Sundays with Don

When I got home from work the other day, Dad was ambling toward the door armed with his walker and a look of determination on his face. “Hi Dad. Where ya goin’?” I asked. “I’m going to school” he said quite plainly. This was a new one for us, it’s usually church that he tries to go to as it seems to be perpetually Sunday in his mind and it is a testament to just how much faith he has. As a kid, Dad was a bit of a handful doing things like flashing commuter trains with his cousin Billy Keiran, pretending to hang himself from a tree much to the horror of his grandmother, using dance lesson money for pool lessons, and burning his Jamaica Plain house down with a cigarette he put out while secretly smoking in an alcove of the attic. After he got home from his service in the Air Force during the Korean War, things took a different turn and Dad became a devout Catholic. Pope Don Paul has been one of his nicknames for many years. I shudder to think of the times he would suddenly announce we were going to confession, usually before major Holy Days of Obligation. I’d rack my brain to come up with a few sins good enough for the man in the box, oftentimes admitting to cheating in school which I absolutely never did. I should have confessed to my hatred of going to church and thinking that the entire thing was a complete racket designed to protect pedophiles but I didn’t have as much gumption back then as I do now. This is why I don’t go; I would probably say or do something I would regret and I think we’re all better off if I worship alone in the woods behind my house.

Sometimes I feel bad that we no longer get Dad to church. He would go before the heart attack and the pandemic but after that double whammy, praying together became a risk we could no longer take. I imagine that the rituals at St. Joseph’s brought him comfort and peace, especially with my crazy heathen family living under his roof. As much as I have moved on from the church, the guilt has never left me. Every Sunday I would feel the same twinge watching Mom and Dad return from mass knowing that Dad had literally just prayed for my soul on his knees with his hand covering his eyes. My siblings all know that pose and I imagine the regulars of St. Joseph’s do as well. I always looked at it as a man in distress and it pained me to know how much he worried about our lives beyond this planetary dwelling. Over the years, I have intended to have a discussion with him about why I chose to not go to church and that I do believe in “God” but in a very different way. God, for me, exists in the sharing of this writing, in the Satya Saibaba Nag Champa incense I burn while writing it, in the woods, in the ocean, in the wet kiss of a dog, in the arms of someone who loves you, and in the faces of all children not yet jaded by life. I’ve never told him that and I worry it’s too late.

Last night at dinner, Dad used his best Julia Child impersonation and said “This is very good!” His seal of approval is one of the highest compliments a chef can receive. If the dinner ends up in his cheeks, you didn’t pass the Don Paul test. “You don’t like the dinner tonight do you Dad?” I’ll ask. “No. I don’t.” he’ll say without hesitation. The honesty is refreshing and we all laugh because what else can you do?Although Dad has dementia and his trying to go to school the other day probably means a tad more progression into that journey, the moments of lucidity over good meals at the dinner table are still with us. It is in those moments that I see God most.

Instead of going to church this Sunday, perhaps I’ll let him know that his sharing of all his Mentos with me on Saturday trips to the dump was a highlight of my week in the 1980s, that letting me drive the car on his lap on the way home from the dump made me know my power for the first time in my life, that his disapproval always worried me more than Mom’s and that, because of him, I see the incredible value of working with my hands and getting them caked with dirt. Most importantly, I’ll tell him just how much his saying prayers with me every night meant to me as a kid. We’d always end with blessing the important people in my life and the list was very long. “God bless Mom, Dad, Janet, Jimmy, Gary, Barb, Nana, Grampy, and Auntie Mae. God Bless Auntie Peggy and Uncle Jerry, Carolyn, Steven, and Kerry. God Bless Auntie Janice, Uncle Phil, Elizabeth and David….”.the list just kept going and I always found another one to add. Because of you, Dad, I have ingrained in me a sense that my existence is a blessing and it is an honor to continue to share that existence with you. You, and my hope for winning the lottery, will always be in my prayers.