for later – that later time being with me when I visit.  And the nurses – Pauline included – love to talk about my dad, especially these days since all his talk and nonsense have been about his dreams.

            “Hey Charlotte, did my dad mention anything about burned people?  Last time I visited him, he was telling me about a dream he had that involved the ashes of all the people who were burned.”

            “Oh yes, that one.  That was particularly disturbing.”

            “What was the dream about?  He never finished telling me about it.”

            She put down the box of Christmas-themed Get Well cards that she was packing out and played with her hair a little as she was trying to put into words Dad’s most recent dream. 

Finally, she said, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

            This was odd, especially coming from Charlotte who was the type to be open and tell you bluntly how things are – the honest truth that wasn’t embroidered by excessive details, like fake eye lashes.  It wasn’t that she was lying; rather, she was withholding information for whatever reason she felt justified.  That was even worse.

            “You could tell me, Charlotte.”

            “Dreams are funny things, Ethan.  You shouldn’t think too much of them.  And you know your father was a history professor.  He’s read about so many different historical events that come and go and maybe all the dreams he’s been having are just imaginative projections in his mind, you know, of things he studied in the past – maybe it’s compensating for the fact that he’s not studying history anymore.  And so in all his dreams, he’s in the center of them . . . I don’t know.”

            “In the center of them?  Charlotte, what did my dad do in this dream?”

            “Stop thinking about it.  Visit your dad, talk about Christmas, something cheery.”

            Charlotte went back to packing out the boxes of cards and started humming ‘jingle bells.’  I looked at her, stunned that she wouldn’t tell me about Dad’s dream.  When she saw the look on my face, she took my hand and told me everything was fine and to not make such a big deal out of this.

            When I was about to leave to see Dad, I turned to Charlotte.  “Nice hair by the way, Charlotte.” 

            She smiled and played with her hair again.  “See your father, and don’t think anything about the dream”

*****

            Dad was sleeping with his mouth wide open when I came into his room.  I took the liberty to sit in the chair that was positioned next to the window so I can watch both my dad and the accumulating snow falling down outside where I knew my car was soon to be buried.

            Thirty minutes passed.  Dad was still sleeping, dreaming God knows what in that noggin of his.  Finally he woke up and looked at me, dazed and confused.  Did he know I was his son? Over the past few weeks that I have been visiting him, it’s always been a hit and a miss type of thing with him.  I’m his son on one day, and coldly, just a stranger on the next.

            “How was your sleep?”

            He blinked his eyes and looked at me like a sad, old dog, barely hanging on to a simple existence.  He didn’t answer the question but merely looked out the window at the snow, as if mesmerized by visiting angels.

            “You see that?  It’s snowing a lot outside, just in time for Christmas.”

            Dad repeated the word ‘Christmas,’ and continued to stare at the snow.  I told him that I was his son and asked if he remembered how, when I was a child, I was always hopeful that Christmas was going to be a white one.  Dad nodded his head slowly, but these days, I can never tell for sure if it was simply because he felt like nodding, or if he actually did remember whatever it was I was talking about.

            We sat in silence for a few long minutes, staring blankly at the descending snow.

            Yet there was a curious bug in me, yelling at me, telling me to stop playing with the snow outside and to ask my dad the question that was running through my mind all day.  “Dad, look at me for a second.”  I gently but eagerly turned his face toward mine.  “You had a dream about the ashes of all the people who were burned.  What happened in that dream?”  The vacant look on his face quickly made me realize how much of a miracle it would be if my dad remembered that specific dream.  Immediately, I felt silly and idiotic in asking such a question, and my hopes of ever finding out what that dream was about were buried under the snow just like my car was then. 

“Never mind.”

We stared out the window some more until Pauline came in to take his vitals and give him his medications.  She was up-beat and happy, asking my dad if he was happy that his son – me – came to visit him.  When he coughed, she laughed and told Dad that her children didn’t even want anything to do with her, as they were hopelessly navigating their way through teenage angst.

When she left, I followed her outside.  She was writing something on a clipboard when I tapped her on the shoulder.  “Oooh, Mr. Forester, you scared me!”

“I’m sorry about that Pauline.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Forester.  What can I do you for?”

With my heart pounding like an army of horses in battle, I asked her the same question I had asked my dad.  Her response did me no good.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Forester, that particular dream was . . . well it was something different from his other dreams.  But no need to worry, no need – see, dreams aren’t real.  Hasn’t your mother ever told you that?  Or perhaps your father himself!”

I chuckled, “No, my parents didn’t tell me that.  I see you guys aren’t going to tell me.  I had no luck with Charlotte earlier.”

“Well, Charlotte is a smart girl.  And a pretty girl too.  I see the way you look at her and how she looks at you.”

I smiled, nodding yes, and thanked Pauline, then went back into the room where Dad, helplessly expressionless, was still staring at the falling snow.

*****

Christmas day came in a flurry.  Charlotte had agreed to spend Christmas with me, thus making my heart pump in a crazed act: never had Charlotte and I spent a holiday together; in the past we’ve shared a few coffees after her shift, but that was all. 

I had planned on visiting Dad first until it was the end of Charlotte’s shift.  Afterward, we were going to eat out at a diner, then perhaps share some wine and good stories in my apartment.  We wanted to do something simple like that.

The snow that day was as frantic as my heart.  Rumor had it that we were to expect at least a foot of snow and blustery winds.  This Christmas was undoubtedly going to be a white one.

When I entered my dad’s room, he was sitting up-right (by way of his bed,) eating meat loaf with gravy.

“Hey Dad, this is what you chose to eat as your Christmas dinner?  I brought you something.”

Dad put his fork and knife down and tried to see what was in the brown bag I had in my hand.  From it, I took out a white box that had a small white cake I ordered for him with its icing littered by pieces of black liquorish that all together spelled out:

MERRY CHRISTMAS DAD
LOVE, YOUR SON, ETHAN.

I handed him his glasses so he could read the words, and he mumbled them out loud.  I cut him a slice and replaced his meat loaf with it.  “On Christmas, Dad, you should eat something that you like.  None of that fake meat loaf stuff they feed you.”  He looked at me, confused and slightly saddened when I took away his meat loaf, but smiled like a child when I put some of his Christmas cake in front of him.

After that, I watched him eat the cake, silently.  When he was finished, he looked at me and nodded, so I nodded back, not entirely sure what we were nodding about.  We sat in silence, staring at the snow outside.  It was then that I resigned myself to believe there was nothing left in him worth occupying his mind.

I started wondering why it was that Dad never really spoke much around me, specifically about his dreams, and why it was only from his nurses that I would hear all about these crazy dreams of his.  Were the nurses making them up?  I don’t want to believe so, especially Charlotte, whom I liked.  But then again, my dad did mention his dream about the ashes of burned people, so maybe after all, the nurses weren’t making these dreams up.

The curious bug sprung up again.  “Dad, please, if you could remember what that dream was about – the one with the burned people.  Who burned them?  What happened?  Did you?  Why won’t the nurses tell me about it?  You told them, but not me . . . why?”

Then something unbelievable happened.  He didn’t simply look back at me; rather, something about his body language, his eyes, which seemed like an abandoned cave now rediscovered, told me he was about to have a lucid moment, the first I’ve seen in ages.

Finally: “I don’t remember.”

Small tear drops fell from his eyes, as he pushed away his empty plate.  I hugged him and cried myself.

*****

            At the diner Charlotte was trying to console me, as she saw what had happened in my dad’s room.  “If it’ll bring any kind of closure and peace in you, I’ll go ahead and tell you what the dream was about.”

            “No thank you.”