He’d had the flu for a few weeks when she finally convinced him to go to the doctor. His favorite jeans wouldn’t stay on anymore, his belt had become useless in aiding and abetting and he couldn’t find the strength to go buy some in a smaller size. He was a mans man – doctors were for women, babies and invalids. Eventually the terminally ill were added to the list, and he was added with them.

It was pancreatic cancer and when he was diagnosed his life was stamped with an estimated expiration date that nearly matched the sweet cream spread in the fridge. Dreams of retirement in Snoqualmie Falls evaporated like the mist that inspired them. Instead of his remaining days being spent rocking in a chair made of pine or maple on creaky boards in comfortable clothes, wrapped in a quilt and eating cookies for every meal, he elected to participate in a clinical trial so that others might be saved by his drawn out and tortured loss.

I remember the last attempt to go for one of his mystery treatments.

The shell of my father was buckled in the passenger seat of his big brown Caddy, he was wearing light grey sweatpants with aggressive ankle elastic and they didn’t fit him any better than they would have fit a barstool.

His hair was gone, and a thin blue stocking cap covered they grey and white stubble on his perfect little noggin. He had on a sweatshirt and a coat I never cared for, and he was bent in half with his head over his knees.

I was clumsy behind the wheel of his beast and hit a manhole cover on the street a few houses away from his when he made a noise that still hurts my heart. It was a yelp and a groan and the sound of someone truly, deeply in pain. When it’s someone you love producing it, the sound threatens to kill you, too.

I stopped the car and through labored breaths he said quietly that he couldn’t do it anymore. He requested that I take him back home.

I asked him repeatedly if he was sure, because if we didn’t go to treatment that day, the protocol was over. We couldn’t go back. That was the end of the trial and the end of the treatment, and essentially; the end of him.

He said he was sure. He was nearly gone as it was.

A minister coordinated through Hospice had come to the house and counseled us a few times during the weeks he was still able to talk and joke. She was young, with sandy hair in one of those non-descript short styles. Maybe Dorothy Hamill, maybe Mark Hamilll. Either way. She was the first woman of the cloth I’d met and I didn’t know what to make of her except that dad seemed to like her and that was good enough for me.

There was an exercise she walked us through one afternoon in the sitting room we rarely used because it was formal and unwelcoming. And there was no TV.

The furniture still smelled new and the springs squeaked a little under our weight as we settled in and huddled closely around dad. She asked him to he tell us each (the 3 of 4 that were there) something – though now I don’t remember exactly what the question was.

What I remember is that when it came time for him to speak to me, he said he worried most about me being okay without him.

I wasn’t. I’m still not.

Days later, he and his organs were shutting down in a bed we’d set up in the living area on the ground floor of the house. It was an open floor plan and his bed was steps from his favorite high-backed blue cloth chair. This meant he was also steps from the living room so we could be around him and with him and he could hear us watching TV and talking and laughing and he could know we were together and living.

The minister with the short hair visited as regularly as the nurses in the few short months we had between the news and the end, despite my father being an atheist. She’d sit with her head bowed, listening intently as she held his hand. They’d talk while he still could talk, but on that last night the two way conversations had long since ended and the minister leaned in close. So close it almost looked like nothing was being said. But it was.

I found out later that she’d told him he was forgiven, and that he was loved, and that it was okay to go.

He went while we were sleeping that night, as was his way not to make a scene or have a fuss made over him. She called to tell me around 2am and I broke a land speed record getting back to the house. I remember sitting with her while we waited for a nurse to make the pronunciation and for the funeral home fella to arrive. She held his hand and kissed his forehead and we cried because we missed him already and because we were happy he wasn’t hurting anymore and we made a truce right there and then without saying anything at all.

I don’t remember much else. I was 23, and I’d just said good-bye to the original love of my life.

Inspired by Trevor on a tarmac in Houston.

From last week, pre-cycling incident:

4th time in a year. Awesome. Maybe at some point they’ll use an actual metal clamp to hold the hose on instead of zip ties?

This is not your fathers workmanship. This is the era of technology with an expiration date and band-aid fixes that keep you coming back like a hoe outside Church’s on Ponce at 3am for his/her crack fix.

Merrit Malloy will tell you that it’s the holding on beyond the letting go that makes family from strangers.

I’ll tell you we’re not all capable.

As the years pass, friends find their mates, get married, find their first homes, and make babies. Sometimes they move away, some times the wife becomes a mistress to the job.

When you’re the one with the restless soul and the uterus not zoned for habitation, you find yourself breaking free and set back out to sea searching for a new, safe harbor. And, if you’re like me, you remember back to philosophy in 11th grade and the dissection of Aristotle (or was it Socrates?) who taught us that we’re all using each other for something anyway. Damn those bitter old men, I’ll believe in BFF’s if I want to.

So here I am in what could easily be rough waters and waves that threaten to swallow me whole, but they’re not. I’m docked. Safe. Laughing with new friends over wine, open to kindred spirits and not worrying about the next voyage. Not yet.

It’s inevitable that we’ll change, but maybe this time we’ll all hang on.

Additional things that aren’t nearly as fun with one hand or with your non-dominant hand:
~ Putting on / taking off a sports bra
~ Brushing/ flossing
~ High fives
~ Showering with a bag on your hand
~ Attempting to squeeze a shampoo bottle

Soft cast and discomfort still keep me from typing (with efficiency), but not from hiking.

My second trip to Tallulah this weekend was separated from my first by approximately 5 years, which is apparently the amount of time it takes for your body to forget the anguish of climbing 1,099 steps. Twice. Once down, once up.

Though The Mc and pal Kelly might disagree, the trip is well worth the sweat and possible tears, though if we do it again I will:
a) pack a lunch
b) get a permit for the gorge floor
c) bring a Sherpa
d) eat a hearty breakfast
e) all of the above

15 mins into ride, stop light, one foot clipped out. Fuggin’ around talking over shoulder to The Mc. Lost balance, reached for metal post next to me. Top of post came with me, fell down went boom.

Total freaking rookie move, so sweet. Slow mo, right in front of a car. I can imagine the convo inside “did you just see that chick tip over?”

Injuries: calf punctures, dislocated/sprained/broken pinkie, skinned knee, thigh abrasion. Finger is much worse than pictures taken earlier convey. Now green and grey and purple and very swollen and crooked.

I’ll call the orthopedist, and you can call me Grace.

While you’re at it, feel free to share your genius moments to help me laugh through the pain and feel less like an idiot.