The Undertaking
Corralling Dad’s memories isn’t just a race against time; it’s a lesson for me in how I spend my time.
Well, I have stepped in it now. No surprise there – that’s what I do.
What did I do this time? Or, put another way, what was I thinking?
Um, I believe I have just signed up to help Dad write his “memoirs.”
I’ve spent the last three nights in Delaware with my legs tucked under me in the swivel armchair in the den, laptop perched on my knees, fingers dancing with the keyboard as Dad sits across from me, a broken up dark chocolate bar to share between us.
All I wanted to do was to get Dad talking, to capture his memories somehow – memories of his crazy childhood with five brothers and so much moving around that he went to six schools in six years. Memories of his mercurial father, an engineer and a Navy officer who served in World War I, got out, got back in for World War II and died at 52 from complications of a botched appendectomy. Memories of his beloved oldest brother Jack who died a hero on a merchant marine ship in the Barents Sea in 1942.
And most of all stories of Lewes, the little coastal town in Delaware that they always came back to because it was home, the place our family has inhabited under varying circumstances for 350 years.
On past visits with Dad, I’ve tried recording him at the dinner table after the plates were cleared and his favorite ice cream dished up. We’d ask him a question or two and I’d slide the phone over near him. But these meandering conversations were difficult and time-consuming to transcribe. There had to be a better way.
