San Francisco, California
I promised to post an update on the several Aeonia (Day Eight) when their flowers reached full bloom. This particular monster now threatens to upend the pot in which it towers over the succulent’s more subtle geometric leaves. Gaudy, is the word I’d use. Other-worldly. Each cluster is sticky, wet, and shiny, like the whole thing has just emerged from the bottom of the sea. John calls it noble, but I’m not sure I like this opulent creature except for moments like this, when the blossoms catch the morning sun, a counter to my father’s sculpture hiding in the shadows.
Both of my parents have been more present in my life these last six weeks. First, because I wish in my heart of hearts that the grown-ups would come back and tell me what to do. But, second, because I think I now better understand the seminal experience that shaped their adulthoods, together and alone.
My father memorized the eye chart so he could join the Army in 1942 at the age of 18. He headed for Europe knowing theoretically, at least, that he might never come back home, but excited about doing his part for the war. His high school sweetheart (my mother) had to watch him go without that same sense of purpose, distraction and adventure that Dad would chronicle in letters over the next four years. My sister recently collected and collated his riveting day-by-day account in which we we get to feel him grow from boy to man - excited, angry, and scared.
It’s my mother I’m thinking about today, and all the parents who wait in the shadows of this terrible disease, unable to lift a finger to keep their front-line children safe. I have so many among my family and friends with grown children directly in harm’s way. I see their worry, their helplessness (their pride and gratitude as well) etched on their faces as we talk across the miles. Iit puts my own fear for myself in stark perspective. So far, their worry has all been theoretical - at least until yesterday, just as I noticed the Aeonium in our garden and began to write this piece. That’s when my friend got a call, THE call we’ve all been dreading. The senior care facility where her daughter-in-law works has recorded several deaths and now, she has come down with the virus and is quarantined at home. I watch my friend’s face on video this morning as she holds back the tears. We both know it will probably be OK. And we know there's nothing she can do but wait and worry.