by
My parents value toughness. They grow things for a living - blueberries, blackberries and Christmas trees. In the spring, when it's time to plan seedlings, my father picks up a tool called a digging bar and the long narrow shovel that he calls a sharpshooter. He sits upright on his knees in the grass, still brown from winter, and pounds the digging bar into the ground. He scoops out shovels full of dirt and lowers the young trees into the holes, careful to protect the fine roots. It's a pleasant job, but it's one that never fails to give me blisters. My dad's hands, though, are calloused - rough and unbothered.
My dad has always called my mom a horse, his notion of a compliment. He means she's a hard worker, and she is. To me, my mother seems most herself when she comes in from the field, lugging an empty water bottle and sweating in the August heat, to make herself a lunch of watermelon sprinkled with salt.
My parents live by the advice of adages they'd only quote in jest. "Waste not, want not," and "share and share alike." In late summer they can quarts upon quarts of tomatoes to stock the basement shelves. They deposit five-gallon buckets of produce on neighbors' front porches.
The two of them have never been quick to seek help. As I've gotten older, it's become a point of contention. A few years ago, my dad had an accident with a chainsaw. He had my mom bind his foot in a towel. He rested, but didn't go to the hospital for days. My mom called me at college to explain what had happened. I don't remember how the conversation began, but I know there was the usual admonition, "Now don't start worrying…"
My dad gave that same mild warning when he called early one Saturday last spring. His delivery was off-hand, and it took us a while to get to the heart of things. The upshot was he'd have to have surgery soon. He'd been told he had cancer.
I asked what kind.
"Well, I guess it's kidney," he said.
"Anything else?" I asked.
"No, no." he said. "It's fine. It's just the size of - a lemon."
Later he admitted "orange," and then "grapefruit." Then we abandoned the citrus family. It was large. He'd probably had it for years.
I lobbied for a second opinion and a good surgeon. Two weeks later, my mother and I sat together in a waiting room at John's Hopkins. This surgeon had found something the other one hadn't. My dad's circulatory system is disorganized - a muddled reverse image of what it ought to be. It's the kind of thing that would kill a person, normally, but my dad's body had made do.
My mother and I sat in the waiting room thinking of my father's component parts: kidneys and veins.
It made perfect sense to me that my dad's body would have figured out its own way. His approach to the world is rowdy and enthusiastic. As a child, I was awakened by his roaring laughter.
My family has been lucky. Almost a year later it looks like my dad might be okay. There's a temptation to think we guided ourselves here and that we'll guide ourselves on from this point, but I know it's not true. After months of uncertainty, I know what I can't control.
It's nearly spring again, and before long my parents will start planting trees. We're not just taking up old patterns, though. We've been recalibrated. We're tough, but we know we're vulnerable.