The following is an excerpt from my memoir, And Now, Back to Me: Stories from an Empty Nest. How this man responds when he finds out he needs to stay in the rehabilitation facility, when his heart had been set on coming home, is all you need to know about the man I am so lucky to call my father.
Ten minutes or so after it’s been decided that he needs to stay in the rehabilitation facility for another two weeks instead of going home as scheduled, my father leaves a long message on my phone. He makes a point of speaking slowly so that I can take notes. “Reets,” he says. “I need you to get some things from my house. My cell phone is in the little cubby in my car. It should be fully charged. But just in case, the charger is in your bedroom.” I love that he calls it my bedroom, even after all these years. “Also, I need stamps, address labels, and note cards, which you’ll find in the drawers of my desk. And don’t forget the thumbtacks.” He must mean paper clips. Yes, I’m sure he does. “I really appreciate you doing this for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you girls.”
When I arrive at the rehabilitation facility the next morning, his favorite Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in one hand, a bag filled with his requested supplies in the other, I watch him go about the business of setting up shop. Here, in the corner of his room, the nightstand has become his filing cabinet. His bedside table is now his desk. The rocker is his chair. And with that, he’s ready to go about conducting the daily routine of his life, keeping himself busy, making his days productive, no matter where he is or what circumstances he might find himself in.
Maybe his ability to make do with what he has, to make his home wherever he happens to find himself, was born out of necessity. Growing up the youngest of twenty-one children (not a typo!), he and his brothers and sisters ate dinner in shifts and slept three to a bed. If his childhood didn’t teach him enough about how to make the best of what was available, then joining the Navy at age eighteen was all the education he needed. He quickly learned to turn a mug of black Navy-issue coffee into a morning ritual; to express a genuine interest in other people’s lives, total strangers though they might be; and to appreciate beauty, even tucked away in a little sanctuary he made for himself on the deck of a ship while waiting for the sun to rise on an early-morning watch. That is how he made his way in the world from World War II to Korea to Vietnam, and all the places in between.
This way of his, this uncanny ability to accept what comes, to adapt and change course at a moment’s notice, lies at the core, in my opinion, of why he recently celebrated his ninety-second birthday. It’s not as though it’s been smooth sailing. It hasn’t. In the time since we lost Mom, his wife of sixty-three years, there have been heart ailments, a hip replacement, a broken wrist, a small stroke, a blood infection, and a stubborn gallstone. Yet always, there he was, rising to the occasion and finding a silver lining.
As we’ve traveled through these challenges together, he’s said to me many times, “I am where I am. I don’t know why. I’m not sure what’s coming at me next. But I’m grateful to be here, with all the love and care that surrounds me. Might as well make the best of it.”
Might as well make the best of it.
His words—which echo through my head along with the vision of my dad sitting at his “desk,” the bedside table in his rehabilitation room—are instructive as I go forward, arranging and rearranging the bits and pieces of my new way of empty-nest living. His inspiration reminds me that our attitude means more than any of our circumstances. Our mindset possesses the awesome power to change the course of our moments, our days, and, yes, our lives.
Lucky for me, I have his example to lead the way. I see him calling his relatives and friends to find out how they’re doing, going out to lunch whenever he gets the chance, sending notes of appreciation to all those who help make his days brighter. He’s always showing genuine interest in the lives of those around him and finding ways to help however he can.
That acceptance of his, that grace of embracing whatever moment he finds himself in—perhaps shared mostly by example—that’s Dad’s best advice of all.
Taken to heart.
