My Hero

She travels quite a bit across the country.  Banks.  Finance.  Her afternoon flight today was postponed until tomorrow.   After several attempts preempted by travel, the delay provided much needed time to come by and pick up her quilt.

 “I’m on the way”!  “I can’t wait”.   

She arrives and greets me with a soft smile,  a warm hug.  In her eyes, anticipation. In her eyes, a hint of pink.  That glimmer that results from excess moisture when the eyes have more than they need.  

Pain and happiness at the same time. 

I had the  tissues –just in case.  

There’s a  slight quiver to her voice. “This is all I have left of Dad”. “These shirts”.  “That’s why they mean so  much”. “ And his watch”. “ I wear it every day”.   A gold watch with a wide band is fastened to her left wrist. 

Coming closer to the quilt she points to the center shirt. “This is what he was wearing when he took his last breath”.” I was with him”.

“ That picture”, pointing to the upper left corner, “is when I got married”.  “He was my hero”. “He loved me so much”.    

A brain tumor.  Dementia.  Yet, he still knew who his daughter was.  “He would smile and light up when I came into the room”, she said softly dabbing her eye. 

Happiness and pain at the same time.   

Everything possible was done for him.  Cyberknife.  He was among the first to have the latest robotic tumor treatment.  She paid for expensive 24 hr. private-duty nursing care.  She did everything.  Now he’s gone. The shirts are all she has left. Now it’s my turn. Everything needs to be done.  

His favorite song was If Heaven Was Needing a Hero.  “Hero” was  included in the decorative quilting pattern.  He loved the color red.  All of his Corvettes were “candy apple red”.  So red went around each shirt and was used for the outermost edge, the binding.   The border fabric: cars including some old red cars. He liked cars.  He owned 3 Firestone stores. She liked the black fabric on the back that looks like tire treads. 

Her first car a red ’79 Porsche.  Her brother had a red Stingray Corvette.  I walk her and her quilt to her “today” Porsche.  She wasn’t sure if she’d drive off right away or just wrap up in the car with the quilt.  It’s cold out.  I head back inside. 

Her relationship with her father–everyone doesn’t enjoy that connection. Where, in the absence of physical presence–a touch or a hug–the eternal love between them is still very palpable.  The quilt is now a surrogate.

Part of me is trying to be pragmatic.  “Death” as an old nurse told me “is a part of life”. Death is part of life. The quilt is now a surrogate.

The tissues are close. The tissues are wimpy. When it’s raining inside, they don’t absorb everything. Is crumpling tissues violent?