Goom-key

When I was kid my family would drive from Baltimore to Pittsburgh every year to celebrate Christmas with my dad’s family.

From the time we’d arrived until the time we’d leave, a parade of aunts, uncles and cousins would climb grandma’s stairs, topped off by my great grandmother. At the end of her visit, my mother would always say to me:

“Spend some time with great grandmother, because you might not see her again.This was the early 1970s, Great Grandmother lived twenty more years, reached 100, watched Willard Scott wish her happy birthday and went quietly in her sleep a few weeks later. She outlasted 3 of her 11 children and for a while I thought she’d outlast us all.Thirty-five years ago on the day after Christmas we prepared to make the 5-hour trip home. It had started snowing on Christmas Eve and hadn’t stopped since. My dad buttoned up his gray topcoat; pulled his black Blue Brothers hat snuggly onto his Vitalis slicked back hair. Lit up a Pall Mall and said: “Train’s leaving in 10 minutes. I’m warming up the car.”

Once dad made that announcement we all picked up the pace. My dad looked at driving like Rommel looked at Africa during WWII. He had an invasion plan and we were going to stick to it.

We loaded ourselves into the car. Mom was in the front seat and my sister Julie, my mom’s mother, Mimi and myself in the backseat.

Dad looked over his shoulder at us.

“You kids gotta go to the bathroom?” he asked.

We shook our heads “no”. We knew better than to ask Dad to stop the car.

At the 1-hour mark, my sister Julie uttered this foreshadowing statement:

“I don’t feel good.”

A couple hours later as we passed the sign warning one mile until the rest stop.

“Anybody have to go,” asked Dad.

Julie and I shook our heads “no,” even if we had to, we would never admit it.

“Are you sure no one has to go?”

Silence.

As the rest stop rolled by my dad made a sharp turn and slid into the Howard Johnson’s.

“Well, I do.” He said and he shot out of the car like Carl Lewis working toward a new world record.

Julie picked that moment to throw-up all over the back seat of the Buick. When she tried to climb out of the car she slipped and took a fall worthy of Yakima Canutt, the legendary stuntman.

The tale became legendary in our family. And every year at Christmas some one would tell the story of when Julie fell on her “goom-key” as my dad delicately put it.

It was the last time the five of us took a trip as a family. Mimi was diagnosed with cancer and died two years later, my dad is is in a nursing home as the Alzheimer’s continues to eat away at him and my baby sister recently turned 42 and still gets sick more than anyone I know. Mom hasn’t been the same since dad was put into the home and this year, canceled Christmas.

But on Christmas day, I snuck down to the nursing home to spend some quiet time with my dad. He sat staring straight ahead in his wheel chair and barely noticed I was there. I sat beside him and held my hand on his heart, feeling every beat as I often do. And I told him the story of the great Christmas Road trip. And when I finished, he said the only words he said to me this past holiday.

“Jule fell on her goom-key.”