One of my Tato's favorite songs to play on the piano was "Ebb Tide". I myself have been playing it lately - picking out the melody from his old tattered Fake Book and figuring out the chords the way he taught me. I feel like my emotions are like tides, sometimes high, sometimes low - but unlike tides they are unpredictable. They have no specific timing, no certain rhythm. Sometimes they hit me like a ton of bricks and sometimes they just wash over me in a slow, even flow.
I spent a few hours at my parents' house today. I went over there to kill some time while Ella was at Ukie school and my mom happened to have plans so I found myself completely alone in their house for the first time in ages. At first I didn't pay much attention to this fact as I was deeply absorbed in finishing some work for my job. Then I started wandering around the house and the ton of bricks flew out of nowhere and smashed right into me.
It happened in the kitchen. As I stood at the kitchen sink and looked out the window, I remembered some emotional moments I'd had in that exact same spot with my dad in the past few years. The first one that came to mind was during the time when I'm pretty sure he already knew he had ALS but he hadn't quite specified that fact to us yet. This was in the fall of 2009 when he'd already had a preliminary scare when he was tentatively diagnosed with motor neuron disease but then told he probably had something else. This resulted in months of testing to narrow down the correct diagnosis. As I stood in the kitchen with him, I suddenly lost it, burst into tears and sobbed "I'm so worried about you!" His face crumpled and we both wept together in their narrow galley-style kitchen, arms around each other, shaking and sobbing. Then of course we started laughing and immediately felt better. I thought at that time that things would get better, that we'd figure out what the problem was and move on.
Then I recalled a more recent moment which occurred in the same spot but around August or September of last year, when ALS had already taken its toll. He had been standing at the kitchen sink and had to sit down on the seat of his walker to rest. He had lost a lot of weight, had difficulty holding his head up and just looked completely exhausted. He looked at me with a look of pure exasperation as if to say "Why me?" and shook his head. I patted his head, told him I loved him and then we had another good cry together - only this time I had to bend over to hug him. I believe we ended that encounter with a laugh too, because that's how it always was with him. You couldn't have a sad or angry moment with Tato without some type of humor thrown in.
Anyway, as I stood in the kitchen today and the bricks hit me I burst into tears, but this time there was no one there. No hugs, no shared sadness, just silence. It really sucked.
I made myself feel better by walking around the house and looking at things. As I wandered about I came across his first doodle pad, the one he used before I gave him Ella's pink one that we now write messages on to him. The first doodle pad was a tiny one, with a tiny screen and a tiny little pen. He had a hard time using it because it was so small which is why we gave him the bigger one. The little doodle pad was sitting near the mantel, close to the box that contains my dad's ashes which have yet to be interred in their final resting placing. As I looked closer I saw that my Mom had written a message to him on the little yellow doodle pad. Suddenly my lonely feeling vanished and I felt better. We're all in this together. Even when we're alone, we're not really alone.
The ton of bricks subsided to a gentle wave and I felt better. Then I made myself think of something funny so that I could have a good laugh.
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