At the still point of the turning world

The Starbucks at College and Fall Creek seems to draw an interesting crowd. My visits here have been limited thus far (two times to be exact) so I haven’t exactly made a study of the demographic but each time, I have been surprised. Today for instance, a forty-ish associate pastor looking man with a goatee has just rolled his absent-faced father through the door with various fanangling required to maneuver the unwieldy wheel chair over snow banks and door jambs to stand looking dazed at the seating area full of busy business types and students. He veers over to the overstuffed chairs in the corner where I am obnoxiously talking to my sister on my cell phone and positioned in the very center of the five chairs. He starts and stops a bit vaguely glancing at me by side-ways looks until I finally manage to focus away from Meg’s latest complaint on my mother’s insensitivity to this poor man’s predicament. I say quickly, “would you like to sit here?” He seems relieved that he didn’t have to initiate the request and moves towards the chairs as I jump from the chair and move to another corner. He gratefully gives his thanks and mentions that the corner makes it easier to hear for him—pointing at the aged man in the wheel chair.

Finding an audibly pleasing spot in the coffee shop seems to be one of many challenges on this outing. He pushes the wheel chair up to the arm chair and through such awkward heftings and slidings that I consider offering my help, lifts the older man from one chair to the other. Once positioned, the young man leaves his oblivious companion to fetch drinks. He returns and they say very little. The young man even unfolds a newspaper as he settles into his chair and they sip iced drinks through straws. About ten minutes later, after a mumbled comment by the older man, they reverse the lifting and settling back into the wheel chair and roll back through the seating area to the door and the snow packed parking lot. Relationally, the visit seems unfruitful to my observing eye. But perhaps if the young man is the older man’s son and if the older man’s mind is as absent as his expression, time spent is the most productivity they can expect. This excursion from the nursing home or wherever the older man lives is a consolation for the young man, an activity to enact an earlier relationship, the silence after the last note has sounded before the music ends.

As most young people do, I fear this scene in my future with my parents. Recently, my marathon-running, detail-obsessive dad lost his hearing in his right ear and since has taken on an almost caricature like tendency to cock his head in confusion and say “what?” He jokingly says things like “in my good ear sonny” but he had an MRI done and a CT scan on the hip that has been giving him pain and keeping him from running. I know I am lucky, as these things go. My parents are healthy for the most part; young for parents of people my age, and active. And sanity-wise, well there are other important qualities and none of their lack has come with age. It was always there. But I know I will be sad when I have to pick them up or check them in or pay for them. And I’m sure I will be like the young man who just wheeled his dad back to the car. I will bring them to coffee or dinner or movies like we have always done, whether they know what’s going on or not, for my sake.