Are We There Yet?
Sister Lulu and I spent a couple days in the bucolic Great Barrington, that hip happening little spot. Among other things, we talked our way through a climb of Monument Mountain, that is 1,735 feet of yakking. Well, maybe 800 feet of chat/laughing, 522 feet of quiet awe and 413 feet of heavy breathing.
Speaking of heavy breathing...have you heard the one about my Dad and his oxygen tank? (pause for effect).
Yes, we return home from our little getaway to find our Daddy's breathing to be more difficult, his speech slurred some, his feet swollen to the point where you look at them and wince. But does he complain? He does not.
"I'm a wrecked guy," he says, "a totally wrecked guy." (pause for effect) "But for a wrecked guy, I'm doing pretty good."
He's in his recliner, dozing mostly. He has the oxygen in or on or whatever you call it. The oxygen machine is a loud little mother. "It looks like R2D2," Andre says.
Andre. Andre. Andre. He's in a major Star Wars stage. "Luke, I am your father," he says to me in his lil' British accent.
"Andre, I am your auntie," I say in reply.
"Yes, my master," he retorts.
"Yes, my lord," I re-retort.
We have this neat little routine, and then I check my work email for some reason that made sense at first. I start with the oldest ones and work up to the most recent, so hopefully they will make sense, hopefully there is some kind of timeline. Some start as a question that are resolved in two or three other emails. Others are like the start of pimples that get picked at and opened into a nasty little gaping spot. And then there are others that are just plain scary with the promise of plenty of follow-up needed...like bad sequels to bad horror movies...
Anyway, I get anxious and I lose track of time as well as my little comedic sidekick. His father takes him home as he needs to go to bed to go to school tomorrow and all that important, real world stuff.
Folks, I don't even see him go, my little guy. It's like a magic trick gone horribly right but it's all wrong.
When I finally come to my senses and put some of that anxiety aside, I realize I never said goodbye, never mind got one of his scrumptious kisses. I call over to his house and my sister puts him on the line. "Hhhhheeeellllloooooo Auntie!" he says, the true professional.
I tell him I missed saying good bye to him. "Why?" he asks. I tell him I got caught up in a work thing and apologize. "It's all right," he says, in a smaller voice. It doesn't feel all right but there is no reason to engage a six-year old boy in the stupid pressures that engage a 45-year old. So we change subjects...
Monkeys are good for this. "How many monkeys have you given me, Auntie?" I think three or four, but he corrects me; it's only two. Well, I say, there is the orangutan, named Malcolm Giggles, and the rubbery one, Hong Kong, clearly King Kong's brother. "That's right," he says, "Oh yeah! You gave me the spider monkey too!" We can't remember the name, but we do remember the tiny monkey and a Curious George, so that brings me to five.
"Do you remember the gibbons Daddy gave me?" he asks. Of course, I do. "His name is Gary Bonnaire Sweatpants, but I have to change his last name." I am told he has to do this because the kids at school make fun of his name.
I tell him I'm sorry they made fun of it, it doesn't seem very nice. "Actually, it's not very nice," he says. "I am going to change his last name to Sfire." Clever, that boy, his last name is Sfeir, but Sfire has that special spark, like him.
I tell him we can keep Sweatpants as Gary's secret name. I have a secret name, I tell him. It's Esmerelda. "Did you tell Uncle Mitch?" he asks. No, I tell him. "You can tell him," he says. Is that all? "You can tell Mommy," he says, "and Nana and Baba." I ask if I can tell Auntie Chrissy. "No," he says, as he likes to keep a little secret, but obviously I don't.
"What should my secret name be?" he asks. What do you want it to be? I ask him.
"Baba," he says, and I want to reach through the phone and kiss him and hug him and hold him and let all that just make my Daddy, his Baba, my Daddy, his Baba all better.