Gail Strock

My father runs his fingers across the wood plate he's sanding. He holds it toward me, eyes sparkling.

"Is that ever smooth. Feel that."

I lean forward and feel. He's 91 years old and has Alzheimer's, so I return his expression ― eyebrows raised, smile genuine — and say, "That is smooth!"

All his life, my father had worked with his hands farming fields, laying stone walls, building furniture, and raising a family. When Alzheimer's and age robbed him of this, he became bored. So I searched for what he could do — sand. Now, we sit nearly knee to knee in his cluttered workshop, where I hold onto tightly to a wood plate I'm sanding and any lucid connections to the father I once knew.

"And what's romance? Usually, a nice little tale where you have everything as you like it, where rain never wets your jacket and gnats never bite your nose, and it's always daisy-time."

―D.H. Lawrence

 

1979

My husband-to-be and I noticed each other on Penn State's Ag Hill. At a piano just inside my dorm's side entrance, I played while he sang good, old-fashioned sing-along songs, including A Daisy a Day. "...I'll love you until, the rivers run still, and the four winds we know blow away."

 

1981-2014

Our family grew, and so did the times we never questioned my husband's dedication to us.

 

2015

Cancer. My husband's kidney cancer diagnosis became our sole focus. One evening, I found a CD on the table with a note that said, "Let's dance." So we did. For three minutes each evening, in reprieve, we breathed deeply, held each other close, and moved to the sound of a love song. We slow danced each night for a week, then once a week, then when we'd remember and make an effort. As his health improved, we began to count new blessings, make new memories, dance to new songs, and give each other a daisy a day.