Sailing Towards the Unknown Shore

In the boat with Dad and Farmer, with only the stars to guide us.

Outside it is 72 degrees. Early October in southern Delaware is warm, almost balmy. The air is sweet, the breeze is soft. The sky is any blue you want it to be. The fields are the crackling yellow-gold of late soybeans not yet harvested. Roadside pumpkins and mums are the electric crayon colors of a Peter Max poster. The sea is tarnished silver.

There is no reason not to be outside.

Except that we are inside, where the thermostat is dialed up to nearly 80. The medications my father takes leave him chilled on even the warmest days. He wore his down jacket to the dinner table tonight.

Without the relief of an open window, the house is pent up with stale air, the flavor of old dust and scrambled eggs. At least we can look through the windows and taste the still-green foliage of my father’s garden, so expertly crafted over the last seven years.

But the gardener has grown tired. And short of breath. Coughing keeps him awake at night. Fatigue sends him back to lie down on his bed multiple times a day. All of this worsening in just the last few weeks. Jolting us, on our arrival, into high alert. Insisting on a return to the doctor. Who ordered all the tests. That tell us his 94-year-old heart just isn’t working the way it used to, putting a lot of pressure on his 94-year-old lungs.