In a darkened room, with Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” playing softly, my father took his last breaths. My sister and I were there, stroking his hands, kissing his forehead … just the way he had once comforted us when we had nightmares or couldn’t settle ourselves to sleep.
We knew he couldn’t stay. We knew his body couldn’t take much more of the fight his lungs had picked with his heart. Still, the end came as a surprise.
Two days before he died, we sat and talked for hours. He told all the stories that had played like the background music of my life. He talked about growing up in the ‘Burgh with the Oakwood as his playground.
He brought me along just like he always had.
But for the first time, the Troy of his youth flickered before me like a movie on a screen. I saw Great Aunt Agnes as she steered big Buick onto their street, beeping all the way from 1st Avenue until she pulled up to the big, yellow house to pick up her young helper who would buy her pizza and quarts of beer at Gallow’s store so she wouldn’t have to get out of her car.
I pictured the old man in charge of the crematorium who let my dad watch him work. I heard the metal door in front of the furnace slide open and saw my dad’s face – seventy years younger — cringe as a ball of fire burst from the skull inside.
I could taste the wine Carmel Bell’s grandfather gave him to drink with dinner when he was seven years old and how exotic that seemed to him — the skinny little Irish boy down the street — whom the neighbors always wanted to feed.
There was Huey Morgan at the gas station working magic on cars while Fix Fasoli talked smack. Sal Speciale, on a break from his vegetable truck, was taking his helpers to fill up on breakfast before spending the rest of the day delivering greens.
I patted the mane of Sam Jordan’s ride. He was the route man for Freihoffer’s, and his truck had literal horsepower. An automatic, that clip-clopped through the neighborhood following his man from one house to the next. Can you smell the fruitcake? It’s still warm.
Oh, there’s grandpa! He’s out on rounds with his post bag and his pipe pointing toward home, smiling as he goes. He always identifies the people he’s talking about by name and address. Sure, it was late at night, but Mr. Rothenhaber, 343 10th Avenue, had been waiting on this letter. It would be unkind not to take it to him directly. Mrs. Rothenhaber repaid the kindness with paper-sackfuls of vegetables she grew in her garden.
We won’t have to wait much longer.
Oh, dad! There’s Tommy holding your hand by the rail station downtown.
I can feel his hand slipping away.
Look, there’s mom. Pushing you out the door when you showed up nervous for the first date, Christmas Eve, smelling all brined from the AOH. “You can’t come in here. I don’t understand it: My mother likes you and we should keep it that way.”
I can see where he’s going. The lake.
He waves me on: Come into this memory. It’s just a story to keep for the next time we meet … perhaps lined up for one of Dennis’ footraces. Den will give us a headstart but he always wins.
My adrenaline is pumping as his fades.
I see it so clearly.
Look! Everyone’s here … I tell him. You come too.
Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.
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