a moment in the day: a shot

I'm just pulling the garbage out of the can to get it ready to take it to the curb when my sister texts: "Hey mom and I are gonna have a shot for dad in a min can you too?"

It's August 11. Five years—five unbelievable years long—since our dad left this world. My mom loves good tequila and doesn't drink it much, but she has a nice bottle that she and Edina once in a while, for a special occasion or remembrance, will take down and pour a shot and toast.

I start going through the cabinet. What can I use? There's an open bottle of red wine on the counter but it's 95 degrees out at seven in the evening, and somehow a shot of something hard seems less of a fireball to your stomach than red wine right now. The phone—the land line, we only talk on the land line—starts ringing and I run through the house to grab it. Mom's on the other end, ready with her little shot glass with Edina close by. I tell her I'm looking for what to use, and I pull down from the high cabinet in the kitchen the bottles my hand can reach. 

A pretty blue bottle that turns out to be gin. A brown bottle that looks to be less than a shot's worth of rum. Mom says that Edina says that I can use "three fingers of milk" if I want. That sounds better than the gin.

"I've got Cointreau!" I say and find a pretty shot glass in the lower cabinet and pour. 

I don't know where to go for this moment. I don't want to stand in the kitchen next to my garbage bag. I go out into the dining room, then through to the edge of the living room. There's nothing of Dad in here, but Mom and Edina are waiting, so I stop, and I realize that what I was doing was moving toward the spot in the corner of the living room with Nicholas's painting and Nicholas's ashes, one loss pinch-hitting for another.  

I say, "OK!"

"I'm clinking with Edina," Mom announces. And then, "I'm clinking the phone!"

I clink the phone. "I'm clinking the phone!"

The phone's plastic so it's more like a clack.

And now a sip. Sweetness that tweaks at my nostrils and burns down into my stomach.

"Edina shot," Mom says. "I'm sipping."

"I'm sipping," I say.

"You know, your dad liked Cointreau," Mom says.

And I am so happy. I didn't know that. Or if I knew that, I forgot it. I just remember that when Dad was drinking he liked Scotch, which we don't have. 

I raise my glass to the fact that Dad liked Cointreau.

After we hang up the phone and Mom and Edina go off to make nachos, a fitting dish for a Dad day, I linger to sip a little longer, not yet ready to get back to taking out the trash.

My dad

I lost my dad a year ago. Not long after, my aunt asked if I was going to write an obituary. What I wrote was mostly that, a little bit upside-down from the traditional structure, but something that pulled together who he was, at least to me. I thought today, on the anniversary, I would post that here.

*

Don Chandler Little was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 6th, 1945, and grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, the only child to Frank Chandler and Stella Aline Little. As a kid, he loved playing baseball with the neighborhood boys and listening to games on the radio. In the summers, the family would vacation in Florida where Don would play golf with his dad, check out the Daytona Speedway, and lounge on the beach, devouring paperbacks one after the other. In high school, he played French horn in the band and landed the lead part in his senior class play, Mr. Coed.

When he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from the University of Kentucky, Don was awarded a Corning Glass fellowship, which gave him the chance to travel the world. He saw Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Israel, then headed to Europe. In Brussels, he took a pause in his touring to work at the local Corning Glass offices to earn some extra traveling money. Stopping one day into the First National City Bank, he was waited on by Kathy Cooke, an American living overseas with her Naval family. He asked her out and the rest is history.

Because Kathy invited Don home to Holland to meet her family. "I know what's going to happen," she said. "You're going to meet my sister and fall in love with her."

And he did.

And he did.

Lucy Cooke and Don Little met in mid-January of 1968. Their first date was Chinese food in London's SoHo in February. In April, they were engaged. Statistics on marital success based on longevity of courtship be damned.

They returned from Europe and were married on August 24th, 1968. Don had landed a job at Arthur Andersen and Company but first headed off for a few days' honeymoon, followed by a trip to his boyhood home in Kentucky to visit the local draft board. Unsure how to classify the young men who'd been awarded Corning Glass fellowships, the draft board had given each a business deferral, but now that Don's fellowship had come to an end, that classification changed. To 1A: draft immediately.

"Your wife doesn't happen to be pregnant, does she?" a woman working in the draft board office asked him.

She explained that if his wife were expecting, he'd be eligible again for a business deferral. Eugenia Bain was born approximately nine months later.

Statistics on domestic success based on preparation and planning be damned.

In August of 1971, Don still working for Arthur Andersen, they moved to Melbourne, Australia, where their second child, Edina Kathleen, was born, in September of 1972. They lived there until May of 1974, when they moved back to Washington DC, and then, a little later, Southern California, welcoming son Frank Chandler in July of 1976.

By then, Don had left Arthur Andersen and was working for US Rentals. The family of five became a family of seven with the addition of Carmen Garcia and her two-month-old baby Liz. In the early Eighties, Don started G/L Systems, which provided payroll and other accounting services to local businesses. The family continued to grow, welcoming the next generation: Amy Bullard, Alex Bullard, Abigail Bailey Little, and Hana Tateno.

In Don's business G/L Systems, which he ran for almost forty years, he described himself as a "one-stop comptroller." But what else was he? Husband, father, grandfather (known to his grandchildren as Pops). Lover of sports, particularly ice hockey and baseball. Avid reader. Punster. Clever namer of pets. Ardent scholar of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Ardent enthusiast of tasty things including frozen yogurt, milkshakes, Junior Mints, Heath Bars, Klondike Bars (his last discovered treat), and Lucy Little's excellent cooking. Lover of music. A storyteller at heart. A true gentleman. A computer whiz who was known to review new programs for software creators. The dad who did his kids' taxes for years even though taxes were his least favorite activity in accounting. Bringer of surprise bouquets of flowers. Orchestrator of cunning and elaborate gift schemes. Sporter of the most dashing beard. A quiet force who knew his mind and spoke it well. A generous person. A respectful person. An authentic person. The perfect emblem, in this daughter's opinion, of what a man should be.

on her birthday: early journal entries about my sister edina, with spelling errors intact and my own commentary in blue

1978
May 18—Edina fell over on the bed on a chair. The table on dad's side fell. I scremed once and in the night dad tirned on the Light it exploded from edina put clay on the bulb.

1979
July 26—Today I went skiing. Someone called us. Heather and Edina played in the row boat on the way our gass started to leak then it started to rain. I got under the steering wheel. CoCo pulled us to shore. I helped the Lady in the other boat to find CoCo's car keys to get something. I thank God for that adventure. In the summers we visited our grandparents at their house on a lake in Virginia.

1981
April 16—We practiced our play for Edina. She came home early and we screamed. it was with our guys. We used my Backy (Blanket). We sold things cheep The we here was my cousin Heather and me. Our guys was what we used to call our stuffed animals. 

September 29—Edina's birthday is tomorrow. She's getting a bird he's a pretty bird.

1982

April 26—Edina stayed home from school. She saw Paul McCartney on a talk show. Paul McCartney and Stevey Wonder have recorded a new song "Ebony & Ivory." I'm glad that he's not just a memory.

August 14—We are at Noni & Coco's house. Edina skis better than any one exept Freddy. Aunt Sally, Uncle Alex & Nana was here. We sang and played piano before going to bed. It was so much fun!

August 15—We skied & fished. Edina makes me so mad! She is bragging & she got mad at me for suggesting for she & I swiching drowers & I got in trouble for it!

October 2—We saw E.T. 6th time for Edina's birthday. I didn't cry as much. They had the sound on sterio. Edina had an E.T. cake. I got a piece with E.T.'s eye. Mom gave everyone an E.T. poster. I used to judge how much I loved my favorite movie E.T. by how much I cried each time I saw it.

December 11—We went shopping at the mall. Secretly Heather Edina & I went & got olde fassioned pictures taken. One for Mom & dad from all of us & one for Kathy & Mike. Then mom Found out & had us do it again with Frankie for some people. We got to dress up & pose. We didn't smile the 1st time but 2nd time Mom wanted us to. It was so much fun!!!

1983

March 8—Edina got special (Ladybug). I got 3 Cs on my progress report. I sang about being cool. Edina started me off. I'm reading "Skeleton Island." Mom put us on a no sugar diet. Ladybug was one of the favorite video games we played at the time.

May 20—Because of parent-teacher conferences, we had no school today. Edina's friend Jenny came over. I started to clean out my drawers. I worked at Mom's "French Pantry. It was slow. When we got home, Dad, Edina and I swam. We took turns pulling each other by the feat. It was fun. It felt quiet and relaxing. We pulled each other softly around. It was fun!

1984

Feb 7 brought news that Mom is finaly going to sell the restaurant. On the weekend, Edina & I went to the Ocean side house by train with Heather. We exchanged and looked at each other's star scrapbooks

(Nov 2 6:41 AM) I dreamed I died and had to be taken to a place where I'd make the transition from this life to something else. Mom said she would help me get through the transition and the hardest part which she called something like "the forest". She said she'd come with me. I was wandering about, looking for pictures of Edina and Frankie. Somehow, I knew I'd see them soon. It's funny because before I went to bed last night I was thinking how beautiful life is.

1985
3/6/85 (9:38) P.M I bought some earings from Edina—2 pair for 5:00, She & Tina are now in the earring business. But, I won't knock it. They've got a good little business going. Tina provided all the old jewelry and they made them into earrings. It's great. The best gaudy bead and rhinestone earrings around.

March 17—Edina dreamed, last night, that she was on an island with me, and a guy who looked like Julian Lennon. And, he and I went to see what was at the other side, and some man pushed Edina into the water & began to choke her, but she got away. And, we came back & told her we found some land at the other side. He kicked in a door to some room or something, and there was the man who tried to choke Edina. Julian Lennon fell in the water, or something, and I jumped in after him. And, then, there were sharks in the water with us, and Edina came in after us & knocked the sharks' teeth out.

Well, I dreamed we (Edina, Heather & I) were going to be made into worms.

Good Friday 8:07 A.M.—I’m in Edina’s room with her, listening to We are the World. She just taped it off of the radio. This is now the #1 song. And, all the money is going to Ethiopia.

I went downstairs this morning & Mom said the radio stations all over the world are going to play it 10 minutes ‘til 8:00. I rushed upstairs and switched on KRTH really loud. Edina put on KIIS really loud. I then dashed into Chandler’s room and put on KRTH on the 2 radios in his room. We switched on M.T.V. upstairs and Mom switched M.T.V. on downstairs. I then opened my balcony and Edina’s and Frankie’s window. The song came on. It was alittle off from station to another, but that didn’t matter. We turned up the radios as far as they would go. It was great. Dad came in my room and told me to change the station around. Almost every station was playing it. There were approximately 80,000. They were even playing it on Muzak stations—in supermarkets and elevators!

We’re now in my room, and I’m taping it for Edina and for myself—the exact copy when it was played all over the world.

One things for sure. It’s true we’ll make a brighter day—just you and me.

a moment in the day: dream

I wake up before the alarm goes off, and the last bit of dream sits here, on my pillow. I've dreamed it almost every night for the last month, in some way or other. Dreamed it for the few weeks before I flew to California and I've been dreaming it since I came home. Always the way with one of these California visits. In the dream, it's my last night there and I'm going to have to leave again.

It's weird to me how hard I grieve for that part of my life that's far away. Not weird that I miss my family, but how much. With how good I have it here. A good and interesting man as my husband, a good job, my friends, my endless, beloved projects. My doggie. It's not like before, when every time I left my family in California, I was heading off to an existence that felt crushingly boring and distinctly not mine. But no matter what I have here in this lovely Portland life-after, there's that one deep hole I can't fill.

A week and a half ago, the Saturday of Noni's memorial, stepping up to Mom and Dad's door, me with my good shoes in one hand, Frank and I were talking about death. Partly because of Noni, yes, but also, I think, partly because Frank has a daughter now, and children are the markers of the swift and endless passage of time.

"I think about how I won't exist," he said, "and I think about how I won't exist forever. All that time going on forever and ever..."

He was freaking himself out just thinking about thinking about it.

Though I believe, like my brother, that after I die, my consciousness won't continue, won't go to some heaven or into some new body, death isn't the forever that obsesses me. Walking up to Mom and Dad's house with my good shoes in my hand, I was thinking about my life - all that time - how little of it will be spent with this handful of the people I love most.

The other night, back here in Portland, Stephen and I sat up in bed doing what we love to do, watching an old movie. It was The Merry Widow, with Jeanette MacDonald shrouded in black tulle and Maurice Chevalier singing, "Girls! Girls! Girls!"

Late, ten thirty at least, and I started to doze, just a moment. Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier were embracing, and then my eyes closed and I started to dream. Dreaming about that same hug, but instead of MacDonald and Chevalier, it was Mom and me.

easter

Nice little Easter.

First cyber, then in the flesh.

Morning computer time, me alone in the studio, a back and forth string of Jesus Christ Superstar lyrics down my facebook page with Frank.

Life lived with fingertips and words.

He started it. The opening line to Heaven On Their Minds. One of my very favorite of the songs. We rolled it out, line after line. Only sad thing: Edina wasn't on. Or you would have had the three of us going at it.

Here would be a funny Little Family Easter vigil in cybertime. The three of us in our separate corners, each with a basket of malted milk balls and jelly beans (or maybe some pizza... I'd rather the pizza) laying down a back and forth of that whole rock opera. Think we could do it? We were trying to do it without cheating yesterday, and after a while, I knew my memory for the lyrics was going a little blooey. We didn't get past Heaven, but that was enough for me to feel Easter.

In the evening, it was Mary and Stephen and me and salad and appetizers and good music and then Judy Garland and Easter Parade. Mary brought CDs of classical adagios and we sat and listened and talked. She also brought Benny. Elegant greyhound, he of the celebrated longest tail of all greyhounds around. Really: he won a prize. It was some big local greyhound get-together Mary took him to recently. The prize was a soft rubber doggie bowl you can fold up and take with you. She had it with her, in fact, and put it on her lap full of water and he got his sleek nose up there and drank. Weirdly, the doggie bowl was imprinted with an ad for some beer.

To get ready for having Mary over, I cleaned off my desk - by which I mean the little table in the living room, the only table in the apartment. I piled my piles on the other piles on my real desk in the studio, which is so full of piles that I can't write back there. This morning, I moved my laptop back on the table but left the piles in the back. I'll get those piles moved back, but for today, I might just see what it's like to write without a mess around me.