Good But Not Good

(Ben Heine - Pencil vs. Camera)

Good But Not Good

by

Marianne Carlson

After my father’s stroke his speech never fully returned. The speech therapist at the rehab where he lay recovering told us it might or it might not. Occupational therapists taught him how to navigate through daily hurdles with his left hand: tying shoes, eating, writing. Physical therapists taught him how to walk while dragging his right foot. Up and down the hall they would go, my father pushing the walker, the sweet young therapist with her SLOW BUT STEADY WINS THE RACE  orange plastic wrist band, her smile that could melt a curmudgeon, encouraging his every step. My father, behaving like a monster, growled and grunted as they slowly made their way up and down the hall. Would it have killed him to return one of her smiles?

When we finally brought him home, we set him up downstairs in the family room.  It was to be his habitat, perfect really, there was a connecting bathroom. The room was bright and sunny, although he kept the shades down almost all the time, and in spite of our efforts, he gave up on everything. We installed bookshelves for his favorite books, a computer with a handicapped keyboard, stereo equipment. He never read or listened to music again, and when we encouraged him to communicate, he would look around and shake his head back and forth like the head of a turtle peeping out of his shell. He could say a few things, his standard answer to every question was “good but not good.”

My daughter, Brice, was a senior in high school when he died.  A precocious child, she quietly soaked up her environment like a sponge. I thought he was but a shadowy presence in her life, but I came to realize that he was much more. The grumpy old man in the dark room who never talked left an indelible impact on her life as she grew into a beautiful, troubled young woman. Since I worked long hours as a therapist, I was rarely home when Brice got home from school. As I look back on it, I was rarely home, period. How could I have been so unaware of the endless hours that that improbable pair spent together? Today, as I walk through the house, I see the many framed photographs of Brice as she passed  from one stage of development to the next with a new clarity.  How could I have missed the ever present sadness, the pain in her eyes? I am a therapist, I should have seen what was happening under my own roof.

Brice rarely smiled. Uncommonly beautiful, she had every gift a generous universe could offer. Tall, almost statuesque, she possessed a natural charisma. When she walked into a room, people noticed her, yet there was a disturbance somewhere behind her innocuous expression. It was as if she knew something, and whatever that something was, it wore her down. Her teachers told me she was a loner, she had no interest in her classmates. What held her interest was chemistry. Chemistry and math. And sometimes sports.

“Why do you drag your foot like that?”  Her soccer coach  pulled Brice aside one day after practice.

“Do I? I never noticed.”

“Yes, you do. You would be a much more effective fielder if you could break yourself of the habit.”

“I’ll try.” But she didn’t try, not at all. It was as if she was limping up and down the field.  Soon after that she quit soccer.

Her knapsack was too heavy. I worried about that, I worried that the heavy knapsack might hurt her back, but I was woefully unaware that my worries were misplaced.  What we worry about rarely happens, it’s what we never worry about that can blind-side us. 

Every day, as soon as she got home from school, she took her knapsack upstairs to her room and unpacked the many scientific journals and math quizzes, piling them neatly on her desk. She then had a snack, usually tea and a bagel. She made two, one for her, one for her grandfather. Balancing the two mugs of tea and the two bagels on a tray, she knocked twice  and entered. She often brought him flowers. They rarely talked, he couldn’t and she preferred the silence. One day I came home early, a crippling migraine caused me to cancel my afternoon sessions. Brice was unaware that I lay on the couch in the living room.

“Hi Pops, how’s it going?”

“Good but not good.”

“Likewise. School sucks.  Good but not good. But I got an “A” on my calculus exam.”

“Good.”

“My guidance counselor thinks I will be accepted at Harvard, or if not Harvard, Princeton.”

“Good but not good.”

So much remained unsaid, there was a lapse in the conversation, a lapse where something transpired between the two of them. It sounded as if they were working on something which I found rather odd, but in retrospect, I should have paid more attention. Hindsight is always 20/20.

“Don’t worry, Pops, I am sure it will work.” (She is sure WHAT will work, what are they doing in there?)

Two weeks later I discovered them, Brice in her recently purchased senior prom dress, my father in a long forgotten suit. Carbon monoxide killed them both. She was on his lap, he held her like a young child.

 

It's All Temporary