Packing

I have been quietly counting off the final driving trips. The last drive to the men's group. The final, final drive to my synagogue's Sunday morning affairs program. Then there is the last time getting up from the rowing machine. And the final occasion when I return from a wheelchair errand downtown. I don't expect to return from any of these, not fully, not without mishap. Surely something is going to go wrong before departure.

On Friday, Marlou got a call from her doctor's assistant. And, yes, any call from an assistant is bound to be good, as this one was. Marlou's symptoms were not symptoms of cancer. She is fine. Marlou hung up the phone and we sat in the kitchen, staring at each other. We had been staring at mortality all week. And now we could stare at the future. Which was more real? Is the future an illusion, and our brevity of existence closer to the truth? The question sounds so banal, even mildly comic when posed in this way. Closer to reality, particularly Marlou's reality is this simple question: can I forget about dying for a month and enjoy sailing on the world's greatest passenger ship, then winding up in Provence?

Sitting in our kitchen and feeling the grim weight lift from us, I had to admire my wife. Fear must be a constant presence, blowing in like the Bay fog. Subtle, gradual and darkening. Marlou is back at work, where people have said that with her return things are back to normal. Thus my wife's effect on others. Brushing close to the death force seems to bring out the life force. It's ancient human wisdom, and now it's happening in my kitchen on a Friday afternoon. Thank God. And, no, that's not just an expression.

And, yes, our departure is going as predicted, as my father would have done. We're both engaged in last-minute chores, putting things right, pursuing endeavors that have nothing really to do with departing. Unless you think about departing in some larger sense. Which I do. We departed from our "normal" lives a year ago, and we are never going back. Are we sailing off the edge of the world? Into calmer seas? Storms?

With all these all elaborate preparations, what will go awry? Even more interesting, how will we handle it? We have been stepping on each other's toes all day long, in the process of packing. At day's end, how will this resolve? Will we say to each other what we need to say? How well will we say it? Whatever happens, the real journey has begun...or began some time ago and is only intensifying.