GERARD SARNAT
I began the day bemoaning I.C.U. State of the Union
including ongoing U.S. federal Civil Wars, then
continued post ablutions morning of our golden
anniversary driving to a Century City high-rise
to sign closing escrow papers on parents’
condominium where they seemed to live happily
since their two kids went far far away to college --
never to return until we had had a few children too.
Well truth be told actually I began the day
in the impermanent unit which was now
in mid-sprucing waiting on its new
occupants to complete what
I started but suspended per
negotiations with buyer now
hopefully raising the cash to pay us
so as Sister and I can end this hassle.
Ostensibly I began the day in the condo
to make sure the very last set of keys
not handed over to officialdom
fit into though the real reason
is I wanted some time alone
there to process termination of tangible
connections as such to Mama plus Dad
with the exception of chosen tchotchkes.
When the day’s tasks began, I unlocked the door
(check) to the place Mommy died 146 nights
ago after I as the firstborn physician son
gathered family to say goodbyes before
administering enough morphine to get
the deed done as comfortably as possible
just like it’d gone down with Doc Dad whom
Ger was a lot closer to 2513 dawns preceding.
Be that as it may, I began the day within space
evacuated of everything except a grand piano
smack middle of the otherwise buck naked
living room and salt/ pepper shakers
I remember from Chicago babyhood hiding
out in an overlooked cabinet inside the kitchen.
All of the rooms are consumed by fresh drywall
bland blizzard emptiness extending in each dimension.
Thus I began the day compensating for ambivalent
cool clinical feelings about the female who gave
genes, carried then expelled me, plus the male
ditto contributed tangled material. I offer myself
a half hour in weirdly bookless nooks to imagine
being lost without them: more importantly I conceded
dollars to the prospective owner, the Persian mother of
a current nitpicking tenant so they might live happily everafter.
If I began the day attending to past suffering, I finished up at
oldest daughter’s L.A. home in which her sibs congregate
with 5 grandchildren -- no minor feat given school, work
distances, pregnancy or sickness -- to celebrate our 50th
then remain in town for Ashkenazi New Year honoring
my wife who has come from a warmly Orthodox heritage
whereas [surprise, surprise!] Hubby derived from a tribe
of assimilated scientific atheist types, perhaps even Jew-Bus.
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