Day 94

My dream last night was disturbing. I was at my mom’s city house, only it wasn’t the house I recognized. It had green walls and a blue rug — a combo my mother would never approve. When I woke up — in my dream — I immediately knew something was wrong. In the living room, everything was a mess. The entire place had been ransacked. Dad’s computer was broken. Mine was missing. But oddly, in the dream I was very cognizant of where my back files were all located and so I didn’t panic. Until I went out back and saw that both my car and Dad’s had been stolen. In place of Dad’s car in the garage was a grey pick-up truck with a Trump 2020 Keep America Great bumper sticker. My mother wasn’t home. So I called my spouse who arrived in less than five minutes. Impossible! Even with no traffic. She told me to call the police. I laughed at her asking what good that would do. So she called them and I heard her speaking amicably until she started shouting, “I didn’t call to chit chat. I called because we were robbed.” There was a pause, and then she slammed down the phone. “They aren’t coming,” she informed me. “You should call your mom.” But when I tried, the phone died. And then I woke up.

My distrust of the police started when I was in middle school. I came home from school one day to find a police car sitting out front. When I walked into the house, I saw the house had been robbed. My jewelry box smashed open. An heirloom from my grandmother gone. What did the police do? Absolutely nothing. They wrote up a police report and that was it. We were robbed in broad day light and they didn’t even bother to knock on doors or ask the neighbors any questions. We were robbed. The police did nothing. They claimed they were too busy. There wasn’t enough evidence. Maybe there would have been if they bothered to look. I’ve never gotten over the fact that a criminal came into our home and the cops did nothing. Every time a cop is in the news for killing someone, I think back to that day. Hundreds of dollars worth of stuff had been stolen and the cops did nothing to locate the criminal. But a black man is in possession of a counterfeit $20 and they kill him. Or he’s stopped for a traffic violation and is shot

Yesterday morning, my son had a Zoom meeting with his Spanish teacher. He had missed work the week Dad died and she wanted him to make it up. Or he could meet with her one-on-one virtually. My son hates all things virtual, but it was the lesser of two evils and so he consented to it. He sat in the recliner, one dog on either side of him and he answered the teacher’s questions in a string of mumbles. At one point I whispered to Mom, “Apparently, he’s got Dad’s knack for languages.” She laughed. I have Dad’s knack too, which means I can say hello in a half a dozen languages in accents that no on can understand, but beyond that I’m hopeless.

The school year is over. Remote learning is in the past. Usually, the end of the year brings laughter and smilies, giddiness and excitement. This year, it brings a reminder that our lives are changed forever and the things we looked forward to most, the man we couldn’t wait to see, is no more. This year, for the first time ever, summer starts with sadness. 

Mom has quit her driving lessons. She might get comfortable enough to drive the four miles from our house to the grocery store. But she’d never be able to handle the highway or the city. She’d never get to the point where she could come and go — country to city, city to country — at will. So she will sell the car as she originally planned. And then, maybe the house as well, if I can’t get out here enough.

Dad’s favorite pancake mix was Aunt Jemima. He also preferred the Aunt Jemima fake syrup over the much tastier real maple syrup. I grew up with the fake stuff and I never liked it. I never cared for pancakes in general. It was my spouse who introduced me to the real maple syrup back when we were just friends. I liked it so much better that I even ate pancakes (Bisquick) with her. I then introduced my mother to it and she too preferred it as well. But not Dad. He grew up with Aunt Jemima and wouldn’t eat anything else. At home, my son liked the real stuff, but with Grandpa he used to mix the two whenever they ate waffles or pancakes together. Dad called maple syrup liquid gold because it’s so bloody expensive, but he never minded spending the money, and he always made sure there was a backup bottle in the cabinet. This morning, Quaker Oats announced that it is going to rebrand Aunt Jemima. On the heels of all the protests, they are finally acknowledging the racist trademark and changing it. Upon hearing the news, my son marched into the kitchen and pulled out the box of pancake mix. Holding it up, he announced, “We need to save the box.” Then he paused, looked sadly at Aunt Jemima and said, “They died the same year. She couldn’t go on without Grandpa.” Then he did a little mournful tap dance, and a cloud of pancake mix covered him in white powder before drifting to the floor. 

My son and I went to the beach. We brought lunch but it was chilly, too chilly to take off our sweatshirts, so after we ate my son wanted to leave. At home we played Clue. Mom won. 

I’m seriously having trouble functioning throughout the days. My inability to sleep is starting to make it difficult to do anything. I manage to get through my blog posts, but my brain is too fuzzy, my eyes too heavy to work on anything else. Reading is becoming a challenge again. My concentration comes and goes, like the reception on the old school TV’s. I wiggle the rabbit ears and things are clear for a page or two, but then my mind starts wandering. Half my energy is spent simply trying to keep my eyes open while I read. But I lose that battle too often. I can’t keep my eyes alert, and I can’t force my brain to shut down enough to sleep. I wish I could sleep more than a few hours every night. I wish my mind didn’t keep reminding me about how much I miss Dad or replay his death over an over. And I wish these bizarre dreams didn’t keep waking me up, when I finally do fall asleep. How much longer can I go on like a zombie?

We went back to the beach to watch the sunset. But clouds covered the sky, leaving not a single window for any color to peek through.