Wednesday, May 12, 2004
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Are You There God? It’s Me; Ari.
Until I was 15 years old I went to parochial schools. We had mandatory prayer sessions and my family went to the temple associated with the school. I was surrounded with opportunities to pray. And it pissed me off. To pass the time I’d read the English translation on the other page. And it pissed me off even more. Sentences upon paragraphs of “God is great” and “God is the omnipotent”, and I wanted to gag. At school there was a morning prayer service and an afternoon one. Twice a day, everyday. When I was dragged to temple, I’d sit there for at least half an hour before my mom would elbow me and hiss; “you’re in temple, pray!”. Right. From then on, I’d spend the majority of Rosh Hashana checking out the temple-worthy outfits the women were wearing. Or, the boys my age {the ones without raging acne, thank you ~ those were the ones checking me out, mind you}. Or, trying to catch my best friend’s eye so we could sneak into the ladies auxiliary lounge, drink their orange soda and gossip. After temple, I’d be pulled aside by mom and told that I had to learn how to behave like a grown up once in awhile. I’d have to acquiesce to praying while in school and temple.
“C’mon, if God needs me to reaffirm his place in the universe we’re all screwed. Our lives aren’t so great anyway and you pray all the time”.
“So imagine how things might be if we didn’t.” And she’d have there me. It would hold at least until the very next time I was in the same predicament.
So three weeks ago my mom was in her car accident. And it was awful {mainly because she was flat out missing for three hours}. But my dad {possibly the world’s most stoic and least sentimental man} stepped up in a wildly impressive manner. He does emotion, don’t misunderstand, when I was growing up my dad could scream, yell and punish as well as any member of Saddam’s Fatah movement. But as we got older we exhausted some of his anger away. He mellowed and became genial, at times, even cute. So the past 3 weeks, this is how it has been; he wakes up, walks our two dogs {Redd, the 13 year old Dalmatian and Willy, the 16 year old shepherd mix}. Then he goes to his office for 9 hours, my mom in the hospital for 3 to 4 hours, home to walk the dogs again, lather, rinse, repeat. For Mother’s Day my mom refused to let us celebrate in the hospital. She said it was no place to celebrate and we would wait a week and do it at home. Uh huh… so we kids thought. But no, my dad showed up, kidnapped my mom and took her to the salon for a mani/pedi and shampoo. I cannot stress to you enough, my father is not the womanized sort of long time married man who thinks chintz is lovely and holds my moms purse while she shops. Not in a million years. He’s Red Foreman to her Kitty – that’s actually a perfect analogy. He has his sweet moments but overall he’s somewhat of a hardass.
Last night my dad came home from visiting my mom and got the leashes to walk the dogs. Redd is lazy by nature and for a change {sarcasm} he wouldn’t get up.
“He was just…gone…” my dad cried into my cell phone. It was just before 10pm, I was on my way home from dinner out and here I was, standing at Amsterdam and 86th, waiting for the M86 and sobbing along with my dad. I’ve never seen my dad cry {and technically still haven’t} but it’s an odd moment when your father cries to you for the first time. He was heartbroken. Redd is a dog my dad brought home on a whim 13 years ago. He was using a pay phone in the city and saw an ad. A guy was looking for a good home for his dog, who he had to give away. And that was how Redd came to be our second dog. And last night, by himself, he had to cover our dog in a sheet and carry him out to the car and drive him down to the vet for whatever they do with Redds that are no more… My mom has to go home to a slightly more melancholy house when she’s pretty all around brokenish already. And my dad, it seems, can cry.
So… if there’s anyone out there, and it turns out my mom was right? Yikes, but uhm, well thanks, I guess. And if she’s wrong, huh… well, that’d be a first.
Incidentally, mom comes home tomorrow and I'm headed out to NJ to play nurse for two days, I doubt I'll post, but you never know.
10:13 PM
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