A Cabin in the Mountains

It was a perfect May morning.  The sky was clear and the temperature was mild.  It was one of those pregnant with possibility days, the kind of day that would make S. Clay Wilson's Checkered Demon say "Nice day for something." 

I drove up to my father's house and found my sister and brother there.  Our father was lying unconscious in a hospital bed in the living room.  He was dying.  After a month divided between the hospital and a convalescent home he had opted for home hospice care.  He had arrived at home earlier that morning.  His complexion was pale and his breathing was regular.  His doctor had told us it was a matter of days till he'd die.   He had congestive heart failure and had reached the point where his heart could no longer move the blood around fast enough to distribute oxygen.

The hospice nurse arrived shortly after I did.  My sister, also a nurse, had done a lot of hospice work.  As the nurse unpacked her gear and checked my dad's vitals she and my sister made small talk about people they knew and places they'd worked.  Hospice nursing is a small world.  She gave him an alcohol rub and checked his diaper.  We sat back to wait.  

Less than an hour after the nurse arrived dad made a gurgling noise.  I could see him turn blue.    The nurse checked his pulse and his breathing.  He was dead.  My sister, brother, and I eached kissed him on the cheek.  The nurse called the crematorium and packed up to leave.  We adjourned to the kitchen and poured drinks while we waited for the people from the crematorium to pick up the body.

None of us was upset.  We'd had over a month to prepare for his death and all of us despised him.  We were relieved.  He was a good father in many ways.  He provided well for his family.  All the children went to college and the family never wanted for anything.  He worked very hard, drank very little, and had the courage of his convictions.  He was also verbally abusive and manipulative.  We all grew up fearing The Lecture.  It came frequently.  He had a talent for presenting verbal abuse in a well organized, coherent manner.  An  observer would have remarked on his rhetorical skills.  He never swore and never indulged in name calling.  It always seemed like a prepared speech. 

He tried to play my sister, brother and me against each other.  When he was alone with one of us he'd talk about the awful things the other two had done, implying that the listener was the favored child.  It didn't work. 

He outlived our mother by five years.  He had a very hard time adapting to living alone.  He missed her companionship and, like many men in his generation, had never done any cooking, laundry or house cleaning.  He announced to the three of us shortly after her death that he was going  to rely on us to fill the void.  If any of us had had the slightest desire to be around him it would have been easy to do.  

About two years before he died I brought him home from a baseball game.  I was tired from sitting in the sun and emotionally vulnerable.  He asked me why his children avoided him.  I made the mistake of telling him.  He didn't believe he'd ever been abusive and started listing all of the things that he'd done for us, suggesting that we should have a bond based on obligation.  I got angry and left abruptly.  

Immediately after that he sent me what we called The Bad Baby email.  It was very eloquent.  He listed all of the horrible, ungrateful things I'd done since infancy.  It began when I had colic. He held me and sang Brahms' Lullaby to me.  I cried and thrashed around instead of being soothed.  Nearly a thousand words later the email reached the present.  The implication of his sainthood was not subtle. 

We reconciled a few months later without an exchange of apologies. We didn't become closer than we were before.  

While we were waiting in the kitchen the doorbell ring.  We thought it was the men from the crematorium.  Instead it was a woman he'd worked with--he had retired only two years previous.  She was in her forties and saw him as a father figure.  She was dressed for church although she was  wearing evening makeup.  She'd hoped to see him before he died.  To her shock she found a body in the living room and the three children sitting in the kitchen drinking and showing no signs of grief.  We offered her a beverage of her choice and she declined politely.  She expressed her condolences and told us how good he'd been to her and her daughters.  She tried to make a dignified exit but it was clear she was taken aback.  If she had not been wearing three inch heels she probably would have run.  It was childish of us but we broke out laughing as soon as the door shut behind her. 

Our dad had requested that we scatter his ashes at the cabin near Lake Tahoe that he and my mom had owned for many years.  On a Saturday we and the ashes made the three hour drive to the cabin.   We stopped along the way for coffee and went to a farmer's market.  I bought an emu feather cat toy and my brother bought a flat of apricots.  

The cabin was part of a small group of cabins on land owned by the Forest Service.  When we arrived we knocked on the doors of our parents' former cabin and the two on either side.  No one was there.  We decided to dispose of the ashes stealthily.  We carrried the box to the bank of the creek, actually the north fork of the American River, that ran behind the cabins.  We found a pile of pine needles, made a hole in it, dumped the ashes, and covered them.  We ran back to the car almost giggling.  We all felt like we had just pulled off a hilarious, original, but harmless  practical joke.  

On the way home we listened to music, laughed, and talked.  We stopped at the legendary Redrum, formerly Murder, Burger in Davis for lunch.  It was like a pleasant day trip.

I had never believed in closure.  After this experience I decided that it might be possible after all.  People had told me that I'd regret not having mad my peace with my father before he died.  They were wrong.  I buried a lifetime of guilt, fear, and resentment in the hole in the pine needles with the ashes.