Father Further

My Dad is aging before my eyes. Hey, that was a worthless statement, we are all aging. Thing is, he's aging noticeably. Just now starting to go bald, but I can see it when he dips his head. He's also shrinking for some inexplicable reason; I'm taller than him when I'm just standing around. He moves with the celerity of a snail. His memory starts to betray him. Without his false teeth, he looks prepared to gum down anything, but it also shrinks his face inward. His hair, once black as mine, now is threaded through and through with more white than black. Still a fine salt-and-pepper, but the spice in his life seems mostly gone.

And it wouldn't really bother me, but for July 4, when I cooked dinner for him. I'd had to microwave his steak after embroiling it to a medium-rare, because the elderly are more susceptible to foodborne illness. Then, he said it was too tough, and would I use the cutting board and a cutting knife to slice it into little pieces?

I remember when he would cut my food into bite-sized pieces, because I lacked the manual dexterity to operate a sharp knife without taking out half the plates and myself. Just slicing, over and over, feeling the steak push back slightly, before giving way. Slice, slice, slice. Time has the same effect that that knife did. Slice, slice, slice. It moves on and on, and we cannot get out of the way. We get caught up in it's path.

Then, he complained that he couldn't even eat it because it hurt his gums too much. The dentures hurt his gums too much. he wasn't interested in the salad. Really, the only thing that drew his eye was the potato (with butter he wasn't supposed to have because of his diabetes). He could gum that down, once it cooled down. I even gave him half of mine, because it was the only thing on the table that I'd made that he could eat.

The two of us love each other, but we have never been much for speaking to each other. Consequently, I don't think either of us really knows the other. I know only the vaguest details of his life. Much of his family killed by the Red Chinese government. Grew up with his older sister, who had several children of her own to take care of. Joined the Navy, but still cannot swim. Came to this country illegally, worked as a dishwasher, hid in the rafters of his building when INS came a-knocking. Married a woman here, they had two kids, then they divorced. He returned to Taiwan, where his sister was living, and met my mom, his sister's next door neighbor. They married and returned to the U.S. He worked in photography. Now, he's retired, and watches old Chinese movies and wrestling, and likes fishing and gardening.

In the same vein, he knows I grew up in his household, was smarter than average, rocketed through secondary education, got a full scholarship to UMCP, got a degree in English, almost went to the Peace Corps until he stopped it, went to Dance School, graduated with a Dancing Doctorate, and became barred to practice dance in Maryland. Now, he knows I do something with computers and writing, and I make money from it.

This is who we are to each other. And as we sat there in silence, him reading a newspaper, me reading a book, silently chewing or gumming down our food, I realized that I'd now become one of his primary caretakers (the other my mom), and that this was the closest we would ever get, breaking bread at the same table. Two feet separating us, a lifetime separating us. I hope this is not the eventual end result of all my inter-personal relationships, but fear that this is how it will go.