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To my parents it was like
I was rejecting them personally,
or like saying that I wasn't Irish anymore --
or worse, that I wasn't American anymore.
Once, I picked up the phone and my mother said,
"Where do you get your peace?"
And I repressed the urge to be sarcastic.
I said, "Well, I guess I do have less peace.
I mean, I don't think everything works out for the best,
or that some big grand plan.
I don't think everything happens for a reason
other than a tangible, actual reason.
The sad things in life... well, they seem even sadder.
But I don't know, I guess I've just learned how to live with it."
My mother said, "Oh, Julie, I just want you to be happy.
Aren't you just depressed all the time now?"
And I said, "No. It's kind of turned out
to be the opposite for me.
I'm kind of astonished that I'm even here at all.
The smallest things in life
just seem astounding to me now.
I'll look at a bridge and I'll think,
"Hey, we figured out how to make that bridge."
Look at all the knowledge that we've accumulated!
Or like, I used to think, "There are no coincidences."
And now I think there are coincidences!
Wow, coincidences!
I mean, mom, if this is all there is,
everything means more, not less, right?"
Eventually my dad called me and he said,
"Listen, it's all right. I disagree with you,
but I am proud of you for saying what you really think.
Even though I think Satan might be prowling the world,
for the ruin of your soul."
And I said, "Oh, maybe he's just sauntering."
And he said, "Lurking."
And I said, "Meandering?"
And he said, "But with a sinister intent."
And I said, "Oh, dad, now I need to tell you and mom
something truly important.
Can you get mom on the other line?"
And my mother got on and said "Now what? I'm afraid."
And I said, "Mom and dad, I'm about to have a baby."
And my mother said, "But you can't have children!"
And my dad said, "And you aren't married."
I said, "Mom and dad, it's a miracle!"
I adopted a little girl from China.
Her name is Mulan.
Lots and lots of people told me
how she was destined to be my daughter by the Universe
and how God had planned our union.
But frankly, it's a lot more meaningful to me,
that out of all the kids just as easily who could have been mine,
it was us who ended up together.
Here she is, in the vastness of all of space and time, my kid.
Mulan just so happens to be beautiful.
After one party when people were just fawning all over her,
as we drove home, I said, "Well, well. You're very pretty.
You're not going to have to develop a personality
like your mother had to." One person said,
"She's so beautiful.
When you look at her you just know there is a God."
And I thought, "Because, if she were ugly,
then there would be no God?"
Of course, my parents were immediately in the thrall of Mulan,
and having her allowed us all to have this whole other wonderful,
relationship together.
My father started calling Mulan his "little pal,"
just what he'd called me when I was a kid.
And the two of them would take naps together on his bed
and it was hard to tell which of them was snoring louder.
My father was ill.
He had emphysema and as the doctors predicted,
it was getting worse and worse.
He also had heart problems and diabetes.
A lifetime of smoking and drinking were finally exacting their price.
At the same time,
although admittedly not on the same level of concern,
my cat Rita was also very ill,
an old-age thyroid condition had
whittled her from her high weight of twenty one pounds
down to six. She stopped grooming herself,
and started to lie around all day in just one little spot [].
It was like she was an old lady in a stained housecoat
with curlers in her hair saying,
"I don't give a *** how I look anymore. It doesn't matter."
My father got weaker and weaker and
eventually he had to be on oxygen 24 hours a day
at the highest potency.
Mulan and I started to fly to Spokane every single month to see him.
Soon he couldn't leave the condo at all.
And his whole world became about
listening to his old Bob and Ray tapes,
listening to NPR,
and watching reruns of "As Time Goes By" on PBS.
It was hard to tell if
it was truly near the end or not.
In fact, we had been expecting my dad
to be going at any time for years and years.
The doctors had predicted that
my father could not possibly live past fifty
and here he was: seventy-four.
Countless Christmases all of us kids
would huddle together and get teary eyed
because we just knew this was the last Christmas with dad.
Only to find ourselves crying again the next year
because surely this would be the last Christmas with dad.
And we adored him.
Finally, a couple of weeks after one visit my mother called
to say that my father was unconscious.
When I got back to Spokane,
my mother and the hospice nurses were caring for my father
in his hospital bed in the middle of the living room. It was basically a deathwatch.
The family was starting to arrive,
my sister Meg was flying in from Japan
with her husband, Tsuyoshi.
My brothers, my aunts, my uncles.
The hospice nurses were wonderful.
One of them was particularly religious, and she kept saying,
"I think your father is seeing the others
who have passed over before him."
My mother told me that a couple of days
before my dad lost consciousness,
the same hospice nurse said to my dad,
"Who will you miss the most in this life, Bob?"
Which really irked me,
just the automatic assumption that
someone is capable of missing someone
after they're dead and then be asked to rank them, in order.
But for my mother and the hospice nurse, and my father,
that's actually a reasonable question.
And my father gestured to his right side,
where no one was standing, and said, "Janice."
We don't know any Janices. My mom was pretty sure that my dad doesn't know any Janices either. Janice.
Well, there are two things I remember about my dad dying.
And one thing I remember not being able to remember.
I remember how quickly his body got cold after he died.
I was so shocked at what heat we always generate.
Everyone else I've been around at or near death, my brother Mike, my dear friend Judy,
their bodies were just whisked away right after they died.
But my dad's body just stayed in the living room
for about six hours after he died,
and we all just got to be with him:
pet his head and kiss his cheeks,
and laugh and cry and reminisce.
And then I remember later that night,
suddenly being aware that
I couldn't remember the last time my dad and I had hugged.
What was the last time? My last trip, I suppose?
Where were we? At the coat closet?
What did I say?
"See you later." "Take care."
I can't remember!
But I do remember a couple of days before he died,
when my dad was unconscious and I was alone with him on the night watch.
And he suddenly opened his eyes and focused his gaze right at me.
I asked him to squeeze my hand. He didn't.
His eyes were bright and blue and
it looked like the Universe in there.
We held each other's gaze and
it still seems to me like time just stopped right then.
And then his eyes unfocused and his lids closed.
Well, my mother wanted to
set the date of the funeral right away
-
which we couldn't delay because
so many people were in town already from such far away places.
So my mother gathered me
and my sister and my brothers
and we all headed down to Lourdes for
Saturday's five thirty p.m. Mass.
About thirty people were waiting
in the pews for Mass to begin.
We were standing on the side of the altar
looking into the sacristy
where we could see Monsignor Ribble putting on his vestments.
To me, it was too late to interrupt him before the Mass,
but my mother said, "Follow me."
And she started to walk right across the altar,
right across where you aren't supposed to go,
towards the sacristy, with her head held high.
I followed her and so did our whole family,
heads bowed, shoulders hunched, coats dangling.
Walking across that altar, I never felt so shanty Irish,
my mother never looked so determined,
and I never loved our family more.
Monsignor Ribble was very sad
about the news of my father's death
and did not in any way seem to be upset that
we all just descended on him right before Mass.
Not only was my father in his 6:30 a.m. Mass every single morning,
two of them had actually taken an exercise class together
for survivors of heart attacks that
Sacred Heart hospital put on.
I remember picking up my dad one time,
and being so surprised to see Monsignor Ribble,
without his collar and in these grey sweats,
doing step-ups and step-together-steps.
Monsignor asked me
if I was going to be speaking at the funeral.
And I said "I suppose so",
and he took me aside and he said,
"I will ask you to refrain from speaking
about your knowledge pilgrimage."
It was like he said "your *** ***, drug induced" pilgrimage.
And I said, "Oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't."'
We went right into the Mass,
and Monsignor's homily
was all about the need for priests in the Catholic Church.
He described the situation as desperate.
I looked down the pew at my brothers and sister.
None of us are Catholic,
except my sister Meg who is, so far at least,
choosing not to have children. Are we typical?
Monsignor went on and
talked about the mystery of the Father and the Son