“I can’t go with you to the airport.”, Lennie said with misty eyes. “I know. I wasn’t going to ask.”, I replied. We hugged in a long, desperate bond that would have to sustain us both while I was back in Canada. There were no tears, just a sadness that hung in the evening air. I had dragged it out as long as possible and now I was in a rush to make it to the airport on time. I knew that Lennie’s daughter Malia would take good care of him while I was gone. She had arrived a week earlier and we had been over his diet and supplements and she had a good grasp of everything that we were doing.
Lennie giving a 'shaka'
We had managed to coax Lennie out to the backyard the night before as we had an impromptu get-together to wish Paul, our long term tenant good-bye. His 5 year Navy stint was over and he was going home to Pennsylvania. Paul was one of the media personnel for the Navy and we used him as our resident photographer, and computer/TV expert whenever anything wasn’t working right in the house.
Paul with a limited edition can of Spam
He had also been my trusted pet sitter, feeding our cat, Lilipuna, and taking care of the fish pond. We would all miss Paul. And now, here was I leaving right after him and it felt as if our happy life was falling apart.
Lilipuna in an empty drawer in Paul's room
The flight was already boarding when I got to the gate and I was happy to be bumped up to first class. It was a night flight and maybe I could get some sleep on the plane. Who was I kidding? I can never sleep on a plane. I had some food and watched a really bad and boring movie and then must have dozed off. I woke up thinking that we must be there, only to find that there was still almost 3 hours left on the 5 1/2 hour flight.
I feel like a child on a plane since I never seem to have a watch, I am always the one to ask repeatedly, “Are we there yet?” The plane was somewhere over the Pacific ocean as I lifted the window visor to stare, in awe, at the night sky that was not the indigo night sky of the earth, but one that was completely black. As black as velvet onto which twinkling stars had been spilled. ‘Étoile’; my favorite French word, meaning ‘star’. And as Carl Sagan would say, there were ‘billions and billions’ of them, so close that it looked as if you could touch them. Was Lennie still awake? Was he looking up at the same stars that I was seeing? Was he wishing upon a star as I was? The thought comforted me and gave me a connection to him over the thousand mile span.
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I have been home for a few days now and was distressed to hear that Lennie had fallen 3 times in 4 days. What was going on over there? He had only fallen once while I was in Hawai’i with him, and that was after taking prescription sleeping pills that were far too strong for him. Now he had lacerations on one of his arms and I was worried that he may have a concussion after hitting his head on the armoire beside the bed. Malia had taken away his narcotics so that he would not overdose himself, but had given back to him these same sleeping pills that I had confiscated. These were what was making him fall when he got up in the night.
With every problem that is solved, a new one seems to arise. It was not even 24 hours after I had left when Lennie phoned me, in the middle of the night, to say that his 22 year old daughter and his ex-wife were on their way to Hawai’i. I was now up for the remainder of the night.
Kathryn
www.kathrynsmith.com