Words between us

My father, a writer, died four years ago last night, from pancreatic cancer. Corresponding with my coauthor and friend Mark Weber last week, I remembered this piece, posted here three weeks before Dad died. —DM

Dad can't write anymore because the pills make his head fuzzy. He wants me to come up with something to write back to "all these people," a half-dozen family members and friends who have written him letters telling him what he's meant to them.

I instinctively resist because I think writers can't ghostwrite for writers, a notion he seems to think is a cop-out. "I asked David for help writing these letters," I hear him telling my sister on the phone, "and he put on his hat and went out the door."

So I try. 

I tell him he's already done his part in the lives of these letter writers, and all they really want to know is that he received their letters of appreciation. "Thank you for your fine letter," I propose he writes on cards that I'll address. "And I want you to know that it meant a great deal to me, and so do you."

"But that's what you'd write," he says. "It's not what I'd write."

Between reruns of the above episode, words hold us together.

He remembers a fragment from a poem he once knew: "like a bubble it burst, all at once and nothing first." We search in vain for the rest of the poem.

We make fun of the hospice nurse, who can't pronounced a particular one-syllable Middletown street name correctly because of her southern accent.

At the dinner table, he stares at a photograph of himself in an airplane that has the numbers N1451R on the fuselage. "Five-One Ringo," he says over and over and over and over because doing so makes him feel like a pilot again.

Reading Old Cars Weekly, he grumbles about the term "swapped out" as it's used to refer to engines that are replaced with other engines. The "out" part, he says, is "totally unnecessary." He says so with such increasing force that I'm compelled to remind him, defensively, that I didn't invent the term. "Well, you need to do something about it!" 

Words to us are things, every bit as much as airplanes and automobiles and oxycodone pills are things, and we hold onto them, one on each end, and we spin around together.

Comments

[Steve C.]

Hang in there, buddy. Your dad couldn't have a better companion for the stretch run.

Odd, isn't it, that the long-time editor of Speechwriter's Newsletter and friend to thousands of speechwriters isn't comfortable with ghostwriting words for someone else?

Steve C.

[Ellen]

The poem fragment is from "The Deacon's Masterpiece" (or The One-Hoss Shay) by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. You can find the full text at http://www.irvingcrowley.com/poets.htm#deacon

[Susan]

Although, it is hard, treasure this time with your dad.

[David Murray]

"Oh, that's it, that's it, sure. Oliver Wendell Holmes. There you have it."

Thanks, Ellen.

[Craig Jolley]

Here's a thought, record a conversation with him where he can express his own thoughts regarding those that have written. It could be converted to an MP3 and published as a podcast giving family and friends the opportunity to hear his own words.

Craig

[David Murray]

Sweet Jesus, Craig, that is one damn good idea. I'll explore it with the grandkids, who could actually pull it off. Thanks much.

[Ellen]

Enjoy your dad. As hard as it is, it sounds like you both understand how lucky you are to have this time to share.

[Craig Jolley]

You're welcome. Every now and then I surprise even myself!

[Kristen]

As wrenching as it must be to try to say goodbye to a parent, I'd guess that having the time to have these conversations, experience their fabulous sense of humour ["Well you need to do something about it" - that's brilliant!] and say things that we always mean to say, and somehow don't get around to when we lose a loved one unexpectedly, might be a comfort.

I also hope that knowing that your friends are sending good thoughts and wishes of support to you, your Dad, and your whole family might also offer some very small modicum of comfort.

[David Murray]

It offers great comfort, Kristen—and all. A reader e-mailed me privately about these posts about my dad and I told him writing them is close to involuntary. Everything, these days, is close to involuntary. It's a comfort (and a bonus) to be understood.

[Amy]

David, one word for you: Memoirs. Please include this story in yours. Seriously -- it's a book. Do it. I know it won't be easy. But it may offer you - and those of us who will read it - richness and perspective. - Amy

[Jean Gogolin]

This post really moved me, David. My husband has Alzheimer's and we both so miss the words that used to come easily.