Encore! Encore!

When I was growing up my parents would often have friends over for dinner.
If the guests brought their own children it meant hours of adventures, ghost stories and pranks. But even when my friends were home with babysitters, these were special nights.

For dinner we'd eat steak tips, or prime rib or some other treat. Sometimes a few of Dad's friends would come over all on one night with their wives and they'd all buy lobsters. But often it was just Dad and Mom and Lenny and Mal, (or Chris and John, or Martha and Marcus, or Sue and George) and we'd eat until no one could eat anymore. When their friends were over there was usually a real dessert.  We'd have a pie or monkey bread as though it were Christmastime and not just another Sunday night in July.

After dinner everyone would sit and drink and tell funny stories about when Dad and his friends were younger. Sometimes they'd play poker for nickels and quarters and Mom would say to me and Brian, "Go brush your teeth and we'll be up to tuck you in." Those nights I went without much fuss because card games bored me. Mom and Dad would each slip into my room to kiss me goodnight and I would drift off to sleep to the sounds of Oldies 103.3 on the radio and the grownups laughing as they bet small change in the kitchen.

But some nights after dinner Dad would go to the den and open the closet. That's when I knew to start begging permission to stay up. They were going to play a board game.

I knew how to play every game in that closet: Jenga, Go to The Head of the Class, Battleship, Trivial Pursuit, Trivial Pursuit: Disney Edition, Trivial Pursuit: Genius Edition, Trivial Pursuit: Silver Screen Edition, Scrabble and Taboo. For years, I was never my own player, I was always someone's "helper," but I didn't mind. I'd stay, wearing my Little Mermaid pajamas, sitting on my knees for added height next to Mom or Dad as moths flew against the screen door and the stove clock logged minutes past my forgotten bedtime.
The very best game in the closet was called Encore.

In Encore, when a card is drawn and a word is read off, you need to sing songs that contain the word in the lyrics. You have to sing a seven word phrase at least, thank you very much. Then the other team does the same thing. Both teams battle back and forth until they run out of songs, or time.

For a child, I was pretty good at Encore because even then I had a memory for lyrics above all other things.  Mom was even better because she knew more songs than I did.

One night Mom and I were a team together. The word on the card was "brown"; we had already sung one song, the other team countered with a song, and it was our turn again. The other team was happy because no one could think of another song with the color brown in it. The tiny white sand grains in the chintzy hourglass were running out. Then, quietly, almost inaudibly, Mom began to sing, "the old brown mare, she ain't what she used to be..."  The other team sighed and shook their heads, now they would have to come up with yet another song to beat us. Mom had sung past seven words but I was so excited at our obvious victory that I joined in at the top of my lungs, "-AIN'T WHAT SHE USED TO BE! AIN'T WHAT SHE USED TO BE!  THE OLD BROWN MARE SHE-"

Mom grimaced. Right. Brian was sleeping after all.

"Wait a minute," Mal rejoined, "isn't it 'the old grey mare?'"

Mom smiled pointedly at me, sideways. "That's why I was trying to sing it quietly."

"Oh. I thought it really was a brown mare. It sounded good as a brown mare."

Mom and I probably won anyway. At least that's how I remember it.

Stories About My Dad: that daring young man on the flying Trapeze.

Although I think about him year round, today is the day I tend to reflect even more on my Dad.
Mom and I will hang out today, and I'll call my brother. And we won't talk about it, but we'll all feel connected.

Last year on this date I posted an entry called Stories About My Dad.

This year I thought of writing something new, but it struck me that I think I got it right the first time.
I hope you'll go back to that entry and read it, whether you knew him or not; I think it's the best description I can offer to you.

Meanwhile, while planning for the trip to Haiti instead of buying a brand new fanny pack at EMS, one with a cell phone pocket and water bottle holster - I dug into one of the bins in my closet. One of the weirdest things I saved from my father was his leather belt pack. I have no idea why, and I never used it until now. But every morning before I went to the tents, I clipped it on. And knew that he was proud of me.

The Best Valentine's Day

It took me a long time to decide whether or not to post this entry. I wrote it in 2009 on Valentine's Day in response to a friend's livejournal request for a "nice" Valentine's day story. I never posted it because it felt too personal.


Although it may seem like it in the beginning, this is not a sad story.  As requested, it is a nice one. 

February 12, 2003 my mother called me at school.
"Your uncle is going to come get you, you shouldn't drive. It's dangerous to drive when you're upset."
 It didn't make any sense. I wasn't upset. I was hanging out with my roommates. Slowly I got a story out of her, my father who had been ill recently, was in a coma. I still had no idea what was going on. Blame it all on the Irish in my family, I had been told Dad was sick but "getting better." I was under the impression that it was a touch of pneumonia. I had no idea how sick sick was until now. I tried to remember how Dad had sounded last time I talked to him on the phone.

In the ICU,  Dad was in rough shape. Family had gathered. My brother was there but soon another family member took him home. Then the doctor spoke to my mother in whispered tones about "a 24 hour plan." I knew what it meant, but didn't at the same time. Things became very clear when we were led into a "family conference room", and the doctor told me and my mother that he didn't expect my father to last the night.

 Looking back, I recognize that this was the moment I became an adult in my family. They may have taken my brother away from the scene, but I was going to be burdened with both knowledge and choices. There was no ceremony for this rite of passage,  no cards with money, or a cake - I was just a grown up now and needed to act like one.

Because he wasn't involved, it felt like we were conspiring against my father, and I remember hating the doctor. It was the worst hate I've ever felt, and certainly the worst I've admitted to. I couldn't speak.  I let my mother do the talking, feeling like a snake for leaving her to the work. I had been an adult for two minutes  and was failing miserably.  I sat and began to count the brochures that lined the walls "How to Care for YOUR diabetes" and "Living with a Pacemaker." If I could have torn up every single copy of "When a Loved One Dies," I would have. We went home and awaited a phone call.

On Valentine's Day in the morning we stopped at CVS where discreetly I picked up a card for my father.  Mom caught me and in a terrifying voice that was unspeakably wise and weary at the same time said, "He's not going to see the card."  Each word individually held the weight of the entire situation, and made a sound like stone hitting stone.  I shrugged, embarrassed and feeling stupid but stubborn. "So?" I said, and that was all.

When we arrived at the ICU the nurses greeted us brightly. "Go on in," they chimed, yes,  practically winked. And there he was:  my hero, my father - sitting up in bed and eating an orange Popsicle of all things.
He greeted us warmly and we three swarmed him , demanding if he remembered anything from the coma (he did not), asking what he thought when he woke up (he wanted to see us), and how he felt (just fine).
The doctor came in, saying that my father had beaten the odds.
 "It's a miracle. It's God's work," I said.  The doctor told me he didn't know if he'd say that exactly, and my nineteen year old self exasperatedly told him, "well I would." I like to think my Dad laughed at that but I don't remember. I gave him his Valentine's Day card.

My father only lived one more month. However I had that whole month to spend with him and to begin to properly say goodbye. Which is what we did,  even though I had no idea that's what I was doing. Until the very end, no one did. For the rest of my life that Valentine's Day will trump every other year because my Dad, who was the first man to teach me what love really is, made it through the night.

Stories About my Dad: he flies through the air with the greatest of ease...

"Dad taught me the words to the Our Father, or at least taught me what they all meant." This is one my earliest memories. We were in the kitchen. There were Peppermint Patties involved, I'm certain of it.

My brother and mother had a hard time believing this today, when I mentioned it casually over lunch. "Are you sure?" asked Mom carefully, "your father wasn't... a very religious man."

"I'm sure," I replied. "He at least wanted me to know what I was saying if I was going to be saying it."

Six years ago today, March 15th, my entire life was turned upside down when I lost my father. He died after only being sick a few months; he was young and the entire thing was completely unexpected. There are no words to explain what losing him did to me or to my family, so I won't try that. This is the first time I've tried to address his death in public writing at all, so bear with me.

Even when Dad was alive there was legend about him. He was a firefighter in Boston, and he had done everything from fighting fires, to driving the chief, to doing fire inspections for buildings all over the city. Dropping his name got me parking places, got me hugs, invited stories, and even made creeps stay away from me on the dance floor at local pubs. I was Warren Whitaker's daughter, and everyone knew it.

More than just being known for the quality of his work, my Dad was even better known for his kindness, generosity, sense of humor, intelligence, loyalty and fun loving nature. It felt like everyone in Boston had a great story to tell me about my Dad. People he lent money to, people whose computers he fixed, whose houses or decks he helped build, locks he had changed for free. Guys who thought of him like a brother. Women who took his advice about their boyfriends. I followed attentively as he led by example.

My father was my hero. Except for a brief period of time when I was 14 to 17 years old or so, he could do no wrong. To this day I regret every single time my teenaged head butted his about vegetarianism or the merits of being allowed to wear mascara to school. Deep down he had to have known he was just helping me learn how to stand up for what I believed. Luckily for both of us, by the time I went off to college I believed the sun rose and set over him all over again.

I get my sense of humor from my Dad. For him, laughter was the center of any good friendship. He would riff on jokes with us in the car, or plan elaborate pranks on his friends for weeks. My mother would laugh so had she cried sometimes, and those were the best times. Sometimes when we're all together I catch my brother and myself vying for the same reward of cracking Mom up so hard we all forget why we were laughing.

When I expressed the tiniest bit of interest in Monty Python he went out and bought me the DVD of Holy Grail that night. I said it on the way to a rehearsal, and when he picked me up he handed it to me with two other movies we had talked about. He was just so excited that we could start to share a similar sense of humor. I know that if he were alive today we'd send each other YouTube videos all the time, he would have been at IB all last spring helping to build the theater, and he'd be bringing friends every weekend to see me at Improv Asylum.

He never did get to see me do improv. When he was in the hospital I had just debuted in Mission:Improvable. I brought my shirt to show him and he told me how proud he was. I looked at my head shot hanging in the lobby this weekend and thought of how wide he'd smile if he could see that too.

He'd be just as proud of my day job. This isn't widely known, but I became a nurse because of my Dad. When he was in the hospital he told me in passing, "you'd make a good nurse." I thought it over and switched majors within a month of his death.
Both he and Mom had already set me up for a life of service in a much less direct way. Mom and Dad met in EMT school. My Mom worked as a radiologist. My Dad became a firefighter. Caring for strangers was second nature to them, and they passed that on to me quietly, intuitively. I had never considered a career in the medical field but when I was exposed to it something deep within me responded clearly. There was no way I would quit. And today, because of him I have a job that fulfills that part of me as well as pays the bills.

There are plenty of things in my life I've done that I imagine might not elicit his pride. But his forgiveness taught me how to forgive others, and how to forgive myself.

It was a sweltering hot day in July when I accidentally drove my mother's car - backwards - into our kitchen. I tore the electrical boxes and doodads straight off the house. The sparks and noise alone would have gotten the neighbor's attention, but the subsequent shutting down of the power for the entire street is what really brought people outside. I slumped over the wheel, wishing I had been at least knocked unconscious by the error so I wouldn't feel so terrible. Inevitably, I had to exit the wreck.

I turned to face him. He was standing at the end of the driveway, dressed for work. He was chewing on a cigar. (This was during his Sopranos phase). He took the cigar out of his mouth, held out his arms for me, smiled and said, "Hey. Stuff happens."

I think of my Dad in some way almost every day. Some days more than others. I am apparently even more like him than I can know. "Have you always put vinegar on your french fries?" Mom asked at the beach last year, "your father did that." "I had no idea." I munched, a little happier knowing that parts of him were tucked away unbeknownst even to me.

I have his nose and his love of jazz. He taught me that it's almost always worth it to give someone a ride home if you have the means to do it. He taught me that even low brow humor has a time and place, but he also taught me what "deliver us from evil," means. When I'm feeling good I can feel him right there with me. And when I'm not feeling so good... I can still see his smile and hear him say "stuff happens," and know that I'm strong enough to get through whatever it is. Because through and through, I'm still his daughter, and always will be.

I try not to think too hard.

My Mom doesn't watch the news. This was a direct result of being the wife of a fire fighter. My Mom says that as soon as she and Dad got married she started hating the news. When Dad was home the scanner would be on constantly, telling us about every emergency in Boston. But when Dad was out the scanner was silent. "I didn't want to be thinking too hard about it," Mom says. These days, the habit sticks.

Last night though, Mom called me panicking because my aunt had called her to tell her about the fire truck that crashed. She knows one of the guys from that station, and was sick to her stomach thinking about it.

This morning my heart and prayers go out to Kevin M. Kelley's family, knowing that nothing will ever be the same.

It all will fall, fall right into place.

Yesterday at work I mixed some powdered metamucil for a patient. She refused it. But when I went to throw it away all the powder had sunk to the bottom and solidified.

I had an instant flashback to a magic trick my Dad bought at a magic shop in Florida. He used to collect magic tricks, and I eagerly would accompany him to buy the latest and greatest pocket illusions. He had purchased this one on the sly as a surprise, but just couldn't wait until we got back to the hotel to show us, so he opened it up right in the restaurant. As I slid my color changing scarves through my hands over and over, practicing how to conceal the slipknot in my small palm, he poured some water into a coffee mug. Then he turned it upside down. And nothing came out. The water had disappeared. I was enthralled. The secret, of course, was that a "magic powder," had been added to the mug. The powder was really some type of super absorbent polymer which created a gel that would stay in the mug*.
My dad would share his secrets with me because I was, obviously, another magician. And Mom and Brian are family. So he showed us the gel in the mug. It was gross and ten year old me was delighted, though not for the first time, by how science could be used for entertainment**. But then we had a problem. What to do with the gel? After looking around theatrically a few times Dad shook the mug hard, into a potted plant by our table. Instead of breaking apart and blending in nicely, like he'd hoped, the gel stayed in the shape of the mug and just sat there on the soil in plain view. My mother feigned embarrassment but she laughed until she cried. My brother and I dared each other to pick it up. My Dad commanded sternly that none of us look at it lest we draw attention to it, but he was the worst of all. When our waitress came by he casually remarked how much he "loved the plants here." I do not remember the rest of the evening, but I remember that we didn't stop laughing until long after we left the restaurant that night. For the next few months one of us would occasionally bring up the gel, wondering who found it, what they thought of it, and we'd lose it all over again.
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*this is apparently also how disposable diapers work.
** i fell in love with science because of my Dad.