My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents, Jonathan Silin [uplifting novels .TXT] 📗

am able to do certain kinds of work. That summer, as a close friend stands guard over the front door, turning away visitors wishing to extend their sympathies, I complete my course syllabus, send out two conference proposals, and edit a paper for publication. Only now however, three years later, have I been able to return to the intensely autobiographical and highly theoretical essays that have characterized my scholarship over the last twenty years.

Soon after that first fall semester begins, I see an old colleague and friend in the hallway at the graduate school where I teach. She has written to me over the summer but this is our first meeting. Perhaps because of our history, and because her own husband had died only recently, it is easy for her to read my face, filled as it is with discomfort and all the concerns for my own viability brought on by such an unanticipated loss. We stand there awkwardly. As she struggles to find words of consolation, I remind her of how, only weeks after her husband’s death, she had so graciously given out diplomas at the graduation ceremonies. She admits that she, too, is amazed when she looks back at pictures of that day. It was the students’ time, their moment m y fat h e r ’ s k e e p e r n 149

to be recognized for the achievement that graduation signaled. In her slow, thoughtful manner she summarizes, “Over time, I think it is different, not easier. It never really gets better.” Finally, she adds, “You do what is necessary.”

Through the rollercoaster ride since Bob’s death, the ambush of surprising emotions that continues to meet me at every turn, these words remain a reassuring touchstone. I certainly feel that I am doing the necessary as I head to New York City a week after Bob’s death, even before the “cremains” are actually returned, let alone the clothing, cameras, and papers that he traveled with, everything identified with its own bright orange tag connected by old-fashioned copper wire—ROBERT GIARD; 172; CASE NO. 319; JUL 02. My destination is the office of one of our oldest friends, a lawyer. As a gay man I am keyed to the potential for mishap, for interventions from long-silent family members who may contest a will or make a claim despite all the legal documents that should make such events impossible. I have only to think back to the scene in the lawyer’s office that opens this book and the manner in which my parents had essentially, if un-intentionally, written me out of their wills, to know that I am doing what is necessary to protect myself and to protect Bob’s work. I have no reason to suspect any untoward interference from Bob’s family. I just want to make sure that everything is in order. That’s what gay people with a sense of history do.

I go to this meeting alone, my backpack filled with various legal papers along with a list of questions. I eschew the offers of close friends to accompany me. I am still running on overdrive, plowing ahead, numb but in charge. The meeting occurs without incident and the estate specialist who my friend has asked to join us is clear about what needs to be done. Nevertheless, when I walk out of that law office and onto Fifth Avenue, something has changed. I feel weak and hollow, as if I might be blown over by the slightest wind on that breezeless July day.

For one thing, I know that I can no longer manage alone. Until this time, friends in my neighborhood visit each day. They take turns 150 n jonathan g. silin

answering the endless telephone calls, bringing food, helping to make decisions. They return home at night. Suddenly that will not be enough. I walk for a while until I find a public phone, no small achievement in the age of cellular phones and e-mail. I call my cousin and ask her to come to Amagansett. It is Wednesday and she can be there by Friday. “Would that be OK?” she asks. “No,” I reply. Can she arrive by tomorrow afternoon when Bob’s obituary is scheduled to appear in the local paper? It will undoubtedly prompt more calls from which I want to be protected. For the first time in the week since Bob’s death, I feel that I am falling apart, a full-scale meltdown is in progress. My cousin’s commitment to Thursday secured, I call an old friend whose initial suggestion of a visit I had rejected. Now I am ready and she will need to be there as soon as my cousin leaves. I am constructing a human fence tough enough to protect me, porous enough to mediate the world when required, and malleable enough to support my baffling moods and emotions.

Then I inexplicably find myself on the subway heading uptown toward my father’s nursing home. My niece has taken responsibility for informing my mother about Bob but I know that no one has spoken with my father. While my mother, accompanied by her health aide, visits him daily, winding her way through the two lines of wheelchairs that are often to be found outside his door for the postlunch change of scene, their attempts at communication are often botched. Both suffer from hearing and vision loss. She cannot read his finely printed words. He cannot hear her comments. More importantly, the ministrokes, which she has endured without major damage, have left her with minor cognitive deficits. She does not have the flexibility to adjust to my father’s many moods. Of course, she knows when he is depressed, angry, or out of control but is unable to see subtle difference or to modify her own responses accordingly. To me, it seems that my mother is neither able to give my father what he needs nor to get back anything to sustain her own fragile life. Nevertheless she goes every day. When