Past and Future Stage a Party

The other night my father showed up at a graduation party at my house, even though he had passed into another world 40 years ago.

He looked exactly as he did at 35, a taller version of Jack Lemmon (he used to be stopped on the street for Lemmon), thick black hair brush cut, smelling of hazel and aftershave, the tails of his shirt hanging out of his Brooks Brothers suit. He was on the run, as usual, because he was an advertising man, but happy to get to the party just a little late. My mother, dead since 2005, also showed up. She offered the charming, heavy lidded looks of Marlene Dietrich without the accent. Both were eating hors d'oeuvres and congratulating me on my doctorate. They couldn't believe I had gotten through so much academic baloney to finally nab my degree.

"Dokter! Dokter! Ich bin ein Berliner!" My father cut the rug with his faux Sid Caesar German. He was clearly delighted for me even though he had almost no connection with academics and barely appreciated what a doctorate was.

My adviser who loved and hated me also showed up. I introduced her. She does not take terribly good care of her body, but somehow her thickness and natural smile charmed them, precisely because she seemed like an alien from another planet. I wrapped my arm around her waist and, at the end of the party, carried her outside as though she were a five year old. She was charmed by the strength of my left arm. I set her down and I guess she caught a taxi.

We dream and dream of what was and could have been. As I struggle to the finish line with this thing my parents never knew, this doctorate, I meet them in sleep and they are just as real to me as they ever were. And young, so young, younger than I am today. I have rewritten my history so they are entirely alive at my graduation. And instead of being as old as am, with two nearly grown children, I'm 23 again, and yes, they can call me a doctor!