Photography © Chad Parenteau

 

Mom and Pops

On the day after Christmas, the night after mom died, my brother drove Pops to town to pick up Mr. Chin’s take-out. We had it called in, and it was supposed to be an hour, but my brother called us like a news reporter on location, said that the entire lobby was wall-to-wall full of people. There was no place for my father to sit to wait. He was ninety. My mom had held on for six weeks at hospice.

At Thanksgiving my brother made dinner for Pops, just the two of them, and Pops mistook him for mom.

“Remember that first Thanksgiving we spent together?” he asked. My brother couldn’t remember because he wasn’t a year old yet, but then he realized Pop’s confusion.

“We can visit her after we eat,” he threw out on-the-fly.

~~~

“He went to the bathroom before we left,” my brother said. “We should be okay.”

“We should go get him.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Your father is losing it,” early-December mom say to us in between times of saying other things. “When you are cremated, they just don’t throw you in an oven,” was one of them. “I’m not scared, I can smell the roses in Winter,” was another. Then, “Take care of him.”

Another forty-five minutes went by and my son volunteered to drive to Mr. Chin’s. He only had his license for a few days.

“I’ll go with you,” I said.

He rolled his eyes.

“Just to help carry the food.”

“I thought I was picking up Pops.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” We drove in Pop’s car, the one we had taken the keys away from, so that Pops wouldn’t drive by himself to see mom. We left the rest of the family members at the house.

~~~

Two weeks before Thanksgiving mom was transferred to hospice. I visited daily, mostly because the nurses and aides, up the hall, didn’t visit her much at all. Once, she was left on the toilet for over an hour. “It is the loss of dignity that makes the dying worse,” she said.

As for Pops, it was over an hour at Mr. Chin’s and at this point of his failing he didn’t worry about peeing his pants, but we did. There had been already too much indignity, but when my son asked him to leave with him, unfortunately, he refused. Now there was four of us standing in, what felt like a crowd in front of the stage at a popular concert. When Mr. Chin called out a name, the customer had to weasel their way past people in zig-zag fashion, cutting past, and then leaving through the crowd, with the large plastic to-go bag, with a yellow smiley face on it, held high over their heads.

Then, finally our name was called. Rather, it was the name I gave them on the phone, intended to amuse my brother. “RICHARD HURTS?” Mr. Chin yelled out.

“That’s us,” I shouted.

My brother and son laughed, but my dad didn’t get it, and was trying to move forward to the counter. My brother assessed the situation and lightly grabbed his arm, speaking loudly over the large crowd, “Dad! Your car is here. I brought it.”
That was good enough for him to turn around, thinking that his keys had been found, and he could finally drive once more. He had been looking for them the entire time we had them, every day this month. Instead of heading to the driver’s side, my brother walked him to the passenger side door, then placing a plastic bag on the seat. He had urinated himself.

~~~

At his home, after some objection, my brother helped him change and started the washing machine. We waited to eat during this time, another fifteen minutes, until the cardboard containers began circulating around the table like a slow wheel being spun.

“I wish Maddie was here to enjoy all of you here,” Pops said, resigned. “She would have liked this.”

“Yes, me too,” someone said.

“After dinner, will someone take me to see her?”

~~~

I’ve always heard that a death doesn’t become real until you say it out loud. In this case it was something far worse, as we had to say it out loud at least ten times to him at dinner.

“I’ll be back in the morning, Pops.” I told him, knowing he won’t remember. I knew he would never remember tonight’s dinner with all of us either, and not remember the awful feeling of his wife dying, until the next time we once again had to tell him, when we would all had to feel that way.

 

Bestselling Author, Timothy Gager has published 19 books of fiction and poetry, which includes his third novel, Joe the Salamander, and his most recent collection of poetry, Almost Bluing for X-Tra Whiteness. He hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, MA from 2001 to 2018, and started a weekly virtual series in 2020. He has had over 1000 works of fiction and poetry published, 19 nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work also has been nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, The Best Small Fictions Anthology and has been read on National Public Radio.

In 2023, Big Table Publishing published an anthology of twenty years of his selected work, with 175 pages of new material: The Best of Timothy Gager.

Chad Parenteau is Associate Editor of Oddball Magazine.