ask an older woman who walked the beach nearly every day about the couple.
âI heard Ira had a heart attack while they were visiting friends in New York over the weekend,â she said. âDottie decided to keep him there to be closer to their friends. She said she needed the support.â
I ran back to Gary and cried as if something had happened to one of our own parents.
The remainder of our time in Heavenâs Waiting Room, Gary and the dogs accompanied me on my early-morning walks, me continuingto search for sharkâs teeth and the meaning of lifeâthis precious little sliver of time we all have but tend to waste too carelessly in youth, like pennies, finally taking on incredible importance to me.
Those simple morning walks with Gary comforted me, contented me, filled my soul, and I began to cling to each walk, each found sharkâs tooth, as our holiday began to dwindle, as if I were clinging to a lifesaver in the middle of the Gulf, or, worse, desperately to middle age.
Most mornings, at some point during our walks, Marge and Mabel would break loose and bound into a seawall of gulls, and then Gary would laugh and call for them. I would reach into my pocket, retrieve some bread crumbs, and toss them to Ozzie and Harriet, and then Gary would take my hand in his and say, his words carried out over the ocean and into the vast, cloudless sky by the breeze, âI love you!â
And we would continue to walk, our bodies disappearing into the mist like ghosts.
âWhat do you mean, you âdonât believe in homosexualityâ? Itâs not like the Easter Bunny, your belief isnât necessary.â
âLEA DELARIA
EASTER
Helen Keller
Could Find That Egg!
M y father had a rolltop desk in our family room that served as his virtual home office in the 1970s. I remember sitting in his springy swivel chair as a kid and staring at three photos that adorned his desktop: One was of him in college, wearing goggles and sporting a flattop, mixing something in a beaker; one was him at work, checking the fluid levels in a piece of monstrous equipment that manufactured windows; and one was him with our family, on Easter, my brother and I holding baskets filled with faux grass and board games but no candy or eggs.
Thatâs because even during his off-hours, my father remained an engineer, a man driven largely by mathematical precision, his mind always working on ways to outsmart the world.
Even children.
Which is why my dad used to bury our Easter eggs as if they were plutonium.
Every Easter, no matter how hard we searched, my brother and I could never locate the eggs.
I used to listen in awe to the stories of my friendsâ Easter-egg hunts, where they would skip around merrily, filling their baskets with tons of candy.
My father, on the other hand, would spend hours trekking through our five acres of yard and woods, searching for the perfect spots to insert his minispade and bury our eggs.
He would finally return to the porch, my brother and I watching from behind the patio door, our breath steaming the glass, and give us an excited thumbs-up. We would blow out of the house, dashing around the yard looking in every place any typical five- and nine-year-old would consider most obvious.
Patio? No.
Front porch? Uh-uh.
Planters? Please.
Hanging baskets? Right.
Ground next to the tulips? Too easy.
Low limbs of the dogwoods, or crook of the old oak? Of course not.
Rather, our eggs were buried deep in the ground, like a mob body in Jersey, only the dull tips of the plastic eggs popping through the earth.
A bloodhound couldnât have located them.
Although I was a chubby kid who would blind another child just to get the last Peep, it simply wasnât worth the effort to get so filthy and frustrated.
Instead, I would cry.
âTheyâre still under ten, Ted,â I remember my mother saying to my dad. âWade canât even do long division yet. And weâre not a
âI heard Ira had a heart attack while they were visiting friends in New York over the weekend,â she said. âDottie decided to keep him there to be closer to their friends. She said she needed the support.â
I ran back to Gary and cried as if something had happened to one of our own parents.
The remainder of our time in Heavenâs Waiting Room, Gary and the dogs accompanied me on my early-morning walks, me continuingto search for sharkâs teeth and the meaning of lifeâthis precious little sliver of time we all have but tend to waste too carelessly in youth, like pennies, finally taking on incredible importance to me.
Those simple morning walks with Gary comforted me, contented me, filled my soul, and I began to cling to each walk, each found sharkâs tooth, as our holiday began to dwindle, as if I were clinging to a lifesaver in the middle of the Gulf, or, worse, desperately to middle age.
Most mornings, at some point during our walks, Marge and Mabel would break loose and bound into a seawall of gulls, and then Gary would laugh and call for them. I would reach into my pocket, retrieve some bread crumbs, and toss them to Ozzie and Harriet, and then Gary would take my hand in his and say, his words carried out over the ocean and into the vast, cloudless sky by the breeze, âI love you!â
And we would continue to walk, our bodies disappearing into the mist like ghosts.
âWhat do you mean, you âdonât believe in homosexualityâ? Itâs not like the Easter Bunny, your belief isnât necessary.â
âLEA DELARIA
EASTER
Helen Keller
Could Find That Egg!
M y father had a rolltop desk in our family room that served as his virtual home office in the 1970s. I remember sitting in his springy swivel chair as a kid and staring at three photos that adorned his desktop: One was of him in college, wearing goggles and sporting a flattop, mixing something in a beaker; one was him at work, checking the fluid levels in a piece of monstrous equipment that manufactured windows; and one was him with our family, on Easter, my brother and I holding baskets filled with faux grass and board games but no candy or eggs.
Thatâs because even during his off-hours, my father remained an engineer, a man driven largely by mathematical precision, his mind always working on ways to outsmart the world.
Even children.
Which is why my dad used to bury our Easter eggs as if they were plutonium.
Every Easter, no matter how hard we searched, my brother and I could never locate the eggs.
I used to listen in awe to the stories of my friendsâ Easter-egg hunts, where they would skip around merrily, filling their baskets with tons of candy.
My father, on the other hand, would spend hours trekking through our five acres of yard and woods, searching for the perfect spots to insert his minispade and bury our eggs.
He would finally return to the porch, my brother and I watching from behind the patio door, our breath steaming the glass, and give us an excited thumbs-up. We would blow out of the house, dashing around the yard looking in every place any typical five- and nine-year-old would consider most obvious.
Patio? No.
Front porch? Uh-uh.
Planters? Please.
Hanging baskets? Right.
Ground next to the tulips? Too easy.
Low limbs of the dogwoods, or crook of the old oak? Of course not.
Rather, our eggs were buried deep in the ground, like a mob body in Jersey, only the dull tips of the plastic eggs popping through the earth.
A bloodhound couldnât have located them.
Although I was a chubby kid who would blind another child just to get the last Peep, it simply wasnât worth the effort to get so filthy and frustrated.
Instead, I would cry.
âTheyâre still under ten, Ted,â I remember my mother saying to my dad. âWade canât even do long division yet. And weâre not a
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