Road Blogger

Barry,

Here is a journal entry dated January 9, 2006

When Quint was fourteen, he gave me a card on my birthday. It was Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”. These are the same flowers in a picture frame I carried to the truck and handed to Truce on the Saturday we moved you. Mossy numbered the flowers 1 through 14 and what he’d written inside was: “Thank you for fourteen wonderful years”!

Earlier in the day, I caught Leigh my date looking at my shoes-construction shoes at a French Restaurant. I explained that I was moving a friend. Leaving was a little awkward because I left so abruptly. There was something wrong with her of course and helping you move made it a great excuse to leave! In any event I was long gone and off to help you move what Truce shared as “nick nacks”.

When I arrived, I saw the “Group Chairs” moving out of the Pennsylvania Office with precision. One man would carry a chair apiece. I took a chair and held it horizontally and walked toward the door. The high back of the chair went through the door first until the elbow supports cradled the door jamb and was eased through the door. I held it that way until I reached the hall where the stairs went downward. From there I turned it upright holding the chair just above the elbow rest before making my way down the stairs wary of the steps that fanned into a right turn. As I arrived at the first landing I took my bearings something I’ve never had to do those many years I’ve gone down these steps. I made two more precision moves straight through the door and another through the Iron Gate. We placed the chairs in parallel to Third Ave., where they were staged to be loaded onto the truck. Barry took a seat in the lead chair. This act affected me. The man who has been my surrogate father, mentor and friend was physically frail. He wrote “For the last 40 days or so, I have daily experienced lightheadedness and the memories and fears that go with recalling how it was early with this latest bout of atrial fibrillation. I have been admonished against doing any lifting because of the need for the puncture wound in the artery near the groin. I have a large hematoma around that wound that is truly scary looking but my doctor says not to worry; just take it easy. I know it is harder on Mara than me. That is how I felt when she has been ill.”

I wanted nothing more than to lend him my strength as he had done for me and others on those countless numbers of Thursdays when we sat in those same chairs and navigated through our passages of life. When I received Barry’s email thanking us for our help, I resonated again with the good feelings of that day. It was the same feelings I had received from Quint when he thanked me for those fourteen wonderful years!