Well.
About 15 years ago my ever adventurous dad parked his 30 foot sailboat in their backyard down by the creek lining the bottom of the property. It sat there for a while, under the towering pecans, until a storm made the creek flood and picked the boat clean off the trailer, spun it, and laid it back down in the yard.
It made me chuckle for years, seeing her just perched there under the trees. Dad never got a company to come move it, was far too expensive, so there she was. And she was HEAVY.
Snakes and other critters moved in, it got overgrown, there were more important things.
It sat there until this summer when my dad, who has Parkinson’s and just had his 69th birthday, decided he wanted to cut it up himself and remove it that way. It’s taken months of him cutting her up with an electric saw and lifting pieces with his big cast iron cherry picker. He’d then back the trailer under the piece and let it down.
So yeah. He’s moved thousands of pounds of fiberglass hull and hardware and mast and all kinds of inner workings. For months.
He did most of it on his own, even after I’ve offered my help many times over. Until Mom let’s me know that he needs help with the last bits.
I headed over as I was off for the day. First thing I helped get the heavy duty cherry picker up off the ground, it had fallen apparently at some point. I thought nothing of it. The three of us moved parts of the hull of the boat and I cut them with a reciprocating saw, so we could wrestle them onto the trailer.
Dad’s balance has been getting worse, his stiffness makes it really hard to move around. And so he fell, twice, hard. Got really dizzy where he couldn’t get up quickly. I wouldn’t let him help after that.
It’s so fucking frustrating to see him stop fighting. And it feels like he has. Mom said he’s changed in the past two weeks.
Then she tells me when he was working on the boat two weeks ago he nearly got crushed by the heavy trailer. She wasn’t home and the trailer wasn’t hooked to the truck. He was trying to put pieces on the trailer when he lost his balance and rolled under it. He didn’t have his phone on him and he could barely move but he got out somehow and survived.
When I look at him I expect to see the vital, strong, terrifying man I grew up with, who terrorized us as kids. His temper rages even worse too, apparently. She won’t fuss about it but she admitted when I asked.
But when I see him now he’s barely interactive because he can’t hear much. And this mobility shock today.
Made even more odd with the fact I wasn’t ever supposed to see my folks get here. Being raised a Jehovah’s Witness from birth I was told I’d never see my parents grow old, get sick, and die. I was never supposed to graduate high school. Armageddon was supposed to have come and gone, and we be living forever in a paradise earth in perfect health.
So it’s weird to see Dad here. And I’m so fucking insanely angry he’s having to deal with this. Mortality sucks enough but it’s even worse when you grew up thinking you were immortal and would never die. And then you’re stuck in a body that isn’t YOU anymore.
We came inside the house slowly, dad thankfully could drive the truck and trailer up so he didn’t have to walk up the lawn.
We had no choice but to leave the lead keel where it is, as it’s several hundred pounds. That thing isn’t moving.
Dad stood still for us to brush the stickers off him and took off his socks before he went inside, then sat in his recliner and fell asleep sitting straight up. Mom and I chatted a while after and I headed home.
And damn if my cheeks weren’t wet the whole ride.
A Burd in Flight 