Dear Dad, 2020

Hey Dad.

I can't believe it's been almost five years since I've heard your voice or made you laugh. The words "I miss you" are inadequate to how I feel. But they are all I have, so... I miss you.

This year has felt like a decade. I'm not even sure where to begin to catch you up, and I'm not sure what articles you would even clip, because everything is insane. The news moves so fast, and it's all either ridiculous or dire (or both), and there's no way you could have even hoped to keep up. (Although I'd have bought you fresh scissors for Christmas so you could try.)

Last summer we didn't do any big trips. We did a couple of really nice family events at the cottage, and Arno and Barrett got us kayaks we can use there. (I wonder if we could have ever talked you into a kayak? I doubt it, but it's hard to know. You did tell us about your traveling in Europe on a Vespa, and I can't picture that either. Your moments of unpredictability remain some of the best family lore.) I'm wishing we had done some real travel, because all of our hopes for that this summer were dashed. Quinn was supposed to do a class trip to NYC and Boston, but when we talked about it early in the school year, he admitted it would be more fun with his family, so I told him we'd use that money instead toward all of us doing a big East Coast trip together. We had plans to hit lots of small states, and go as far north as Maine to visit Ian's sister Ursula and her husband. But no.

Because a pandemic hit this year, and the world ground to a halt right around my birthday. (Which is in March, so I'm a Pisces. Every time I see a horoscope, I think about you reading mom hers from the paper, and when I'd request mine you'd ask, "When were you born?" every time!)

Mom's doing okay. She's got a ton of interesting art projects, and she's been in the garden a lot, but I know she's tired of feeling isolated. I wish she had you at this time. I think you'd have been perfectly happy to ride out Covid-19 at home, clipping articles in the library and not having to share Mom with guests.

For the rest of us, though, it's been strange. Everything got canceled, Dad! My concerts, my varnish workshop, my book signing at Boswell's (wouldn't that have been fun?), Ian's Army retirement ceremony, Aden's high school graduation.... Just, everything.

And being trapped in the house with a lot of unexpected free time was not as useful as it might sound. All of us felt a creative drain. I think because even though on the surface it may have looked like a vacation, it was really a crisis. Being in survival mode makes it hard to focus during waking hours, and even though we were sleeping more it wasn't very sound. But I think we've leveled out. Aden is drawing and painting again, and making small things out of clay lately. Mona is drawing on the computer and started constructing something today out of feathers and wire. I've been finally getting into my home shop, and today I worked on a cribbage board with Quinn of our own design. We're starting to feel like ourselves again.

So the pandemic is weird, wearing masks is weird, social distancing in Target is weird, not letting people inside my store while still trying to run my business is weird.... It's all weird. And sad.

And the Black Lives Matter movement has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon after even more deeply upsetting instances of police violence caught people's attention. I'm hoping this time around will lead to real change. I've been thinking about it a lot, and compared to the first time I saw video of the police beating a black man in my lifetime (which would be Rodney King), today we can instantly follow up with research. White people are actively learning things we didn't know. We're seeing things in new ways, and a lot of people I know are willing to accept hard truths and history that is new to us. Today I read about the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. Last week I read up on the Tulsa Massacre. I wonder if those events are in your files somewhere? I may look next time I'm back home.

I wish I could ask you about any of this. Because the other day someone posted a piece about Detroit and the "'67 Rebellion" and it stopped me in my tracks. Growing up, it was always the "'67 Race Riots." I remember you and Mom talking about watching things burn and how scary it was. But I realize now we never really talked about why it happened. Those desolate stretches of Detroit that never got restored after the fires were just a fact of life. Never occurred to me to think of it as part of a rebellion. My new homework will include rethinking my hometown.

You taught us so much about the destructiveness of discrimination in connection with your family's Jewish history, it would be fascinating to get your perspective on the struggle of minorities now. You'd have been proud of Aden for going to a march.

You'd be proud of Aden in general. She's registering for her freshman college courses tomorrow! She has to do all of it online, and we've never gotten to visit the campus in person (pandemic and all), but it's still exciting watching her prepare for college. She's nervous. She isn't sure how much of a grown up she's expected to be, or how much of a grown up she already is. But Dad, she's so lovely. She's grown into a remarkable artist and person. When she talks to you about something that excites her (video game design, anime, certain YouTubers who cook creatively...) she just lights up in a way that you can't help but be drawn in. She's sweet and kind and has such a tender heart.

Aden didn't mind too much not having a high school graduation. (She understands that was more for me.) But she was sad not to have been able to say goodbye to people in her school. They didn't know when they left for the day in March that they weren't going back. There were people she would have liked contact information for, and teachers she would have liked to have thanked. Not to mention she finally got her schedule just the way she wanted, with an interesting English class on African-American Lit and a ton of art classes. When she went back a couple of weeks ago to pick up her things, a piece she'd been making was still sitting on the pottery wheel where she'd had to abandon it. Lots of projects she was excited about were left unfinished. Everything about her senior year was left unfinished.

I wonder how odd her first year of college will be with these added complications? But she's not alone. I reminded her that everyone will be in the same boat, and the class of 2020 can bond over not having had graduations, and trying to make new friends from behind masks and at least six feet apart.

I was sad I didn't get the experience of touring colleges with her. I remember your taking me to look at Oberlin. That was a nice trip. And I'm still glad I backed out of staying in that weird dorm and just sharing your hotel room since it had an extra bed. (You told me the place missed out on calling itself the "Oberlinn.")

I'm going to try to write real letters to Aden at school. Getting mail helped me a lot my freshman year at OSU. Mom wrote letters, and you sent post-its, and I still have them all. I know if you were still around you would send Aden packets of articles and she would love them.

So Aden's doing okay. I'm feeling like I haven't prepared her well enough to go out into the world, but she can cook, and do laundry, and can write a good essay when she has to. If she can just be a little brave and find some friends I think she will do well. I hope. Was it hard when I went off to college? What advice would you have for me now as the parent, I wonder.

Mona is doing okay. I think. I can never be sure. She still gets anxious, and is already a little panicky about the idea of school starting up in the fall again. I'm not sure how to help, however she's at least willing to talk to me. I'm so proud of her, Dad. She works so hard. She's been doing online gym for summer school so she can take that out of her schedule for her junior year. Can you believe she's a junior? And she's driving. Or, at least, she supposedly knows how. She needs practice. You were always so calm with me in the car when I was learning. Ian is like that. I am not. I never expected to be as freaked out as I am trying to help my kids learn to drive, but yikes. It's really nerve-wracking.

She finished her two years of French, and did well, but I have never heard her speak it. All she would tell me is the numbers are weird.

She's working on the cover art for my new violin repair diagnostics book. She's excited by the idea, but struggling a bit to get something together for me to look at. I hope that works out, because I think that would be a cool thing to have in her portfolio when she's ready to apply to art school.

Mona's still in pain. It's been two years of this now, and I hate it. We've been to our regular doctor, two different ENTs, the pain clinic at Children's, she's had an MRI, dental x-rays, tests by vestibular rehab, and a recent trip to a neurologist. Nobody can tell us what it is. Although for the migraines that accompany the ear pain, the last doctor did recommend she go cold turkey off any pain medicine to sort of reset her system (since, ironically, at some point migraine meds start to cause migraines). We have prescriptions for more things she could try, but she said she'd rather not. I don't blame her. Thankfully, her ears in the past couple of weeks feel plugged up and there's a lot of pressure, but less pain. The orthodontist said there's a chance she'll just grow out of whatever it is. He said he sees a lot of teens with odd pains and issues that simply go away once their bodies get past this stage of rapid change and growth. I hope he's right. Mona shouldn't have to deal with chronic pain. Life is already hard enough without that.

Quinn continues to take things in stride. Dad, he's getting so tall. When he's not slouching I think he's my height. Possibly taller. And his hair is down to the middle of his back and all wavy and doesn't tangle and it makes his sisters really jealous. His voice is changing, too, but we are careful not to comment. He's very sweet, but at thirteen is easily embarrassed. He's super fast at games like Tetris. Still doing in fine in school. He's stopped playing violin but still takes piano. It got to a point where both were suffering and he needed to narrow his focus. In March, before the pandemic, he went on a school ski trip and broke his left wrist, so I got to be one of his hands for his online lessons. I miss that time with him.

And I asked him recently, since our Latin lessons got canceled in this new era of not going anywhere, if he wanted to continue that when possible, or just be done. I fully expected him to say we should let it go, since this was the perfect opportunity to do so. But he surprised me by saying when we could go back to the university and have Latin again, he wants to. On the one hand, the ablative case hurts my head, but on the other, I really liked that time with Quinn once a week. We always had a nice time on the drive, and sometimes stopped at the lake to look for beach glass on the way home. I wonder how much of wanting Latin lessons again is really that? Or is that just motherly wishful thinking?

Dad, he's so sweet. He's always willing to come out of his room if I call up the stairs and invite him to play a game. And the fun thing about playing with a smart kid is I never have to go easy on him. He hasn't beaten me at Boggle yet, but he always finds some really good word that I missed. You would have loved playing with him.

And he's funny. He has this amazing deadpan sort of delivery that is hilarious. He took some sort of aptitude test at school that recommends different professions, and his list was wacky. It included artist (which I thought was odd, since there was no way to assess talent in that area on a test like that), and cartographer (because he's still freakishly good at maps), and BARTENDER. Bartender? What kind of exam suggests that to a seventh grader? I laughed so hard! But maybe it's right, who knows. When I was talking about that with Mona, she said, "You know what I think Quinn should be? A Comedian." And at the one parent-teacher conference I got to go to for him this year, his teacher remarked that he was really funny. She said it took a while to recognize his dry humor, but that he's always making people laugh. So it was a surprising idea at first, but I can imagine it. You'd have to be really smart, and methodical, and good with language, and he already has the delivery and timing. But you also have to be comfortable in front of crowds, and right now, that's hard to picture.

Anyway, I think Quinn is coping best of all of us with the shift to a pandemic schedule. He finished the school year on Zoom, and now he's got video game goals. He seems content.

I think Ian's content, too, as much as he can be with all of his concerns about keeping us financially solvent in these strange times. I don't think he misses the Army. Probably parts of it, but not the hassle. I like having him around more. I couldn't ask for a more supportive husband. Our anniversary is tomorrow! 23 years. I should break out the poem you wrote for us as our wedding reading and share it with the kids.

I'm doing okay. That last novel of mine that you got to read the draft of years ago? Just Friends, Just War? I finally polished it up and got it out into the world. Sort of. My launch got canceled, but everyone who has read it seems to have liked it. I wish you could have read the final version. Barrett made a really nice cover for it. If Mona gets too stuck on the cover for the repair guide, I may use that instrument drawing you made for me that I have framed at the violin store. I don't think you'd have minded. (Heck, I feel like if you were still around you'd have cranked out fifty versions for me to choose from in a day!)

My health is better, so that's good to report. The mastitis thing seems to finally be gone. I hope. If it returns again I am not going to the doctor. They just exacerbate all of that mess. I stopped taking all pain medication last year after my colonoscopy showed poor side effects from them, but I don't get headaches the way I used to. Only problems are some high blood pressure that my doctor put me on pills for (so that seems under control), and my back is goofy. Eh.

Since the pool closed and I can't swim now, I broke out my old dojo notes and have started up our old stretching and blocks and strikes warm up. We do that as a family almost every evening. The kids are getting more flexible and better coordinated, so that's working out well. Plus, it's about an hour every night where we listen to music and catch up. I really like it. (It makes the dog nervous, and the bird is fascinated.)

That's been the most reassuring thing lately: enjoying being together. Because when we block out the news for a little while, and forget that the world looks like it's coming apart at the seams, our own little space with each other really couldn't be better. (Well, it could be less cluttered, but that's how we know it's real life and not a movie.) I love my little family. Despite everything, we know we are really lucky.

Arno and Barrett and their families are also doing fine. Your other two grandchildren are amazing and you'd be so proud, Dad. I do feel better about the future looking at all your beautiful grandkids and knowing they are next in line to help run the world. They'll do it with intelligence and compassion, which is sorely needed.

Well, this note ran past midnight. I should sleep. I love you. And I really really miss you.

Kory