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Harsh New Shapes of Change
My brother T’s stinging words, left on my answering machine while I was on my way home from a final visit to my/our dying father, slashed at the unquestioned affection and steady mutual support we had shared to that point.
When my house caught fire in December 1984, T brought boxes of tools — car and house ones — to Vermont to re-equip me for my country life, and gave my kids carpenter tool belts with small hammers, screwdrivers, pliers. Later, when in 1992 I found the courage to leave The Villain and his two years of demeaning manipulations, T brought his pickup truck to Vermont, making the round trip of about 700 miles, to help me move all of my and the boys’ things out of The Villain’s reach, in one fell swoop. And during his own lost time (his privacy, let’s not get into details), I spent dozens of hours in conversation with him, each of us tethered to a phone and struggling to make sense and hold connection.
Radical shock, then, that Dad’s dying days would bring me such a harsh message from T: What kind of daughter was I, to limit my last visit to the three days I’d prepared for?
Although T didn’t understand then, I’d worked hard to give Dad those three days, leaving my teen on his own in Vermont (close neighbors, yes, but still), investing in agonized preparation with my counselor, and spending the equivalent of a mortgage payment to fly to…
