From my dad’s position, propped up in bed on the fourth floor of Highland Hospital, he can just see the top of the new library going up across South Avenue. A team of construction workers started scurrying about at 8AM. My dad figures the guy with the white hat is the foreman and the blue hats are the carpenters and the green are the plumbers. The red hard hats are the electricians. In better days this would be the formative stage of a painting.
Leo was adjusting to the idea of hospice. A prescription would be ordered soon and we were discussing the location. The prognosis was a longer window than the qualifications for the Leo Center allowed. The appropriately named Palliative Care Center in the St Ann’s complex, near my parent’s apartment, is considered the Cadillac of hospice facilities. Fred Lipp, the painting teacher my dad and I had for twenty years, spent his last days there earlier this year. Fred was lucid til the end and telling me in his last days, “Your father is a trip.”
My dad was talking about the Chinese burial items that we had seen in a case at the Metropolitan when we went down to the Van Gogh show. He was working on some paintings of them. I found some pictures of those items on my iPad and he thumbed through them. He has an insatiable art appetite, something he passed onto me.
I remember arriving early at that Met show. We took the train in from Montclair with my brother, Mark. We studied the Van Goghs, ate lunch in the cafeteria and returned to the show for more. We took a break for dinner in the dining room and went back up to the show until closing. Somewhere along the line we saw the Chinese burial objects. Holy Sepulchre’s green burial, which has already been arranged, probably precludes artifacts in the grave.
My dad didn’t care for the lunch that was delivered and the nurse said we could call down and order whatever he wants. He was thinking about a peanut butter sandwich so I placed the order. Light on the jelly and whole wheat bread, preferably without the crust. The person on the other end said she couldn’t do that at this hour so I explained that it was all my dad wanted. She thought for a bit and said, “OK but you’re gonna have to cut the crust off yourself.” I described the route that Jack Nicholson took in “Five Easy Pieces” to successfully order toast. And that produced a hearty laugh from my father.
2 Comments
Very moving posts, Paul. Kind thoughts to your Dad and you.
Not a new library, but a multi-year gut-and-refurb of School #12. The Highland Branch of the library is attached, and still open for business. Best to your dad, and use our driveway for parking anytime.