Visitors (3)

Third set: the irregular.

"It is a lonely place," my father says, meaning the Home.

Most of the patients receive few visitors. Time and circumstance prevent it. Time and trouble consume us. If my father were still working, he would not have the days to attend to her. If I were still in Massachusetts, if I had not been able to move, then I could never visit her for an hour every day. Most people, even the most well-meaning, the most attentive, the most compassionate, must make trade-offs. If it is a question of the grandparent or the child, the present or the future, we know which must be selected.

And if they are not compassionate. If they are not well-meaning. If the daughter or the son is, shall we say? challenged in terms of empathy or even sense of simple obligation, well, then…

"It is a lonely place," my father repeats, this time meaning the world. In its fullness. And its chill.