Ah, Wednesday. A good day. I figured out that sex scene for my short story--it's actually written better than the rest of the story, so I have to figure out how to lay that template on the rest of the piece, so to speak.
There were no protests in the Mission during my writing group. The angriest person I encountered was a guy yelling at a beggar, "I already GAVE you a quarter, asshole!" Not a bad night at all. The weather was warm. I had just inspired two writers. I was headed home to look up library hours for Thursday.
Then my brother called. My brother only calls on weeknights for three reasons: he's coming into town, he's bored driving back from L.A., or my father has done something monumental.
By monumental I do not mean things like "won the lottery" or "gotten married." Monumental usually = hospital.
What I know at the time of this writing is that he is in ICU due to a possible heart attack (the doctor won't confirm but my father thinks that's what it was), gall stones, and kidney stones. He's getting all of the tests on Thursday. [Editor's Note: I'm writing this Wednesday night. I don't know what my frame of mind will be Thursday.] My brother gave me the low-down. I listened attentively, asked questions in all the right places, and then gave my brother the funny story about "Desert Solitaire" to cheer him up.
I'm not flying to Ohio. And neither is my brother.
Yet.
My brother would have no trouble, except he's not good at care-taking. My father has a girlfriend who can take care of him, and I think my brother is relying on that. And then there's me.
God, if I gave you the entire story between my father and I, you would still be reading this damn post a week from now. It all boils down to this--I have to love him. My mother asked me to. That doesn't mean that I have to go home--that's a no-win, especially with me unemployed and with our relationship so strained. Going home would just upset him. I'd get off the plane and that disputed heart-attack of my father's would be a confirmed one in about twenty minutes. "You don't have to like him," my mother said. "But you do have to love him. He's your father." I told the Airman this story once, and he gritted his teeth. "She's right, you know." I glared at him, but he had every right to tell me this--his father was no prince, either. But he was still his father.
So, I have to love him. I think on him like I try to think on all of the other "princes," the men that I've been intimate with who, in one form or another, pop up in my life wanting to know why I walked away from someone who "really cared for me" (referring to them--strange, but they have wives they can go back to. I've moved ON, already). I was pestered by one of these princes while I was in Carlsbad--he sent me an e-mail. I went about my day...fished with my brother, wrote, read, and then jumped in the pool. "Please," I whispered to Prince E-mail, "please please PLEASE let me go. Don't make me get mean..." And I remembered something from Liz Gilbert. (This is where it pays off tremendously to read and watch films.) "Love him, then, send him light, and let him go." And I swam in that pool and let him go. I filed the e-mail. I never responded.
I was thinking of my father in that regard earlier this evening while I was getting ready for bed. I don't wish my father dead--he has the power to make some people happy in the world, and therefore still contributes to society. I knew I had to love him. I don't like him much, but I have to love him. "Well," whispers the page, "love him, then, send him light, and let him go."
Sending you love tonight, Daddy. Wishing you well. Letting someone else take on the rest.
Onward.
P.S. - This is where today's title for the blog series Life For Rent comes from. Waiting for my/Prince to come. [Editor's Note: Barring any last-minute trips east, this blog will resume on Monday. Have a good weekend, all.]
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