We sit on his bed and look out at the snow falling. “I like my window.”, he says. “Yes, it is really nice to be able to look out.”, I say. And we carry on like this, with not a lot to say to one another but somehow piecing together a full visit, almost an hour, sharing this space. I let myself feel sad thinking about what brought him to this bed, in this place, at the age of 75. Thinking about the boy who must have wondered over and over again who the woman was who gave birth to him, and what about the man, his ‘father’? How he learned a trick to managing his big feelings in adulthood by drinking them down. I think about the information I discovered in recent months about his biological family and contemplate telling him. But how to start telling such a complex story that happened in such a strangely straightforward and simple way? He wouldn’t understand the concepts of Ancestry.ca and the way the computer and its interwebs linked me directly to ‘clues’ that he probably has imagined searching for his whole life.
I found his biological aunt’s family. She is dead, of course, but her sons, his cousins could very well be alive. In fact one may live in the same town as my brother, a ferry ride away. All of this is a lot for me to start delving into today, so I don’t. Instead I sit, looking out at the falling snow, listening to him tell me things I already know and ask the questions I’ve answered many times before. I listen deeper to some of his words than others. After I share a video of C at her Tae Kwon Do event and he laughs at her unwillingness to do any of the things she is meant to do, he tells me “You are lucky to have a daughter like her.” and “I’m glad you brought her to our family.” This is an absolute truth, and he speaks them occasionally. I am learning to take them in with a deeper absorption, rather than let all of his words run off like the ramblings they have been in the past. Listening to wisdom from my father is not a pastime I grew up with, but I get some tastes of it now. Even here, in this place, this care facility he lives in because his alcohol-soaked brain lost the capacity to serve him and his full independence. On his 75th birthday.
