To Absent Friends

My sister Deb died October 9, 2009, after a 3 and ½ year struggle with cancer. There was a weekend-long memorial at the end of that October. Saturday morning my family gathered and drove up to Brattleboro, Vermont in a borrowed van. My sister Pam made sandwiches so we wouldn’t have to stop to eat on the way. We were there to christen the new trail at Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center, made in honor of Deb’s spirit. My old father stayed behind by the woodstove in the lodge with a few ladies, while the rest of us clambered to the top of Heifer Hill, where we took turns sitting on Deb’s new salamander-shaped memorial bench. There were 5 sisters, 2 brothers, 2 mothers and 2 fathers, one husband and son, a multitude of in-laws, and many friends and students of Deb’s. Her sister Sandy made a beautiful seaglass-on-stone totem spelling out DEB. Her sister Vicky left a gorgeous deep red rose bouquet by the bench. It was a bright crisp autumn day. As we hiked down, a fellow employee of Deb’s pointed out Deb’s favorite tree, which she called ‘Grandfather Maple’. It was a huge old storybook tree with an opening just about my size to slither through. I shared many of Deb’s passions. I slithered through Grandfather Maple as did my friends Elizabeth and Eliot.

My family went back to the motel in the late afternoon and either napped, walked, or swam in the pool before we gathered at 6:30 for a family meal at the Putney Inn. Family was about 60 people, including my young nephew Carl and his cousins in full Halloween regalia. By 7 pm there was still no sign of food or drink so I asked the staff hostess how we could accomplish that. She replied that we all had to be seated at our tables before any libations could be served. I found the man with the most commanding presence and voice and asked him to announce that it was time to be seated. My 93 year old father had told me he was very hungry. I think we all were. Alas, 10 more minutes and we were all seated. The wine came and we ordered our meals. We toasted. We talked Robbie Burns. At 9 pm my father leaned over to me and told me that he needed to lie down, he didn’t feel well. Back to the staff hostess I went, to ask if there might be a bed at the Inn. She pointed to a straight-back wing chair in the lobby. All of a sudden a hush had taken over the room and I knew my father was on the floor. Everyone else was standing up. I went over to the concierge, Kelly, and she’d just called 911. Moments later, a slew of burly EMTs lumbered into the lobby. Kelly informed me that the slew of EMTs was her entire family. I thanked her for her family taking care of my family. I heard later that when the EMTs asked my father if he wanted to go to the hospital, that he gave a firm audible NO, and that everyone laughed. He went. I went to the bar. It was a slow night in the bar, only 2 customers and the bartender. Right away the gentleman customer said to me, “You look like you need a drink, what can I get you?” I had a warm brandy and somehow we got back to the Robbie Burns conversation. I asked him if he worked at the Inn and he told me that he took inventory, gesturing over to the well-stocked bar. I toasted my newly learned Robbie Burns toast, “To absent friends.” Then he told me he lived in the library. At first I thought he meant that he spent a lot of time at the library, but no, this man lived in the old library in town, which had been replaced 6 years earlier with a new, bigger version. He said people still came banging on the door, people who were coming back to visit.

After a while Kelly popped in to let me know my sister Hope was looking for me. She had the wheels. First I snagged my father’s London Fog coat and tweed cap from the coat room, and then we headed back to the motel in Brattleboro, where my sister promptly announced that she’d be unable to sleep. We got back in the car and pointed it towards the hospital. When we got to the ER, there was my father, lying down, holding court. My sister Pam took me aside and told me our father had asked the doctor for a prescription for Tucson. I donned his coat and cap and wheeled up to him on the doctor’s stool and said, “Mr. Dunlap, I’m writing you a prescription for Tucson. Let me know if there’s anything else I can take care of for you.” Turns out the only thing that was wrong with my father was he was dehydrated. He’d had nothing to drink all day except a little coffee and red wine, and the Inn had been overheated. So he had an IV for a few hours to replenish his system. My oldest brother and our stepmother tucked him in at the motel about 1 am and when he came to breakfast in the morning, he was like new.

That was a Halloween night I’ll never forget.