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Show shade. It is the intimacy of that moment, their bodies touching at the elbows, our eyes meeting through the lens, that I remember. All of us, for a fraction of time, holding the pose and each other. Jerry was very thin. While his no-fat diet gave his prostate cancer little to invade, it left his body with little to live upon. Each time I saw him his belt was cinched tighter, his clothes hanging more loosely from his limbs. Yet, he seemed strong. We all said so, standing around the food tables, eating potato salad, watching him play badminton. Yes, we assured ourselves, he was well despite the drugs, the treatments, the long slide to immobility that is Parkinson's. When the thunderstorm came, we all rain for the garage, bringing beach chairs and the leftover food with us. All of us, except Jerry. He headed in the opposite direction, to the lake, where waves were competing with each other to touch the sky. A few minutes later, we saw him push off from the boat dock on the jet ski and ride to the center of the lake where he began whirling in tight circles as the lightening and the thunder came down. We only pointed. Rain hit the tin roof like hail making it impossible to hear one another. In my mind's eye, he raises his fist to the storm and transgresses, for a moment, his own mortality. He demands participation in life. He will not remain off stage for the drama. The lightning does not strike him down, and he grows in my eyes. Remembering how this once thick man rode a jet ski like a weapon a week before he died, I recall also a moment of fragility in a small hotel near Lake Titticacca, our final day in Peru. We were all there: my brother, his wife, my mom and dad, Michael, my 246 |
