The Wink

During my father’s ALS, there were moments when our family seemed happier than ever. One evening we all gravitated to the den, a former bedroom that Dad had remodeled. Pictures of the three sons hung on wood paneled walls, knickknacks from Israel and European travels decorated the bookshelves, a comfortable leather couch beckoned. It was Dad’s room, the place where he retired after dinner to watch television, read, and snooze. It also was a cozy family room, the center of any evening’s activity when we were together.

That evening Mom and Rob and I sprawled on the carpet, engrossed in a game of Scrabble. Dad relaxed on the couch, watched television, and read. The only things unusual from ALS were Dad’s book, on holistic medicine, and his exercise jaunts every half hour to loosen his tight muscles.

I looked up and surveyed the scene, satisfied with this normal moment. I caught Dad’s eye. He winked, content and knowing.

That wink. I wondered if, somehow, he had contracted the disease as the only way he could bring me back home for this kind of warm family evening. Perhaps he had sensed my years of silent smoldering rage over his refusal to let me clean his basement workshop, his dissatisfaction with my high school grades, his skepticism about my college studies in liberal arts, his puzzlement over my life in Berkeley, his apparent dissatisfaction with everything I did.

That wink stayed with me. Enough so that I returned to it at the conclusion of My Father’s ALS.