Lucidity

It's been almost a year since my father died. I remember the leaves turning in Wisconsin. We sat on his deck in the back yard and fed a fire in a raised copper pit and watched the squirrels gather their winter stockpile of acorns. He sat wrapped up a blanket, hunched over most of the time. In the early light, however, he was usually lucid, looked straight at me, knew who I was. One morning, my son Sean called me from Panama. Miraculously, he timed the call during one of my dad's lucid moments. "Hey Grandpa," he said. "How are you?" "I'm dying," my dad said. "But I'm putting a good face on it." That left my son quiet. "Where are you?" my dad asked. "In a village in the jungle in Panama." I thought that would be too much for my father to understand. My dad replied that he was glad that his grandson was serving in the Peace Corps. "I'm proud of you," he said. "I love you," he said. "Love you too," Sean said.  They talked some more. It was the last time they would speak to each other. I thought that was pretty good, that moment of light in the October colors where leaves fall and squirrels get ready for the long sleep of winter.