Suzy Says

My father’s birthday falls on St. Patrick’s Day, with the result that I have always thought of it simply as Dad’s birthday, mostly forgetting about the Other Reason for celebration that day (a remarkable oversight, considering that it seems to be mostly an excuse for drinking). The fact that my Dad was the most English of gentlemen and born on the most Irish of holidays has always amused me, particularly since he was never an ardent fan of the inhabitants of Eire. Sample quote: “How do you solve the Irish problem? Replace the Irish with the Dutch. The Dutch will pump out the bogs and make Ireland valuable farmland, and the Irish will get drunk, let the dikes leak, and drown themselves.” I’m sorry to say that he actually trotted this one out at a dinner party with, yes, you guessed it, Irish guests. In his defense, he did apologize (but only after my stepmother told him to).

It’s been four years since his sudden death, and although I think of him every day, I think of him more on his birthdays and deathdays, marvelling as the number of years we have survived without him gets higher and higher. As faithful readers know, my mother has been fighting a valiant battle against cancer for the past few years, and though she has managed to survive – miraculously, in the true sense of that mostly over-used word – I can’t help but fear the loss of my remaining parent. I don’t think anyone is ever old enough to face being an orphan unafraid. And the fact that she has proven the doctors wrong on at least four different occasions when they were sure she was wiping her feet off on death’s doormat means that when she really does go, it will be almost as great a shock as my father’s death. Maybe even more.

I’ve been thinking about what it will be like if I can’t get up there in time, just as I couldn’t get to London in time to see my father’s body. My sisters, stepmother, niece, and brother-in-law did, but he was autopsied before I could get to London from San Francisco. I really wish I’d had the chance to say good-bye. My younger sister actually climbed into his hospital bed after his death and put his arms around her, resting her cheek against his stilled chest. He was still warm, he still smelled the way he always had, his hair was still soft. You could almost imagine he was still there. Almost. She says he looked incredibly peaceful, and for that I am thankful. She had been through so much taking care of him that she deserved that final gift, but I have to admit to a sneaking envy that I could not have shared it.

So I hope I will be able to say good-bye to Mom one last time, so it won’t be as if she, too, just vanished off the face of the earth. Other than that, I don’t know what to hope for a woman who will be 73 next month and has cancer throughout her bones and tumors on her brain. Maybe I do: the least amount of pain, the most happiness, the most dignity, the most love, and the most peace.