A FOOT IN BOTH WORLDS

Captain Sandwich and the Seasons

The gaping chasm of time

Yesterday I was fifteen and mad as hell at my parents. Today I am fifty, my back propped up by pillows beside my stepfather, who is sleeping. Because of his restless nights and unforgiving old age, he often sleeps during the day. I sit beside him and slurp Caffeine-Free Diet Cokes and write. It’s not a bad way to spend the day.

I stop writing when my stepfather, half-asleep, wants to hold my hand. If I am in mid-idea, I continue to type with one finger until he falls asleep again. My little red dog, Ewok, sits between us guarding him from the world. When Ewok hears a sound outside my stepfather’s room, she sits alert and growls.

When my stepfather’s breath alters in the slightest, Ewok’s tail wags so violently it sounds like she’s hammering a nail into the wall. She adores him and wants him to wake up and pet her. No one pets her with the gratitude that he does. He is wholly attentive to her existence.

After several visits to my mother and stepfather's home with Ewok, we started calling my stepfather Captain Sandwich. It is because Ewok sits beneath my stepfather’s chair and he sneaks her pieces of his beloved Subway sandwich. She loved him before he was Captain Sandwich, but she is deeply protective of him because of it.

When I arrive at my parent's house after they’d had another long night, I ask my mother to go outside and take a walk. It’s 54 degrees, a miracle in late November. I want the sun to smother her beautiful face. The wonder of seasons is they are full of surprises. One day, winter dives in with her blistering bite. The following day, summer saunters in seeking exposed skin to nuzzle inside her warm embrace.

Weather in the Midwest mimics aging. It’s erratic, unjust, and relentless. It’s also lovely, despite its brutality. I do not know how to live in California or Hawaii. What would jump scare me into remembering I was alive? Earthquakes?

There is nowhere else I would rather be than sitting here, beside this sleeping man, who came into our family when I was young with all his brilliant idiosyncrasies.

I am not saying he was perfect. If he were, he wouldn’t have qualified as family. Family is infuriating and miraculous. There is no escape hatch. There might be, but I’ve never taken it — not for any grand length of time.

Sometimes my stepfather speaks from his sleep. He’s got a foot in both worlds. “Where are you going?” he asks from closed eyes. “Come back.” I wonder if he is talking to someone from this world or the next one.

Other times, he is half-awake and asks, “Amy? Is that you?” I don’t want to stir his peaceful sleep. I take his hand, something I rarely did in the past. I am not a hand holder, but now that our time is visibly finite, I hold less of myself back. “I’m here,” I say, immensely grateful that I am. How am I here? I wonder.

I can feel my heart engorging with curiosity as to what comes next. The chasms from the years of our being family deepen and make space for what is to come. This is the second father I have sat beside when the end came. I feel lucky and sad. There is nowhere I would rather be. In these moments, I am entirely aware we both exist.