OCR Text |
Show 177 I.went inside. He was stretched on one of the tables where he had stitched the cuts and swabbed the sore throats and set the broken bones of others. I could feel his terrible tiredness, could feel how ponderously his life weighed on him. I wanted to lift it, wanted to shoulder his responsibilities long enough for light and energy to flow back into him, but I knew that no one could do that - he was indispensible. I thought how terrible it was that he should grow old, that he should become the one sick and cared-for, that his mortal nakedness should be uncovered. How sad that he might become incompetent and ineffectual, and his sons interpret his words and oapologize for his 'slipping away' as Brother Mussers' had done. To live so weakly seemed a worse punishment than heart attack for he who had been the strength of others, the image of health, the example of self-reliance. Suddenly I was reconciled to his dying. "Please - don't get up, Daddy." He took my hand and held it tightly. "Darling," he whispered. "I'm so tired." "I know." And I knew the causes. The new wives had difficulty getting along andssome did not bear it quietly. There was the long-standing hurt of his older wives because they had been ignored, their democratic vote in family matters reduced to a sham. Problems in the group w e r|t a^° growing. Hints of new divisions abounded. Financial problems thundered the possibility of lawsuits. Some members had developed strange orgiastic notions of the Principle and were advocating wife-swapping and homosexuality. My father was the definer, the one who must cut off the dead or rotten wood to keep the tree alive. And the labor had worn him out. |