Vic Socotra

12 October 2009

Shaving Dad

(Early Electric Razor)

It is a Federal Holiday, as you well know, but there is no rest for the wicked. I would have to burn a "floating holiday" in order to honor my Italian heritage and sit on the couch at home and recover from the 1,600 miles on the road this week.

Not that there is any, Italian heritage, that is, and I think I would be wise to husband my paid time away from the job, for reasons that will become apparent.

It was a very strange trip, as they are all going home. I would rather be on a cruise in the Eastern Med, or heading down to Buenos Aires. Something exciting and vibrant and completely new.

Rather, I am trying to get home when I can in a loose rotation with my siblings, and getting a snapshot of Dad's decline with each visit.

That makes it more dramatic, since I am not immersed in the insidious and progressive nature of it. Mom is even more my hero, dealing with it valiantly and without complaint.

It humbles me, particularly when I apply the balm of my small sacrifice in getting home against the overwhelming feeling of inadequacy and guilt.

Shaving Dad was an example of doing about the least. Mom doesn’t know how to do it, and when he quit shaving a few weeks ago it was a tectonic shift.

You can imagine abandoning at a stroke the habits of grooming of a lifetime as one of the mileposts.

The women at the group that gathers each Friday afternoon commented on his growing beard with disfavor. Dad sits quietly at the table in the lounge of the first Fireproof hotel of the little town's tourist origins and the only one that survives.

Mom took the hint, and on their daily outing (which he loves) trundled him out to the small-town barbershop to have his haircut, and hopefully to get a shave.

They were happy, at the Haircuttery, to do the tonsure work, but advised that due to changes in the law, they were precluded from shaving him.

It is not that Mom doesn't know how; the problem was that by the time she realized this was something that was now her responsibility, the beard growth was significant and quite beyond her efforts to attack with a blade. Not that she did not try; the nicks and blood that resulted from the attempt freaked her out, since he is her Sweetie, as she mentioned, and does not want to hurt him.

The Haircuttery was happy to run a trimmer with a 1/4" comb on the end, which gave Dad a bit of the Don Johnson Miami Vice-era stubble, and that was the only thing I had to deal with, aside from some inoperative computer equipment that was actually within my capacity to fix.

Feeling good about that was pathetic, really.

Beyond that, all I had to do was move the outside furniture under cover, disconnect the hose and help get some things ready for the winter to come.

And shave Dad. Wrestling with the problem, I got some sound advise on using an electric razor, but of course the matter was more complex and highly nuanced.

There were a few such devices in various states of disassembly, jumbled together in an ancient cigar box. There are at least three of everything at home, the only challenge being to find their constituent parts.

I started with one that looked the newest, but as you may know, an electric does not do the job on a good stubble.

I was left with the blade option, and got a towel, shaving cream, pre-shave lotion and set up shop in the kitchen. Mom looked on with interest, and Dad assumed a resting position, his mind far away.

He likes his seat in the breakfast nook of the spacious kitchen, since he can look out across the formal dining room to the deck that overhangs the Bay. He can see the sailboats venturing out toward the Big Lake, and it resonates with the days he had his own yacht in that blue water, and raced against his peers from his position at the pedestal helm in the cockpit.

That is my Dad: the one who taught us to drive the Navy way, by the numbers and with precision and professionalism, the same way he flew his Skyraider. .

He also takes delight in the squirrels, one black and one gray, who use the railing as their own highway to cross the property. He is quite happy, and tells me that a lot. He really loves my Mom, and it is a comfort that he seems at peace with going gently into that good night.

The shaving was not bad, once I got into it, and when I was done and splashed some aftershave on his cheeks, he startled visibly. He is still in there, Dad is, but sometimes swimming deep.

He is still ambulatory, and walks with purpose, even if he cannot articulate what he is doing. His determination to ensure that the house is secure can result in being locked out of the house if one is not alert, or in possession of a key to the side door.

I bought a new electric razor at the WalMart, my repugnance for the retail chain being overcome by the imperative of expediency. Mom wanted to go to her Antiques Club, since she is still the Recording Secretary, and I thought a break would do her good.

Dad likes his excursions, and between a daily activity with Mom and the three-times-a-week exercise class at the Senior Center up on the hill, seems quite content. I told Mom I would take him up to get the razor and go shopping, though I was filled with trepidation.

I dropped him off in front, and asked him to wait by the red poles that guard the glass doors. I parked the Bluesmobile a couple lanes away and walked briskly toward the door, but he had disappeared. I went through the automatic doors, and Dad was there, looking out. Relieved that I had not lost him, I went up and clapped him lightly on the shoulder, full of false courage.

"Come on, Dad, let's go shopping," I said brightly.

He looked at me with his brown eyes distant, and then turned to watch the door again. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am waiting for the guy."

It suddenly struck me that the environment - the vastness of the big box store, the white tile and the bustle at the entrance- had disoriented Dad to the extent that his knowledge of me had quite vanished.

“Dad, I’m The Guy.”

It took a minute to reel him back in, since he can be a stubborn man, but in the end the journey went well, and he seemed to enjoy the exchange with the cashier and the kind woman from Finer Jewelry who helped us locate the electric razor section.

I later tried to do a timeline of the decline. Had he driven down with Mom to visit me in DC just two years ago?

The visit had gone well, and he seemed to appreciate my hanging some of his old drawings, neatly framed, on the walls of Tunnel Eight.

They got lost, though, and I recall his blank look at the gas pump as they were preparing to launch off, back to Michigan, swiping his credit card again and again through the slot with the magnetic stripe on the wrong side.

As it turned out, the razor worked perfectly well. A minute or so with the electric buzzer after breakfast suffices to keep him nicely trimmed. I told Mom she just had to stay on top of it, since going two days between shaves would let the stiff hairs grow out too far for the thing to work effectively, and then it would be back to the full production number with the shaving cream and the blades.

She looked at me dubiously, and said she certainly would.

Later, driving up the hill and cresting the top of the bluff that grants the last glimpse of the sparkling water in the rearview, Hurtling away from the only thing that matters in this world, I felt as guilty as hell, and lower than whale-shit, and despite the miles, it doesn't feel much better today.

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