barnacles

 barnacles




     This is not a funny one but a somewhat sad tale of aging and realizing your place in the great mandala. One of the unpleasant facts of our journey is saying goodbye to our parents. In Greg's case it was a bit too soon for his Dad and a bit too late for his Mom. We talked about the strange moment when one day, suddenly, you look over and your father is an old man. It happened to me at my Aunt Lucille's funeral or when BC turned into a white-haired old man sitting in his chair waiting impatiently for the end of a life that had become unsatisfactory. It is a one-way street and the old reaper does not change his mind once he sets his sicle for the thin flesh on your neck. When we started to get old ourselves Greg referred to our flesh as just coating the machine. I countered with the idea that we were now driving around in a 1968 Ford Torino with one window stuck, a leaky radiator and stodgy brakes. It may be possible to rebuild a carbuerator or even a heart valve but when it comes to the engine block or entire exhaust system you are heaed for the salvage yard down on Alameda. Yet, when we were green lads in our 40's the approach of the reaper did not bother us much until he came for our fathers. Some people are lucky and they leave early and clean which both our fathers did for the most part but there was some ragged threads to tie up at the end. In the case of John F. Sheehy, he got diagnosed, and was dead within a week but those seven days were not easy. One of the unpleasant tasks was when Greg had to put his beloved father into the shower and wash him down before a trip to the hospital. I asked the dutiful son about the experience and he just remembered the many small growths that cover a man in his dotage. Greg said it was like he felt barnacles as he soaped down the old man. I thought it was a brilliant expression and never forgot the scene when I had to take my Mom to the bathroom at the conclusion of her wonderful life. Just a couple of years until I reach the same age as both John and BC when they signed off.  Strange that for all we do in this visit to the funhouse we are just prisoners of these machines and we can only go so far as they take us. Some day soon our kids will be washing the barnacles and grinning while they bare it.

"And darlin' if we're not togetherThere's one thing I want you to knowI'll love you from here to foreverAnd be there wherever you go"

-Kris Kristofferson



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