TEN

As a young man, he called to tell you he was sick with the flu. You were concerned and asked him if he had any food in the house.

“No, I haven’t been eating much,” he replied. So you went through your cupboards and put some crackers, noodles, malt-o-meal and cookies in a bag. You stopped at the food store and bought him fresh fruit, eggs, and juices. Two days later he called you to say, “I have a small infestation of weevils. Thanks Mom.”

He worked out daily. His body was buff and you wondered if he took steroids. He always said “no.” Once he talked you into joining a gym nearby. “A sweet deal,” he called it.  You joined and when you went there the following week a sign on the door said, “CLOSED.”

He asked you for a loan to buy a treadmill. You gave him some money. Two years later, he decided to sell it and you bought it for the original amount.

You’d go to his house, a mile from yours, and work out with him. One day you were weight lifting on his red cushioned bench and he lit up a joint of marijuana.

“I can’t believe you are smoking this in front of me,” you said, hoping he would put it out. He laid his head back on the loveseat across from you and with a big grin he said, “Ah, Mom, I know you and Dad smoked pot when you were younger.” You smiled, knowing what he said was true.

You don’t have an 11, 12, or any other number for this story. What you wanted to write about is too painful to say, even to think about for longer than a couple minutes. Had he lived, you would have had plenty of opportunity to discuss it with him and hear his take on it and he could listen to why it occurred in the first place.

You wanted to write about how he took risks. About the thrill of it, his fascination with fast cars, motorcycles, and drugs. The delight he took in going from one successful project to another—never staying around long enough to develop it. The stunts he performed for free, like the wheelie he executed so perfectly until he forgot to look, or couldn’t peer over his headlight, or perhaps he was thinking about what he would do after his ride home from the gym.

But the stories stop here. There aren’t any more to tell. You want to write a few more about his adult years. You want to share stories about his college life, the date of his wedding and to whom. You want to talk about his grandchildren and what a great uncle he was to his nieces and nephews. You want to hear him give people “hell” that weren’t being nice to you or his sisters. You want to hear his laughter, see him smiling with that huge grin of his that was mischievous but invigorating at the same time.  But that is never going to happen. Of course, you can always imagine how his life turned out. You can picture him as a young man settled down, but at the end of that daydream, you face the truth. You never had the chance to have the conversation you always wanted to have with him. So, there are only ten things you really know about him.