Interlude: Friday, June 14 through Sunday, June 23, 2024: Angola, Indiana to Fayetteville, Arkansas; to Bethesda, Maryland; to Detroit, Michigan

My father “Ace” is dying, and Curt told me that I better get on a plane. I sped to Detroit, some two hours away, and it felt like it took me that long again to find a parking spot. I quickly cleared the TSA precheck search and then waited for my flight slowly.

I’m writing this at the Chicago airport, a bar about twenty feet behind me (I’m facing away from it, for obvious reasons). One year ago I was in the early stages of my last bender as I spent a couple of days with Ace. Last year my visit was dreadful: I was full of dread due to my drinking. Today, I’m calm. Were anyone to notice me, they would not think that I was almost certainly going to my father’s funeral. In my Panama hat and orange linen shirt, they might think I’m just flying to Cabo.

It’s hard to know how a person will respond to tragedy. Some break down; others build up. I recently watched a documentary on Amanda Knox, who was accused of murdering her roommate while studying abroad in Italy. The case was an international sensation, with headlines like “Foxy Knoxy Murders Roommate in Orgy Gone Wrong.” Over a seventeen year period, Knox was alternately convicted and acquitted. The evidence against her was shaky, at best, and she was convicted in large part because her behavior seemed “odd” to the prosecutors. Apparently, she was not mourning like the prosecutors believed that a “normal” person would. 

I wonder if I will cry when Ace dies; I don’t feel like crying now. I am so comforted that in all the time I’ve spent with my father this past year – and I’ve spent more time in the last twelve months than I have in the past twenty years put together – I have been sober. My visits with him have been loving. We’ve had wonderful conversations. When we last met and talked, in ways that I’ve recounted above, he gave me the most lovely goodbye imaginable. When he dies, I will rest easy with these memories in my heart.

After I told Cristine and Gretchen about the women who wanted passports under their own names, they shared their own experiences, which reminded me of how recently there were controversies over naming rights. Cristine married Alan in 1976. They were living in Wisconsin yet wanted to get married in Arkansas, because in Wisconsin the woman was automatically assigned her husband’s name; in otherwise conservative Arkansas, the woman retained her name as the default. When Gretchen got married in Arkansas in 1979, the municipal clerk asked her

“Are you going to take your husband’s name?”

No, Gretchen replied.

Clerk: “Do you not love your husband enough?”

Gretchen: “My husband loves me enough to give me the choice.”

Nonetheless, both sisters report that, for several years anyway, when my parents and their in-laws wrote them letters they were addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Husband’s Name.”

My sisters were important to me in all sorts of beneficial ways. I don’t pee on toilet seats and if I do, I wipe them down; I also  close toilet seats after I’m finished, which every woman everywhere appreciates. My sisters refused to take the typing class in high school that was mandatory for female students – I don’t know how they evaded the requirement – because they didn’t want to be typecast as secretaries. I gladly took the class as an elective, and I finagled Cristine into paying me to type some of her college reports. In graduate school, I took my spring breaks in Cleveland Heights to see Cristine and her husband Alan, and those visits were so comfortable and enjoyable. Cristine and Alan have always been wonderful to me, and have given me emotional support when I needed it most. When I was deciding whether to enter a rehab program, I spent the weekend with them and they carefully guided me to make that decision. I’ve spent probably thirty of the past forty Thanksgivings – my favorite holiday of the year – with them, and it has felt like my home, filled with music and conversations about books, and, I must say, better eats. Gretchen and her husband Dick have always been there for me during times of trial. They sent me monthly checks when I was in graduate school. It wasn’t a great deal of money, but it enabled me to buy groceries in the month’s final week. They have welcomed me to live in their home when I needed shelter, which I did in 2001, 2014 to 2016, and now as I write this in 2025.

Providing care and comfort, food and bedding, might have traditionally been seen as women’s work (I think everyone, regardless of their sex, should be engaging in those practices to the best of their abilities) so I want to be clear that my sisters were also role models of integrity, insight, intellectual curiosity, and dedication to duty. They are quite different from each other, and I am thankful for that, as each has contributed to my development in their own way.

And they are book lovers! Library work became Cristine’s vocation: she earned a masters degree in library science, and spent much of her career as the director of the library at the Cleveland Institute of Arts. Books are Gretchen’s avocation. She has participated in book clubs for many years. Both of them have excellent literary tastes, which are not always highbrow. When they recommend a book to me, I know it is worth reading.

When I arrived in Fayetteville, I met my family at the hospice, in Ace’s room where he was sleeping, with death silently waiting. One of the doctors came in to give us a report. I think we all knew what was coming.

My parents were from the Greatest Generation, one that received their doctor’s diagnoses with acceptance and their prescriptions without question. In 1982, Ace was diagnosed with colon cancer, and we were told that it had spread to his liver and elsewhere. The doctor told Ace’s assembled children: 

“He probably has six months.”

We asked “Have you told him that?”

Doctor: “He didn’t ask.” 

In retrospect, I think that was a good thing. A year after his initial diagnosis, he was doing so well that the surgeons opened him up to have another look around. They discovered that, although he indeed had colon cancer, the other tumors were benign. Later, the surgeon admitted “We messed his case up.” My parents were not the litigious sort, and neither were their children, so we accepted the confession as an acknowledgement of an honest mistake, and we let the matter rest.

This time, the doctor is unlikely to be wrong. He was a kind and thoughtful guy and, after examining Ace, he did not give a quick report and leave the room. He hung around, patiently, while we Baby Boomers interrogated him. Yes, he was likely to die within the next 24-48 hours, although it could be sooner or later. No, Ace was unlikely to regain consciousness, although it was possible that he would. Yes, his kidneys were gradually shutting down and at some point morphine would provide no relief because his body would not process it. Ace does not seem to be in pain, fortunately. The rattle in his breathing was coming from the top of his throat, not his lungs, which were now retaining only a small amount of fluid. He was breathing fairly rapidly and as he was moving closer to his final breath, the doctor acknowledged, and they would become slower and slower, until they finally stopped altogether. 

Interlude: Saturday, June 15, 2024: Fayetteville, Arkansas

Roy ‘Ace’ Rom, died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 102. His children (Cristine, Gretchen, Curt, and me) were at his side during his final hours.

Interlude: Sunday, June 23, 2024: McLean, Virginia to Detroit, Michigan

I drank my last intoxicating beverage one year ago today. I’ve now been sober for a full year – my longest stretch of sobriety in fifty years. When I was in Arkansas, I was given a One Year chip from my recovery meeting there. It’s generally considered verboten to accept a chip before it is fully earned; after all, on day 360 there is no guarantee that I would make it to 365.

The previous Friday I attended an “Eclipse” party (guests wore black, with glow-in-the-dark gold hoops around their necks) for my Rotary Club. It was great to see my Rotary friends, and a couple of them commented on my smooth dancing. My dancing was smooth because I wasn’t really dancing; I was just doing small movements so as not to inflame my hips. Smooth, indeed. At the end of the party, I was chatting with my buddy Karl (my Rotary Godfather) and he asked

“So, how was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, being around everyone who is drinking.”

At that moment I realized something super important for my recovery. I hadn’t paid any attention to the drinking. I had brought three bottles of sparkling water for myself and others and otherwise hadn’t given it a second, or even a first, thought. In the first few months of sobriety, I was obsessed with watching others drink, what they were drinking, and how much they had drunk. This is meta: not only did I not notice others drinking, I didn’t notice that I didn’t notice until Karl brought it to my attention. Bonus realization: I can’t remember the last time I had a drinking dream. Ok, I did have a brief moment of panic. I had put down my cup of sparkling water on a table while I was “dancing,” and afterwards I picked it up and took a swallow. When the liquid hit my lips, I thought “hmm, my cup didn’t have ice in it” and realized that I had picked up someone else’s cup by mistake. I almost spit it out, until my taste buds alerted me to the fact that it was indeed only sparkling water.

The Admirals Club is quiet on this Sunday evening. The lights are dim on my side of the lounge, where most individuals are sitting in plush chairs and reading. No laughter or business chat is filling the air. It looks like more people are drinking water and tea than beer or wine. It’s a school night, after all.

I’m feeling a bit discomfited. We all held Ace’s hand after he died and wept for about an hour. Then, being Roms, we took action because we are people of action (and I suspect it also soothes everyone’s grief and anxiety). I spent June 14-17 in Fayetteville, and then flew to McLean for a previously arranged visit. It gave me a chance to catch up with Ayse and Rotary friends, and I attended several recovery meetings at my home club.

While here, I felt reality’s weight. While traveling in Goldfinger, I don’t: I live in a carefree bubble. I write, drive, visit libraries, work out, and watch Netflix. It’s quite a simple life, and I enjoy it. No one troubles me. I’m troubled only by the news I read before breakfast – the state of the world sucks, and I don’t avoid the suckiness entirely. While traveling, the realities of what I have done and its continued consequences do not trouble me. When I’m back home, they do.