A Father’s Day Tribute — Lunch With Dad

I walked in the back door of my parents’ home physically spent, teetering on the edge of an emotional abyss. My husband helped me to the spare bedroom where I dropped onto the bed. Satisfied I would be OK, he left for a few hours of errands.

The tears I had held back flowed, fueled by the morning’s pain and a healthy dose of self-pity.

I was the fifth of eight children. Obviously, my parents had never known infertility, but we had battled it for a decade. Years of tests, surgeries and a miscarriage inexorably led us to the holy grail of infertility — an in-vitro fertilization — at a renowned clinic that brought us back to my hometown.

Fertility drugs, daily shots and ultrasounds would be easy. The needle that punched through tissue again and again to aspirate multiple eggs from swollen ovaries caused a shudder of anxiety whenever I thought about it. My body had become my enemy before with unrelenting pain, so I had questioned the doctor.

His answer had been reassuring. “There will be discomfort, of course. But we’ll give you a drug that will lessen it.”

It turned out “discomfort” described the pain as well as “inconvenient” describes a full body cast. Every jolt of “discomfort” caused my body to jump as if hands yanked on the strings of a marionette — momentarily springing the puppet to life, only to crash in a jumbled heap until the next jerk.

And then it was over. Drawers opened and closed. Machines clicked off.

Now at my parents’ home, I lay motionless, trying to regain my emotional equilibrium, not certain that movement wouldn’t rouse the pain again.

The back door opened. The sound of footsteps on the linoleum floor changed to scuffing on the carpet. Dad poked his head into the room.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“It was kinda rough.”

“Would you like some lunch?”

“That would be great.”

Lunch with Dad. I was transported back in time as an 11 year-old, hurrying to finish meat loaf sandwiches and deviled eggs for a lunch date with my father. Two baggies of potato chips and four chocolate chip cookies wrapped in wax paper already lay in the bottom of the lunch sack. The 13^th East bus would be rumbling down our street any minute. Grabbing the lunch and my 35 cent fare I dashed out the front door. The bus pulled close to the curb; the hiss of the air brakes startling me even as I braced for the sound.

Twenty minutes later I pulled the cord to stop at Fourth South and State Street. One-half mile north lay my destination, the third floor of the State Office Building, located behind the Utah State Capitol Building. There I met my father and together we reversed course, stopping at the Capitol’s basement vending machines to purchase a half-pint of cold milk we would share, before finding a spot on the lawn in the shade of a large elm tree.

I would unpack our lunch. Dad would raise his eyebrows, feigning surprise at the same menu as our last lunch and the lunch before that. I felt grownup — making his favorite lunch, negotiating the bus and walking to his office from downtown by myself. We ate and talked about everything and nothing.

As he refolded the lunch sack to be used again, he would say, “Mmmm, that was dandy”. My father is the only person I have ever heard use the word “dandy”.  I would kiss his cheek goodbye taking in the clean smell of his dress shirt and walk back downtown to catch the bus feeling empowered and loved, secure of my place in the world, anchored to something bigger than I was.

The scrape of drawers being opened and the whine of a can opener brought me back to the present.

Minutes later, my father reappeared with two plates and two forks. He set before me a mound of warmed corned beef hash with a fried egg perched on top. As I cut into the trembling yolk, the golden contents trickled down coating the tiny cubes of potato and beef. Comfort food in the extreme.

He took a seat and we ate while we talked – about everything and nothing.

When I finished, he took the plate away and started to leave.

“Thanks, Dad. That was really good.”

“Anytime,” he said. He bent to kiss my cheek. I took in the clean smell of his dress shirt.

Five minutes later, the house was silent once more.

I had survived the IVF. Dad had come home from work and made me lunch. Once again, I felt empowered, anchored  and loved. I could feel my equilibrium returning. Everything was going to be OK.

No, it was going to be dandy.