Assisted Loving (12 page)

N
ow it's fall, and Yom Kippur is coming, the big day of atonement. A day for fasting and asking God forgiveness for sins. I guess Dad's conscience is clean because he's scheduled hip-replacement surgery. Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. I'm not devout either, but it seems reckless, taunting the almighty in this particular way.

Well, Mom was the one who cared about Judaism. But once we buried her, Dad headed right to the shrimp scampi and lobster rolls. Like a dog off a leash. Why not get the old hip replaced on Yom Kippur? In a Jewish area like Great Neck, he's telling me, there are plenty of openings for surgery that day. He figures if he can get it done in October, then he'll be back in Florida for the winter to run around like new.

“And, besides,” he observes, “my doctor doesn't want me eating, so I'll be fasting anyway. You don't even need to be around. I can drive myself to the hospital and leave the car in long-term parking. I'll be fine. You don't have to worry at all.”

Well, I do worry. His heart is not in the shape it should be for major surgery. And as annoying as he might be at times, I don't want to lose the old man. If he's gone, who's going to call me six times in an afternoon to change dinner plans? Who's going to push his cornucopia of pills on me with evangelical fervor each time I sneeze? Who's going to give me unsolicited advice about my career? Regale me with his bridge scores? Nag me to bring him my old socks because his are too tight? More important, who's going to be around to say, “It's a thrill to hear from you,” each time I call, even if he's only half the listener my mother was? A hip replacement is serious at his age. I'm worried. I really should be there at dawn to take him to the hospital.

“I guess I could come out and spend the night,” I say.

“That would be wonderful, a real mitzvah,” he says.

So, on Yom Kippur Eve, while synagogues are filled with the pious and repentant, I go out to Great Neck to sleep over. At the Centra, he's waiting for me in the lobby, which is deserted at nine
P.M
. Only one other person is around, a lady in a hairnet, asleep in a lobby chair, with head down against her pink housedress. Dad's in an old sweatshirt. “I'm so glad you're here, Bobby,” he tells me. “Just delighted.” We pass an hour playing Scrabble. Then it's time to go to sleep. His foldout bed in his tiny guest room is broken and covered with files. So I sleep on the living room couch. Only I can't sleep, not at all. He's
snoring away in the next room, a kind of high-pitched dolphin-like snore, and I'm lying awake, wondering if the surgery is a mistake. By his television, there's a videotape made by my brother (the archivist of the family, who has a fascination for our lineage that I don't share.) It's a compilation of our home movies. I pop it in and am shocked to see my father as a slim teenager at the ocean with his sister, and then frisking with my very young mother at a mountain lake. The color is washed out, but their vitality as a couple comes through brightly. Soon there are two babies, quickly toddlers, then awkward boys mugging for the camera on family vacations. Careful as they were with money, they took us every year to the Caribbean. We found out in later years my mother was scared of flying and didn't want to leave any orphans behind. So my brother and I were included and treated like welcome traveling companions. My father spent much of his time behind the camera, intent on preserving his family. His shots were long and lingering, trained on the three of us so that you could almost sense his pride. As I grew older, I'd get behind the camera. Here he is, playing tennis with Mom the year of her two-tone hairdo. Here he is kissing her at the hotel in St. Croix, where she got drunk on coconut daiquiris, the only time we'd ever seen her out of control, tipsy in heels and white cocktail dress on a pebbled path under the palms. Here they are, dancing at my brother's bar mitzvah, Dad with hilarious sideburns, Mom in mod attire of the day. Dad did well to give us the life we had. But he also did well for himself, and he intends to continue to do so until the end. A bum hip isn't going to get in the way of his fun. When the video ends, I lean back on the couch. He's still snoring in the next
room. I lie awake, admiring how brave he is, how insistent he is on wanting to enjoy himself. He wants to live, love, walk without pain. And he's bucking the system to ensure it, at eighty. Good for my old man.

I wake him up at dawn. He's in a terrible mood because he can't eat anything. He can't even have tea. He hobbles into the bathroom and has his typical marathon in there. Impossible as this is to fathom, on the day of such potentially dangerous surgery, he is lingering, reading a bridge magazine. I find myself tapping my fingers, fuming. Then he puts on his worst shirt (missing button, stained) and throws his personal things into a plastic bag from Kmart. “Dad, come on,” I say. “You're going to a good hospital. You might meet someone. Wear a nice shirt and pack your stuff in a better bag.”

“What does it matter, Bobby?”

“It matters to
me
. Is it so wrong I care about your appearance?”

“You used to nag your mother like this all the time, and it wore her out.”

I go to his closet, pull down a decent black shoulder bag, and repack for him. He changes into a blue button-down shirt, resentful as a huffy six-year-old.

“You should be grateful I'm here to tell you what's good for you, Dad.”

“Okay. Okay, already. For Pete's sake.”

“Don't get testy with me, Dad.”

“Okay. But please let's just go!”

I dislike having to be the parent to this willful kid, and I fume in his car as I drive and he listens to the morning news at a volume that only increases my aggravation.

In the hospital, I wait with him in an empty lobby of
the special-surgery unit. It really is a quiet day here, as if it's Christmas. I can't believe I almost let him go through this alone. Hospitals are so intimidating. If I outlive my brother, I wonder to myself, will there be anyone around to see me through something like this? Dad is suddenly in such a cheerful mood, with strangers to charm. A slim blond nurse asks him to change into a hospital gown.

“Gladly,” he says. Her name is Mary, he finds out.

“And I'm Joseph,” he says. “We make a good team.”

Two orderlies bring a gurney. They help him climb on. His gown flaps open to reveal his hairless legs and soft belly. He lies on his back with his hands behind his head, smiling, looking around, happy to be getting his way—having his hip fixed despite all the naysaying expert advice. The last I see him, he's being wheeled down the hall while singing “Bye Bye Blackbird.” Then he disappears through two swinging doors. Gone.

It's a six-hour operation. So I go find a synagogue to kill some time. What else do you do in Great Neck on Yom Kippur? I choose a modern-looking temple on Middle Neck Road and have to explain myself at the door because I'm a stranger without a ticket. But I get in. I put on a skullcap and prayer shawl and stand in the back of the sanctuary, feeling underdressed without a sports coat, watching all the families, husbands and wives, so scrubbed and attractive. People my age already have teenagers. I see good-looking fathers who could be my peers with arms around good-looking kids.

It's reminding me of all those years sitting with my parents in synagogue, far into my middle age, when my brother had to be with his wife's family in New Jersey. I'd watch all the people I knew from my Hebrew school
days. Their lives had changed—marriages, mortgages, children. Mine had not. I was still Bobby, the bachelor son.

Dad would fall asleep during the sermons. Mom sat upright, focused on what small wisdoms a small-town rabbi could provide on a day for reflection. Sometimes she would take my hand and squeeze it. I'd often think she was naive, taking faith so seriously. It made her righteous, too. And she could make it hard for friends and relatives who dared to date outside the fold. To her, marrying a gentile was a crime as severe as armed robbery. It made dating hard for my brother, who was so shy. And when I had a lovely Catholic girlfriend my senior year of high school, I had to face Mom's petty disappointment on a daily basis. But synagogue was her succor. Year after year I'd sit with her there and sigh and roll my eyes as we'd rise and sit, rise and sit, for prayers that were achingly redundant. Later, when she was ill, and so frail, I'd be glad she had had the opportunity to pray for a better year. And at the end of the service there was always a big hug and kiss on the cheek as she'd wish me a good year, with the natural warmth of the one person who cared more than anyone. “Thank you for coming home,” she'd always say. “It means the world to me.” Then, outside on the marble steps above Clinton Avenue, after Dad's endless shmoozing, we'd head home to her matzoh ball soup.

Yizkor is a section of the service for the deceased. In Great Neck, now, I am alone, praying in memory of my mother. I imagine I am one of many in this synagogue with powerful memories of a parent's love, and regrets about the conflicts we had. Are regrets about conflicts all I'm going to have with my father? I can't get the thought
out of my head now, while saying prayers in memory of my mother, that my father may not make it through his surgery today.

Soon, we get to the atonement prayer that's a main attraction on Yom Kippur. It's called the “Vidui” and starts with the word
Ashamnu
. The congregation rises, looking repentant. The traditional ritual prescribes that you chant your sins aloud and ask God forgiveness as you beat your breast. It's dramatic and soulful, the perfect way for expressing remorse for the litany of bad behavior that is my daily life.

I'm thinking that “we” also judge people by their shoes, don't return calls from people who can't do anything for us, and give chatty fathers the bum's rush on the phone. The prayer is going on, becoming more intense now, as the congregation calls out more sins. I chant with them, beating my breast harder, faster now, with something like desperation.

I stop short.
Yes, I do
, I tell myself.
I do. I judge people. I judge all the time!
And it is as unkind as it is limiting.

On my way back to the hospital after services, I feel, if not purged, then at least chastened. Nothing like a breast-beating for some perspective, if only for a day. Yes, I am too judgmental. Too critical. And stuck. So I tell myself that, starting today, I am going to make a real effort to stop judging my father, along with everyone else.

A half hour later, I'm walking into North Shore Hospital. In a sunlit room in a cheerfully painted wing, I find Dad, rosy cheeked and singing. Jeff, my brother, is there, just arrived from holidays with his in-laws. We can't believe it. Is this how a man with a pronounced heart ailment behaves after going through the major hip-replacement surgery he had been warned against by experts?

“Well, look who's here,” he says to a nurse. “It's son number two, Bobby!”

I'm so overwrought with delight at his condition that I can hardly force words out as I kiss his smooth forehead. “How are you doing, Dad? You look great.”

“Everything went beautifully,” he croons. “I couldn't be better.”

Jeff and I give each other looks. We've been giving each other looks about my father ever since we were old enough to be cynical. Tonight, along with our relief and gratitude to still have him around, we are feeling only amusement. Dad loves his epidural. Loves his nurse and our attention. We're smiling at him in a way we rarely do in hospitals—smiles of happy surprise at a happy ending.

With Mom, hospital visits were never like this. We knew she'd never get better. I always felt guilty for feel
ing inconvenienced and not spending as much time with her as Jeff did, especially because he was the one with the family and the business to run. And I didn't know how to advocate for her if she wasn't getting the best treatment. But when Jeff sensed any doctor wasn't on top of things he got pushy and belligerent. Mom's blood condition—called polycythemia vera—was rare, and he knew more about it than many doctors. It made Dad and me feel useless and inadequate. He'd throw questions at staffs, demand answers, and get them. He had many hostile exchanges with arrogant and misinformed doctors. In hospitals he could be like a raging bull who would do anything necessary to see that attention was properly paid to our mother. And he demanded it from my father and me, too, which caused brutal tension between us.

One day, when my mother had been in our local Long Island hospital for more than a week, I strolled in late for an afternoon visit. Mom was asleep.

“Where have you been?” Jeff asked me.

“I went to the beach,” I said.

“All afternoon?”

“I needed a break from this hospital. What's the problem?”

“I just got here to find you gone and Dad playing tennis. Mom was alone all day.”

His nostrils were flaring, and his face was flushed, a kind of righteous Jewish Holy Roller look in his eyes. I knew he was right—I shouldn't have played hospital hooky when Mom was alone all day, trying so hard not to feel frightened. But I hated having him as the family gatekeeper and scorekeeper. Such a pushy conscience.

“I need you to get your ass in here when you say you'll be here,” he said.

“I need you to stop telling me what to do,” I shot back. “You're driving all of us crazy.”

He sighed and lowered his voice. He looked exhausted, overwhelmed to be carrying the ball for Dad and me. “Don't you know what you do for her?” he said. “You're the one who entertains her. You make her laugh. Don't make me tell you how important that is. It's your only job here, and you better damn well do it.”