We adapted, though, and one of our adaptations was getting him a motorized wheelchair. It was a zippy little thing, and while Dad never was entirely great at steering it about, it gave him a sense of agency. On a beautiful day, I'd get him out of the house and into the chair, shifting oxygen from the ever-thrumming in-house O2 concentrator to the tank that mounted neatly on the back of the chair. Then we'd putter off down the sidewalk, Dad under his own steam, me walking alongside for technical support...and just to talk. I could have pushed him in a regular chair, but there was something pleasant, in a father and son sort of way, about being side by side.
Dad loved loved loved to talk, and that was particularly true as we'd encounter his neighbors. An extrovert by nature, he missed the back and forth of banter as senescence and illness narrowed the world around him, so those walks invariably involved saying hello to someone.
One neighbor in particular would often be out, and she and Dad would shoot the breeze for a while. She was always warm, always kind, and graciously and genuinely engaged with him. She and her family were all conservative Catholics, folks of a traditional and earthy pleasantness.
In every election, they'd have signage for the most right-wing Republican. The Trump signs went up early, and stayed up late. But though my Republican Dad loathed Trump as a betrayer of all that was noble and good about America at her height, that never even faintly came into play. She was welcoming and genuine, he was happy to be welcomed, they'd banter and she'd laugh at his puns, and that was that. She'd often say that she'd pray for him as we departed, and Dad would thank her for the kindness.
Dad's been gone for a while now.
Last week, after I ran weekly errands for Mom and took her out to lunch, she asked that I bring her by that same neighbor's house. She had written a get well letter for the neighbor's brother, a fellow birder and companion on many of her birding trips, who was recently diagnosed with leukemia and isn't doing well at all.
So we stopped at the neighbors' house on our way to get pho at a favorite little Vietnamese place.
I got out of the car, walked to the door, knocked, and after handing over the letter, Mom's neighbor came out to talk with Mom about how he was doing. They talked for a little while, and Mom offered up supportive words of comfort and concern. Prayers were requested, and Mom...whose prayer group at her very very progressive church meets every Sunday...promised to offer up prayers for healing and strength.
At lunch, over steaming bowls of delicious noodle soup, she and I talked at length about how disturbed we both are at the crass and cruel direction Trump is taking America, how the national purpose she and Dad both served and cared for is being systematically replaced with venality, bullying, and greed.
"And who is my neighbor?" asked the expert in the law.
The answer is right there in front of us. Always, always, right there in front of us.
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