“Mr Reinhold?”
“Hi Dr. Kelly. How are you doing today?” Scott was ready for Kelly’s call.
“I’m good, thanks for asking. Things busy here as always. I’m calling with an update on your father. Is now a good time?”
“Thanks, go ahead. Yes. I’m just at home in a quiet moment. Your timing is impeccable.”
“I’m sorry to say that the progression of your father’s cancer is unchanged and so we’re in the final stages. He’s comfortable, but we estimate he’s got weeks left now. I know you’ve made good arrangements and you are the most prepared and balanced person I’ve ever dealt with, but it hurts me to tell you this no less.”
“I’ve always appreciated the care you have shown him and my family. I’ll get to him immediately and take it from there. Thank you for everything. I’ll be in touch again soon.”
Morton’s care had been delivered entirely at home as his pancreatic cancer began to take hold. It had not followed a normal path because Scott had intervened variously via his network connections to myriad health professionals and other channels. The program had removed noise since he had been recruited to it. Morton was 92 years old so had been blessed with a long life by anyone’s measure. Nothing had come too soon to him or the family. Scott’s influence had extended his life and staved off much potential illness but transition was inevitable.
It had only been two weeks since the whole family was together around Morton, and they were all ready to congregate and stay again.
“Well, my darlings, it’s time for us all to go hang out at the farm. Pops needs a lot of love and cuddles. Are you happy to go?” The family was sat in the living room, whose walls were adorned with endless pictures of their time together.
“Of course, dad.” Ethan was sat beside Scott and took his hand as he spoke. Scott reciprocated with a hug and a deep kiss to Ethan’s head. Tears welled upped in him without a specific, pointed emotion. Elements of sadness, love, joy and melancholy were all present. In an instant, Scott’s mind was filled with a flick book of partially visualised, partially felt scenes. The contrast of a child’s hand in an adult’s. A kid’s scream and a man’s and woman’s laughter followed by the sound and sense of splashing and engulfing water; the racing, anxious fear that goes with being found out and disciplined; the relief that flooded from unconditional support and acceptance in spite of the circumstances; the burden of attachment and weight of responsibility in the absence of direct control; the sense of the void, whose colours and sounds he could not explain to anyone outside the program.
“How much time do you all need to pack?” Scott asked. “It’s not important really, the ride will just wait until we’re ready. I was just wondering.”
“I think we’re almost ready, honey,” replied Jessica. “We’ll just collect our pictures and most of the mementos are already boxed.”
“Don’t let me forget my recipe book!” piped his daughter, Clarissa. She was excitable and impulsive, prone to rushing and distraction, no matter the situation. She was guaranteed to forget something.
“I’ll look after the recipe book then,” said Jess. She stood up, pulled it from the shelf and placed it against the front door. “That’s going to be impossible for us to forget. Now we just need to remember not to go out of the back.”
The chopper was waiting for them at the tower office. The flight out from New York to the farm near Williamsburg would take about two hours. The family had brought just a box of family mementos and three boxes of photographs taken from the walls of the living room and family albums. They didn’t bring any other luggage. What they needed was at the farm. First and foremost, that was each other. At this time, Scott’s immediate family intended to retreat from the world and turn inwards. Work and other externalities were being abandoned.
“Darlings, do you mind if I sit up front? I would like to fly a little and then probably be quiet for a while, thinking about things.”
“Sure, dad. Can you hear pop’s playlist if we pipe it over the intercom?” said Clarissa.
“Not unless I want to. Just set the intercom switch to PAX and that puts you in your own loop. Anton and I can bother you if we need to tell you that my terrible flying is a risk to your safety.”
Scott loved flying helicopters, which engaged the senses and mind to a greater extent than did a plane. In the half hour from start up into the cruise, he could just lose himself in a focus on the moment, the here and now of the complex task. The chopper afforded him an opportunity to revert to the simplicity of his past nature and return to the man whom he had once been.
Their flight tracked inland off the coast, so the view was good for the passengers. They could have routed straight over the sea but that was to miss the point of being in the air.
Anton was in control from here on and Scott sank back into his seat to join with the program.
“How are you feeling?” came the co-ordinated emotion.
“Hmm… tumultuous, maybe? I’m all over the place, but for lots of different reasons. I’m happy, excited, deeply sad, have joyful memories, sad ones and everything between. I revel in the chance to tell him, I can’t wait for you to be there. I’m afraid of how he’ll react, but I’m deeply hopeful that there will be true joy. It’s… much more intense than I imagined. I thought I would be more controlled, or more in control, able to filter, order, process each strand.”
“Do you want to exercise that control? Are you actually trying to?”
“No and…” He thought about it for a second. “…No. I’m… letting it happen. I’m not controlling it. I used the flying just now to switch it off through ritualised single planar focus, but there’s this dominant sensation in me to just be. In a way, that makes me afraid of both the circumstances and myself.”
“You’ve facilitated everything you can, Scott. You’ve also maintained your discipline to the program’s tenets as well as anyone else. You have the control, should you want it and your rewards are these moments. We will support you through the journey, should it become difficult. None of us really had exactly the same experience, there’s too many variables, between you, Morton, the people and the circumstances. Revert to humility, as always. The choice you are making is in what you tell Morton and how. That’s the intervention that we have the ability to make, but remember: it is only a different version of that from other people. Priests have been doing this for much longer than we have. You’re still going to be giving him a sort of faith-based story, no matter what you tell him.”
“Are you sure I will be able to sense his ability to hold my story? There’s going to be a lot of people there, he might live much longer and blurt something out. How can I really be sure of the timing?”
“You’ll know as the story builds. You have the chance to give him a little at a time, and go from there. You’re closing a loop, but it is a two-way exchange. Facilitate space for him. Everyone of us who did that felt a huge, overwhelming sense of completeness, even if we didn’t say everything we could have about what we learned. You’ve heard it from all of us. No one ever felt worse after the story. Not we who told it, nor our loved ones who heard it. When you’re trying to cross a river, you always appreciate help, be it a rope, raft, boat or bridge. It’s sad that almost everyone is left to swim, alone, in the pitch black. We have a chance to provide some help. You have earned that right.”
“Have faith in my father’s humanity…” he gave back.
“Yes. Faith and trust. It is partly because of him that you are a program member. That, by implication, means he deserves your faith. If he didn’t deserve it, you would not be what and who you are.”
A tsunami of unbridled emotion flooded the mindspace. At its core, there was a sensation of a boy sat on a man’s lap, wordlessly exploring the man’s face with his eyes, hands and very being. The man reciprocated in the same way, revelling in the beautiful marvel that was his son’s presence and nature. I am you and you are me was the wordless sense that connected them through the constellations in each other’s eyes.