II. A warm evening, 1988. I'd biked from my little room in Cambridge to the house where I'd grown up, the house where my parents still lived, a house I did not know they did not love. They were not home. Around the lock, signs of mortality: the paint of the door scratched where my father had overshot the key's hole. I looked at the etched lines, and read in each the omen of loss to come. His vision is fading.
One year later they sold the house of twenty-four years. Twenty on from that, whenever I arrived at their new home, the place theirs not mine where I have never slept, I look for the scratches around the lock. They promise me that all is well.
2 comments:
These are both like dreams, I think.
When I first returned to work from maternity leave, I'd customarily try to open my office door with my house key. It wasn't hard to read that mistake as a wish.
Do you take Alex and Katherine to see the old house yet? Will it make it harder or easier to see there's no going back just yet? Once new things start happening, like new walls, it'll be incredibly exciting.
So your father has lived for twenty-one years with fading vision. I'm encouraged by this, as the decline of our vision (sigh) can be very disheartening. I know it's not really the sign of immediate approaching mortality, but it sure can feel disabling.
Wendy took Alex and Katherine to the house last night while I was running an event on campus. They were surprised at how small the place looks with some walls demolished. Because they are starting to feel at home in the new place -- and because their bedrooms are not being touched as part of the project -- they seem fine with the demolition so far.
Words from the lecture I was at last night: "If we live long enough, all of us become disabled, in multiple ways and for varying durations."
Post a Comment