Life and Death

My Dad turns 70 today. I feel like I officially entered the stage where I have an "elderly" parent. As long as both my folks remained comfortably in their 60s, I was content to think of them as "getting old" but not really old. And, maybe 70 isn't that big of a deal, but I can still recall when my mom hired a banner plane to fly over my dad's office (ok, yes, this may seem excessive, but it is my family and one hell of a memory) that read: Life Begins At 40 Rene! Love, Gayle, Anne and Malcolm. I was still in elementary school, pigtails and all, learning the harsh lessons of reading, writing, and arithmetic, when I was called out of class to see my Dad's birthday message. For those familiar with my Dad and I, you already know we have had a rocky, inconsistent, relationship. Still, for all the months filled with silence, brought on by one of his tantrums about one thing or another, he is my Dad and he has done well by me. I just got off the phone with him and it was strange to hear him tell me how much he "hated" turning 70 before launching into this sad list of all his friends that have died within the past month. A lot of his colleagues seem to be dropping off like flies . . . so he assured me his PSA levels are good, his blood pressure is stable, and his diabetes is under control. As he talked about his health, we were interrupted by his errant fax machine which kept beeping (Dad never was good at hooking up electrical equipment), and he kept trying, unsuccessfully, to fix it. I imagined him padding around in his slippers, trying to "silence" the "goddamned" machine. More than likely, he broke it, because all of a sudden, it was silent. Just me and Dad and all these years between us.