Crazy Quilt: (memoir) stitching life's tales together any which way

Grief and Peace

In the fourteen years since I lost my border collie buddy, from time to time he comes bounding into my dreams. Plumed tail wagging, foxy face grinning, eager and loving and loyal. My heart soars to see him, then wrenches with the realization he must be starving. I haven't fed him in the longest time!

Like Old Mother Hubbard, I hurry to the cupboard -- and find it empty. Must rush to the store and buy dog food!

Then I wake, my heart tangled with joy and guilt. The guilt fades. No, I haven't neglected my buddy. But I lecture my subconscious self: stock that dream cupboard with dog food for his next visit!

This morning I roused from a deep sleep, all disoriented. Why was I lolling here in comfort? Must hurry back to my father's bedside!

Reality returned. The time for tending his needs is past. He died six days ago.

Will he come strolling into my dreams like my dog does? Beside the cans of dog food I'd better stock my dream cupboard with Louis L'Amour westerns and science magazines. And set up a circle of comfy chairs where we can sit and listen while he launches into his favorite pastime -- telling stories of his family's scramble for survival in rural Wyoming during the Depression, and his adventures in Japan while on leave from aircraft mechanic duties in the Air Force during the Korean War.

If you join that circle, well, you'll know him by his trademark introduction: "Hi, I'm Norval -- more than Orville, but not quite normal."

* * *

I've been mourning my dad's loss ever since the diagnosis five and a half years ago (multiple myeloma). Now his troubles are over, and so is my grief. My heart is at peace.

How frustrated he's been not to keep up his life-long vigor and strength, not to fulfill his perpetual role of The Fixer of Other People's Problems. It just wasn't in his life plan to need other people to tend to his needs, not even in his late 80's.

As chemo failed and anemia grew worse, I braced for a long, slow decline. Time to switch from "independent living" in his senior residence to "assisted living." I had just printed out my work-in-progress to carry with me as I spent more time in his apartment.

But his last decline set on suddenly and progressed swiftly (a mercy): nine days in the hospital, four in a hospice house, and four in a nursing facility.

* * *

A month ago I self-published a novel I'd been working on for years, one my father -- a self-described bookworm -- had read in draft form a while back. The dedication:

To my mother, who gathered all her little ones (like a pile of puppies) onto her bed for fables and fairy tales at bedtime.

To my father, devourer of fiction and nonfiction; his Popular Science magazine opened my eyes to the wonders of the world; his Western novels swept me into the past.