When I look in the mirror these days, I see my dad’s face. He lived past the age of 90, and I’d like to do that, too–but without his struggles with greatly diminished hearing and macular degeneration.

For a time, when I was in high school, my dad would drive me to school on his way to work. Although I can’t remember specifics about our conversations, I’m sure many parents will affirm that car talks with their kids can be deep and disarming. So we talked. He told me that when I was a little kid–perhaps five or six years old–I once leaned over from the backseat and asked, “Where do they get the things to make the things to make the things to make the things…..?” At that moment, he said, he knew he was dealing with a philosopher.

My dad used to begin every day by working out the cryptogram puzzle in the newspaper. Now I do that, too, partly because it makes me think of him, but mostly because I believe that a little brain workout helps keep me in shape for that ninth decade I’m aiming for. The big puzzle, of course, remains, “What makes the universe tick?” I’m still working on that one, too.

AN OLD MAN MAKES CHILI FOR LUNCH

 

“Do you have a poem for an old man making chili for lunch?
Like watery eyes from onion crunching–sneezing
from pepper thrown…”  e-mail from Dad 5/5/05

 

He shoves the onion pieces in a pile
to one side as he chops and chops some more.
This cutting board has lasted quite a while

through salty tears of choppers gone before,
but no use buying new equipment now.
Sometimes there’s comfort in a kitchenette
that holds what downsized spaces will allow
of former habits. He will not forget
those other hands that held this knife and chopped
for slaw and meatloaf, casseroles and stew,
and apple walnut salad. When they stopped,
he stepped up, making chili, making do,
sneezing on pepper, living on his own.
He cooks for one, but never eats alone.

 

Barbara Loots