Time’s up.  This is goodbye.

Thank you, everyone, for the thoughtful and funny comments, and a special thanks to my wonderful wife Rachel, who was my most loyal reader, and to my talented daughter Alani for all her artwork (look at some of her pictures in the older posts – she’s great!)

“You know what I hate?” Jack  says.  “When you’re going to park, and somebody else pulls into your parking spot.”

“I know” I say.  “That’s the worst.”

“Well,” Jack says.  “It’s not the worst. The worst thing is dying.” 

He’s philosophical that way.

“Really?” I said.  “But I think when you die, you go to the coolest place ever.”

He ponders this as we park and walk in.  I hold his hand.

“But it hurts when you die,” he says.  “Maybe not when you’re old, but when you’re young, it hurts.  Like if you get shot.”

Rachel didn’t complain.  She soldiered on.  We took perverse pride in how long we limped along on two burners, eking more life out of the old Whirlpool.

But enough is enough.  We went to  Home Depot and Lowes Sunday, scouting Maytags, Whirlpools, G.E.s.  Rachel ran her hand over the smooth black cooktops on the display stoves.  (The coil models, out of fashion,  were tucked away in a rear aisle.)  We went home to clear our heads from the dizzying allure of those fancy new appliances before picking a model. 

Then, at home, I realized we didn’t need a new stove at all.  I could send away for a replacement kit for the coils and all the internal wiring.   A hundred bucks or so.  There was no need to abandon our ancient porcelin-white stove.

When I suggested this to Rachel Sunday, she actually considered it.  That’s how patient a wife she is.    She looked as if she was going to burst into tears, but she said yes, maybe it made sense to cobble together a repair job on our antique stove instead of buying a new one.

But then, Monday morning while I was at work, Rachel went out by herself to  an appliance store.  Freed from my Rasputin-like influence, she realized that her own true heart’s desire was to have a shiny new stainless steel convection oven.  With a smooth cooktop. 

She called me at work and told me.

“I’m a glamour girl,” she said. 

I abandoned my plans to scour parts warehouses for Whirlpool replacement parts.

This happens to me sometimes.

We were discussing my theory that Christianity is like the McDonalds hamburger empire. ( In 1949,  Richard and Maurice McDonald  had a little hamburger and milk shake joint in California.  A sharpie named Ray Kroc bought them out, tweaked the product a bit,  franchised it and spread it over the entire globe.  The same thing happened to Christianity.  It was just a little Jewish sect when a whiz kid by the name of Paul of Tarsus discovered it, packaged it for the Gentiles, and opened franchises all over the Roman Empire.)

Rachel disagreed. She’d heard of Ray Kroc, but knew little about the brothers who originally ran the hamburger joint.  She argued that Ray Kroc was the father of McDonalds, not them.  She pointed out that it was Kroc who came up with the filet of fish sandwich.

I’m sorry?  The filet of fish? The filet of fish is not what McDonalds stands for, any more than St. Paul’s belief that women should wear veils in church is an important tenet of Jesus’ teachings.

And so I did the bad thing.  I started arguing with Rachel, explaining her error.  Offering examples so she could see her mistake.  Countering every point she tried to make.  Interrupting her.  I actually thought we were having fun until the tears and the door slam.

I’m grew up with six siblings.  We’re all arguers.  Except Therese, the youngest.

It took about twelve hours before she’d talk to me again.  We’re going out for dinner tonight.  My goal is to have no opinions.  (But believe me, Ray Kroc was no Jesus.  He forced Richard and Maurice to re-name their restaurant because the fine print in the sales agreement gave him exclusive rights to use the name “McDonalds”.  Then he opened up one of his franchises a block away and forced them out of business.)

Alani and I are sitting at Starbucks.  She’s nursing a blackberry Izzi.

“Cemetery” Alani says immediately. 

She says she’d like a place to visit.  

I ask her about the concerns Rachel expressed.  That unlike an urn of ashes, a grave requires tending, and sometimes a lengthy trip in the car.   And that if you couldn’t make it on a particular anniversary, you might feel guilty. 

“Yeah,” Alani says, thinking it over.  “Like, I might be filming a movie in Italy, and not be able to make it back.” 

I’m not sure what event she wouldn’t be able to make it back for.  Do people visit graves on particular days?  Birthdays?  Wedding anniversaries?  Death anniversaries?

“Tell you what,” I say.  I tell give her advance permission not to visit me on any particular day.  Just whenever she feels like it.  Or not.

Alani nods, and moves on to discuss the things she’d like me to leave her in my will. 

The kids are lined up with bagels and backpacks.  It’s been eight years since my daughter was a first grader.  I always enjoyed the school drop off when Alani was little, and now I sometimes get to do it again, with Jack.

Michelle does not recoil when I iintroduce myself as Jack’s stepfather.  I like that.  Some people are uncertain how to proceed once I admit I’m an imposter stepfather.  She doesn’t bat an eye, and introduces me to the real dads in the group as Jack’s stepdad.

‘”So you’re picking up. . .”? she asks.

I nod.  “Dad’s bringing.  Stepdad’s picking up.”  It can be confusing.

Rachel arrives at the schoolyard.  She hugs Jack and comes over to our group.  Michelle already knows her, and says hello.

“I was just talking to your. . .” Michelle starts to say, and hesitates. 

I know exactly what happened:  Her brain is trying to figure out what my title is.  For just a moment, it wondered whether she should refer to me as “your stephusband”.  But it’s just a second.

“. . . husband.” she finishes.

That’s correct.  There is no such thing as a stephusband.

Rachel wants to be cremated.  I opt for the traditional cemetery grave-and-headstone arrangement.

That’s fine, Rachel says, if that’s what I want.  But, she asks, would she have to tend the grave?  I tell her no, no special decorations needed, just so they mow the grass occasionally.

“I don’t want to be any burden,” I say.

That’s not it, Rachel says.  She explains that she’d feel guilty if she didn’t visit my grave regularly (birthdays?  wedding anniversaries? what’s the etiquette?), but if she did visit, it would ruin her week.  She’d dread the scheduled day, and cry at the cemetery.

This hadn’t occurred to me. I always thought that, if I died prematurely, my daughter, and perhaps my wife, would take some comfort in having a grave to visit.  Maybe on a small knoll, next to an oak tree, with my name chiseled into a granite headstone.   I’d seen this scene many times in movies and on t.v., where the bereaved stands by the headstone and has a talk with the deceased.  The presence of an actual decaying body six feet down made the griever feel closer to the departed. 

Then I realized that I’d only seen this scene on t.v or the movies.

Did it ever happen in real life?

So here’s my question, for those of you who have a loved one in the cemetery.  Is it a comfort, or a burden?

“Do we have an old mattress we can bring?” Alani asked.

She wanted to try sledding it down the hill.  I said no.  The only old mattress we had was in the basement, and it stunk of cat pee.  Every trash day, Rachel and I promised each other we’d haul it  to the curb the next  trash day.

Alani ignored my “no.”  After we got home, I heard thudding and grunting on the basement stairs, and then Alani, Anna, and the pee-stained mattress spilled into the kitchen. I was impressed by their resolve, but knew that their quest ended there.

 ”There is no way you’re going to get that in the car,” I said.

They ignored me again.  Fifteen minutes later, they came inside, triumphant.  They’d stuffed the  mattress into my car. 

We drove to the sledding hill.    I helped Alani and Anna haul it up in the darkness.  It was hard going, and we made frequent rest stops before we we reached the top.  Alani, Anna, and Alani’s stepbrother Michael pushed the mattress toward the brink of the hill. 

It started to slide. Barely. 

They jumped on.  The mattress stopped immediately.  The kids lurched forward, trying to urge the mattress on. It didn’t budge.

The kids flopped down, discouraged.  But by now I was a convert.

“Just a minute,” I said.

I walked back to the car, got the the regular sleds, and carried them back up the hill.  We laid them out in formation, then laid the mattress on top of them.  I gave the contraption a test push.  It skittered across the snow. 

They pushed, leapt on, and . . . zooom! The girls screamed all the way down, clinging to the mattress.

There was only one ride.  I wasn’t dragging that thing up the hill again.

I suggested leaving the mattress at the bottom of the hill.  Rachel frowned. “That’s not who we are, babe,” she said.  It’s by the back steps now, that much closer to the trash day curb.

The two girls were talking about one of their classmates at school.  Because a parent was in the vicinity, Laurie went to secret code, referring to the classmate as “whathisname”, and about a conversation she and Alani had had about “youknowwhat”.

I broke the secret code.  Based on some clues, I knew who whathisname was.  I even had a pretty good idea what youknowwhat was.

“I know who you’re talking about,” I said.

“Who?” Laurie demanded.

“Oh, I know,” I bragged.

“Who?” Laurie demanded.

“He knows,” Alani said.  She can tell if I’m bluffing.

I say whathisname’s name.

This was idiotic.  In World War II, the Allies broke the secret code used by the German’s in radio and telegraph communications.  Did they brag about this to the Nazis?  No.  They pretended like they hadn’t figured out the code.  They did this so that the Germans would keep talking, oblivious to the fact that they had been figured out.

Sure enough, as soon as they realized I knew who they were talking about, Alani and Laurie fell completely silent.  

I’ve learned my lesson.  If you want to get occasional glimpses into the secret life of your teenage daughter, be quiet, be invisible.

It’s new parents night at Bleeding Crown of Thorns. 

Miss Guidance looks young.  Blonde hair, hip clothes, makeup - a contrast to the nuns-in-street clothes look of most of the school administrators.  In her talk before the entire assembly, she referred repeatedly the students as ”my girls”.

We haven’t yet decided where Alani will go to school.  It’s down to two choices: 1) Bleeding Crown of Thorns, or 2) Fancy Wasp Prep School.  Alani prefers Fancy Prep.  She’s articulated many thoughtful reasons for her preference, including small classes, top-notch teachers, and the theater program.  I suspect, however, that her choice is 90% driven by two factors:  1) boys, and 2) uniforms.

The Catholic school is all girls.  Alani is 13, and dreads four years on a boy-less desert island.  She also loves clothes, fingernail polish and shoes.  She has a pair of Timberland women’s boots that get her compliments wherever she goes: black suede, up to just below the knee, with extensive grommets and laces.  A grown woman once yelled out “That’s what I’m  talking about!” when Alani walked by in those boots.

I realize, waiting to talk to Miss Guidance, that Alani and two of her friends are standing in the same line.  I step aside when we reach the front of the  line, curious to hear what the girls will ask.

They don’t ask about AP science courses.

Alani’s friend Katrina asks about the dress code.  Miss Guidance describes the permitted style of white blouse.  She draws a demure little curve below her neck, describing the required collar shape for the blouse.  Plaid uniform skirts, she says, with a different plaid for each class.  No pants under the skirts.  Leggings yes, pants no.

“No heels,” Miss Guidance says.  “Flats or tennis shoes only.”   She zeroes in on Alani’s Timberland boots.  “You couldn’t wear those,” she says. 

I suddenly don’t like her.  She seems more Mean Girl than kindly guidance counselor.

When it is Alani’s turn to ask a question, she displays her fingernails.  She’s painted each nail with little Swedish flags – a yellow cross on a blue field.  (Alani is rooting for the Swedish Olympic ice hockey team, because its full of players from her beloved Detroit Red Wings).

“What about this?” Alani asks, thrusting her Swedish flags toward Miss Guidance. 

Miss Guidance looks.  She says – grudgingly, it seems to me - that Alani’s fingernails would be permitted.