Dropping our son off at the airport I expected I might cry a little, but the airport drop-off scene
was so intense and manic that all my attention was absorbed by the driving, concentrated
on avoiding the cars and pedestrians. Crazy numbers of travelers on the Sunday after
Christmas.I stopped mid-traffic, second lane from the curb, and we had the bags out in
seconds, a quick hug before he disappeared into the throng.
Last summer when I said goodbye to my 87-year-old uncle, he said, “Maybe this is the last time we’ll see each other.” I didn’t want to think about this possibility. He’s not in great health, even though he continues to live alone in a house just off a golf course in Florida.
The last time I saw my father alive, my uncle was with us, too. That was also the last time my uncle would see his brother alive. Later my uncle and I talked about how good my dad had looked that day and how he had given us the impression that he would hang on for quite some time. But we should have known; he had been living with terminal cancer for a while and was in hospice care. But that day he was so much himself we didn’t believe the time he wouldn’t bewas so near.
Driving home from the airport–it’s two and a half hours if there’s no traffic and you don’t stop– I was listening to my favorite Portland radio station. They play obscure live cuts on Sunday mornings. A version of James Taylor’s Fire and Rain came on. I could tell it was recently recorded—a lot more fire and rain between when the song was first written, 1970, and now. I had always connected deeply to that song, though God knows what I had in my life to be so depressed about when I was seventeen. Now the line that speaks to me most directly is “I always thought I would see you, baby, one more time again.” I don’t hear that the same as I did when I was seventeen, not that I remember how I heard it back then.
I do clearly remember the last time I saw my son who died ten years ago. October 30, 2015, Anchorage. I had driven over to his Government Hill apartment for some lost reason. I asked him if he knew it was raining outside. He went into a tirade because his truck bed wasn’t covered and he went out to cover it. When I drove away he was still cursing about it. It’s not a particularly pleasant memory. I never thought for one second that would be the last time I saw him alive, 22-years old.
A week later I retrieved his truck from the state police impound lot. There really wasn’t anything in the truck bed worth covering and now it had a layer of snow over it: scraps of wood, a pair of crutches, and a few cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
I suppose that’s why I get so worked up about saying good-bye to his older, surviving brother, now our only son. He lives thousands of miles from us and we see him twice a year, which is not enough. The thought of the possibility of not seeing him one more time again is too heavy a weight to bear.
But what one knows, one can’t unknow. I know we’re not immortal, but I’m hoping for at least another year for all of us~
Photo: Dougal, at the bottom of the bowl, LC skate park, Christmas 2025
