On my hard drive are two photos of me sitting between my parents in their house on Whidbey Island, Wash. The blue couch, combed corduroy with a rainbow sheen, folds out into a thin mattress whenever I visit.
In the first photo, we all smile away from the camera, my left hand on Dad’s knee, my right on Mom’s. This is two days after Christmas, and one or both of my sisters notes the awkwardness of my pose and suggests a second picture. In that one, my arms drape my parents’ shoulders, I face the camera with purpose, and Dad smiles wanly.
The photos stay in my mind for two reasons that, in a chaos still swirling, have oddly equal weight.
One: Malvine, Katinka and I have arrived – on about 30 minutes’ notice, after Tink and I flew from our respective homes that morning – to tell my parents that Malvine has pancreatic cancer. Too much notice, we reasoned, meant hand-wringing; none at all meant watching Mom rejoice at the door, only to just as quickly discover why we’d come.
Two: I am wearing charcoal-brown cords and a white tee beneath a navy
cable-knit sweater softly similar to the couch, only a bit thicker. The outfit isn’t an afterthought. If clothes make the man, I thought that morning in Denver, these have to make me the right sort of man.
After my dad, I am the “man of the family,” even though my parents’ egalitarian relationship has always made me wonder what the phrase means. I am definitely, unequivocally, the little brother, without quotes.
Everyone else’s roles will be well-defined. Katinka, making perfect use of her nurse training and experience with a mother-in-law who had the same cancer, will soon take charge of Malvine’s doctor appointments, health-benefit questions and general sanity. Malvine, though surrounded by loved ones, will continue gearing up for what she must ultimately face alone: the illness itself and aggressive treatments.
Aside from being there for Malvine the rest of the week, along with her ex- husband and two daughters, I will more or less back up Tink in her command post. The cancer hasn’t been staged yet, but we know it’s inoperable.
All this is coming, but in the early hours before my flight, the focus remains on clothing – how it can make me look strong and assured.
Jeans, a catch-all almost any other time, feel frivolous now. Yet anything sharper, say a blazer and khakis, carries a formality that all of us will want to shed after Malvine has told my parents and we somehow start in on the remaining Christmas gifts. After all, in the 12 years they have lived in the house, none of us can recall when we were all there together. You mark occasions like that, even in the wake of a crummy announcement.
Selfish reasons also guide the outfit. The cords are nice, but not unusual, nothing that will compel me to think about that afternoon when I don’t want to. Same for the sweater, whose solemnity won’t grow as I sit between my parents for photos that don’t so much show us smiling as redefining what a smile is. Sometimes it’s the fierce projection of an outcome you seek, a “Death Be Not Proud” moment in which you shake a fist at your adversary.
And no cologne, or else I’ll never be able to wear it again. No after-shave, no hair gel.
Bags packed, cats fed, I assess the man in the mirror and the dark shades he has chosen. He loves his family, whose members don’t see each other nearly enough, more than he ever has; beyond that he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.
Staff writer Vic Vogler can be reached at 303-820-1749 or vvogler@denverpost.com.
