pascal_curious | Dear Chloe and Lola (Reply)

Dear Chloe and Lola,

Once again I have not made good on my promise to write often. It feels like a lifetime has passed since the last time I wrote to you. I suppose, in a manner of speaking, one has.

Kitty has been gone for a little over a month now, and I finally feel like I am able to write about it. We are all doing about as well as can be expected. I find myself wondering if anything will ever feel normal again. It does not seem that any of this could possibly be real. I feel like it has all been a very bad dream and I will wake up and find Kitty beside me. It doesn’t seem possible that someone full of so much life and love could so suddenly and completely be gone from existence.

The boys have finally returned to school. Vidcund was the one who held out the longest. I finally had to put my foot down and make him go back. Pascal and Lazlo had already been back for a week when I finally had had enough. (It didn’t help his case when I came home one afternoon last week to find him canoodling with his girlfriend in his bedroom.) Pascal is spending much of his time preparing for his final exams. He was told by a few of his teachers that he could have extra time, or in one case would not even be required to take his final. He has insisted on doing everything by the book though, regardless of the circumstances. He spends much of his time in his room studying, though I make a point of having a family meal every evening. (The food may not be as good, but we are always together.) Vidcund has final exams coming up as well, but he does not seem to be as concerned as Pascal. Vidcund has been doing most of his coping away from home. Lazlo does not have finals yet, as he is still in middle school. He spends much of his time in his greenhouse. He and Kitty spent many happy hours in that greenhouse before she became too ill.

I can at least say that everyone had ample opportunity to say their goodbyes in their own way. Pascal spent his evenings with Kitty by reading to her. He even persisted during the times that it was clear that she wasn’t able to hear or understand him. Her last night, Pascal was reading to her from Kitty’s favorite book from when she was a girl, “Anne of Green Gables”. (I thought it was a strange selection for him to make, but Kitty had it on her bookshelf. Pascal must have surmised that a child’s book would not be there if it didn’t have significance to her.) Vidcund made it his duty to see that Kitty was comfortable at all times, sometimes to her annoyance. Next to me, Vidcund was the one who spent the most time with Kitty. He constantly fussed over her like a mother hen. Jenny (whose surname is now Smith, thanks to the lax marriage laws in the state of Nevada) came by a few times to visit her mother. On her last visit she brought her son (our grandson!) John Paul Smith Jr (he looks every bit like his father, except for his blue eyes; Kitty’s blue eyes). Simple mathematics tells me that there may have been more to Jenny’s leaving than just the fact that I didn’t approve of her boyfriend. (I wonder if Kitty knew.) I am glad that Kitty had at least one afternoon of cooing, cuddling and fussing over her grandson. Lazlo brought fresh flowers to his mother from his greenhouse every morning. In her better moments, they would pour over their mountains of seed catalogs to discuss which unusual or exotic plant Lazlo should try his green thumb with next. He still brings in a fresh bouquet every morning and sits it on the table at her side of the bed. I suspect that the fresh flowers I see every time I visit the cemetery are his as well. (It was a while until I found out the real reason for the greenhouse. I should be angry, but it is hard to be. The boys’ reasons for building the greenhouse may have been purely altruistic at the time, but I have my doubts. I should put a stop to it now that Kitty is gone, but I probably won’t. It will be hard for me to forget the evening I came home from work to find my Kitty, on the back deck with her sons, smoking a cigarette, of sorts. I hadn’t heard her laugh like that since before we were married.) I spent every moment I could with Kitty. I took time off of work to be at home with her. Because we chose home hospice care we were able to spend our remaining time together as a family. I could not have lived with myself had we put Kitty in a hospital. She wanted to be at home with her boys. Her final night with us was as it should have been. The boys said their goodnights to her (I think they knew it was going to be their last), and Kitty and I spent our last night together as we had done our first, with her sleeping peacefully in my arms.

I am no longer going to make any promises about writing often. I have spent the last twenty years searching and hoping that one of my letters would find its way into your hands. Perhaps it is just the circumstances, but my hope has waned, and I can’t say how much longer I am willing to chase geese.

I will always be

Your Loving Father

Glarn