“Dada?”

“Yes, Nate.”

“Would Papa Heaton know what poopbend is?”

“What what is?”

“Poopbend.”

“What is poopbend, Nate?”

“I don’t know. But would Papa Heaton know? You said that he knowed all about EVERYTHING.”

“Yeah, he probably would have known, actually.”

“Even would he know how to cook everything all at ONCE? At the SAME time? Like red cake? And blue cake?”

“Definitely.”

We were planning on staying here at the beach until tomorrow morning, but tropical storm/hurricane Hanna has other plans. Everyone who’s not currently posting on this blog is engaged in packing a week’s worth of life in the beach house.  Well, Randy’s listening to DJ John on his MacBook Pro. And Dameon’s cooking. And Liam and Nate are eating pizza in front of ‘Bob the Builder’. Okay, so hardly anyone is actually packing. But we’re all supporting those who are packing, even if only peripherally.

My sister, Leah, just left with her two boys, Parker and Alec. She claims that she travels with a black cloud, and whether you believe her or not, it was raining when she arrived last Saturday, and didn’t start again until roughly the time she began packing her car to leave this morning.

Soon, we’ll be eating the late lunch that Dameon’s fixing, and then we’ll all take a step back toward our individual lives in Maryland, DC, and in my sister’s case, Georgia. Although she’s already stepped.

Yesterday, I sat in the late-afternoon sand as Jill threw Wheat Thins (reduced fat) over my head to the hovering seagulls. The boys, Nate especially, laughed and clapped and chased the birds, which always seemed to be able to stay at least one wing ahead of them.

“I need to run back to the house and get my wide-angle lens. These are some good pictures passing us by.” I said, already heading towards the angled stairs up the dunes.

“Right,” Jill remarked with a wry smile, “Because you can’t take them tomorrow, when we’re back out here.”

“Tomorrow is promised to no one!” I called back jauntily.  

And then this morning, the forward edge of Hanna arrived, bringing with her heavy rains, and sending the gulls to wherever gulls go during tropical storms that may or may not develop into hurricanes.

Dameon’s lunch was excellent, and at the end of it, there was warm-from-the-oven pumpkin pie topped with Breyer’s, which went over very well with the boys.

During those dark days in March when my sister and I sat in our father’s room in Hospice and said our long goodbyes, one of the things we talked about was this trip. And now Senior is gone, my sister is on her way home, and our time at the beach is almost done.

Now Randy’s just left, and it’s almost time for us to go too.

Everything ends… parents and trips and time with friends and even ice cream, sitting on the top of warm pumpkin pie.

So we’re back in both Maryland, and our daily routines. In fact, we’ve been back for a week now. South Carolina was a hard scene… thanks to everyone for the emails, phone calls, and support. There’s a lot more to say about Senior, but not tonight.

Senior was large. He contained multitudes.

We love you, Dad.

Senior isn’t doing well.

On Tuesday afternoon, I received an unexpected and alarming call from my sister. My father, who lives in South Carolina, had broken his femur, and required immediate surgery. And when I say that he broke it, what I mean to say that he BROKE it. In this context, ‘broke’ is to ‘BROKE’ as ‘wet’ is to ‘TSUNAMI’. In light of several other ongoing health issues he has, this was a very. Big. Deal.

I drove all night. He had the surgery the following day, and it was a success. His newly rejoined femur bone is now rubbing its temples, drinking coffee, and slowly knitting itself around an 18-inch titanium rod in his right thigh.

And Senior slumbers on, taking a well-deserved and much overdue sleep - The most stoic and noncomplaining human being… well, ever.

I’ve heard that a broken femur is one of the most agonizing things a person can endure, and he’d walked on his for five weeks, denying pain medication and holding it all in as it steadily got worse and worse (Note added on March 06: He’d been to the ER about the pain in late January, and was told that it wasn’t broken, but contused, and that the best thing to do would be to continue to walk on it - Solid advice, Doc!). Brian Regan does an entire ‘on a scale from 1 to 10, rate your pain’ bit about hospitals and broken femur bones that I can now no longer find funny, thank you, Dad. And you’ll thank me very much to not go into further detail about the specifics of his broken femur. Let’s just say that you’d probably wince and make a “ssssssssss” sound as you closed down your browser and deleted your history.

Remember that guy with the dry-socketed root canal, who was passing kidney stones when he got shot in the belly and fell off that ladder? And as he fell, his nostril got caught on the ceiling hook? Remember that guy? Senior would laugh at that wuss and tell him to man up. Then, he’d explain about his broken femur, and that guy would wince, say “sssssssssss”, and close down your browser.

So, even though I’ve been camped out in a chair in a hospital room for two days, I haven’t had much time to post anything. And Jill, who is home alone with all three boys… she definitely hasn’t had time to post anything. So I decided that while Senior rested, I would stay up real, real late, and post. Anything.

We’re on the 7th floor, and from where I’m sitting, I can see five blocks of stoplights going up North Fant Street. For about three seconds out of each minute, they’re all green at the same time. They don’t know that there are no cars out in Anderson tonight. Anderson is sleeping, just like Senior.

Green, green, red, green, red.

I can hear the distant murmuring of conversation down at the nurse’s station, and somewhere, an IV machine is beeping. It sounds just like a delivery truck backing up.

Green, red, red, green, green.

Senior’s awake now, and he’s telling me a sleepy story about an old woman and an antique pistol. I stop typing and listen to him until his voice trails off and doesn’t start back up again.

Green, green, green, green, green. All are go.

And now, it’s time for me to sleep too.