Song For The Boss by JF Chavoor

Sometimes I would take my Greg with me. “Watch and remember,” I’d say. Maybe it was a
smart thing to say; maybe it was foolish or even cruel. It came into my head, wanting to come
out and it seemed right at the time. I think I had the right kind of kid who could hear the
words and grasp the situation. I didn’t say it in a harsh way and neither did I say it too matter
of factly. I considered it balanced in tone and benevolent in intent. My dad was dying in a
convalescent hospital. Hadn’t Greg heard something about the “Circle of Life” in “Lion King”?
And wasn’t this it? My dad was dying and we all are dying, and if we’re all dying then I was
dying and chances were I would be close to death and in need of visiting by my children. We
crossed the small parking lot and I opened the door for him, thinking about the time four
years earlier when my mom died. Each of my three children looked at the passing of
Grandma Frances in a different way.

Kat, who was ten, was sad and quiet and after a hug she announced that she didn’t want to
talk about it, not, I concluded, because she was devoid of feelings but because she was
overwhelmed by them.

Kelsey, who was five, had many theological questions.
“Is Grandma Frances in heaven?”
“Yes, baby, she is.”
“Are there angels there?”
“Yes, there are.”
“Is she with Jesus?”
“Yes.”
“Can she see us?”
“I think she can, Kelsey.”
“Is she ok?”
“Yes. She’s not sick anymore.”
“I miss her.”
“We’ll all miss her. But we will see her again one day.” She hugged me for a long time and
then went to her room.
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Greg, who was six, had many medical questions.
“How did Grandma die?”
“Well, her heart stopped.”
“Then what happened?”
“The blood stopped circulating.”
“What happened after that?”
“Well, Greg, her brain shut down.” I had reached the limits of my scientific-sounding
knowledge.
“Why do people die?”
“Everybody dies, son.”
“Why did Grandma die?”
“Because she, because…well, she was old. We all get old.”

Six months later Greg and I passed each other in the hall. He looked at me with an odd look
on his face.
“Dad, are you old?”
“Yes son, I sure am.” I thought I was being honest; I was only forty but I was comparatively
old. The result was a surprising explosion of tears. How was I to know the boy could take my
statement that getting old and death are connected and hold on to it for half a year? I had to
convince him that I was old but not the same kind of old that causes concern for imminent
death.

Now we were walking down the hall looking for Dad’s room. We had already talked about his
leaky valve that was not sufficiently sending blood where it needed to go.
“He repeats things, son.”
“How come?”
“There’s not enough blood getting to his brain so his memory doesn’t work right.” His face
told me he was working the notion over.
Dad was sitting in a chair in front of the TV but he was looking in the direction of the window.
“Hi Dad.”
“Oh yay.” He waved his arms in the air slowly.
“Hi Grandpa.”
“And Gregory too?”
“Yep.”
“Where’s Grace?”
“She didn’t make it this time.”
“Oh. That’s ok.”
“What’s up Dad? What’s on?”
“Ballgame. A nurse put it on, I guess. But I was looking at that tree. They’re trimming it but
they cut too much. Butchered it”
“Yeah?” I looked at the tree in question while Greg walked to the window.
“Look at it. They killed it.”
“It’ll be ok though.”
“Maybe,” he said with resignation. He had already lost interest .
“Hey! Mr. Greg’s here, too?”
“Yeah.” I looked at Greg. He had a bemused look.
“You like root beer?”
“Yeah,” Greg answered.
“Take my wallet,” he said to me, “and go down the hall to the soda machine. Where’s Grace?”
“She didn’t make it this time.”
“Oh. Too bad. Next time.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m going to go get the root beer.”
“There’s a machine right down the hall. Take my wallet.”
“It’s ok, Dad. I’ll get it.”

I found the machine but it was out of order. I debated whether to go find a 7-11 for some
root beer. I didn’t want to come back empty handed. One of Dad’s maxims was to never visit
someone empty-handed and Dad not being in his house, not plopped in his oversized easy
chair, made me suddenly feel like a guest paying a visit.

“There you are!”
“Hey, Dad. The machine’s out of order.”
“What machine?”
“How are you Dad?”
“Gregory boy’s here.”
“Yep.”
“Where’s Grace?”
“She didn’t make it this time, Dad.”
“Oh. She’s home with Kathleen and Kelsey.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s ok. Next time.”
“Yeah.”
"You guys want some root beer?"
"No, we're good."
“Hey by the way, when am I getting out of here?”
“Well, I’m not sure.” He wasn’t going home, but he wasn’t going to stop trying.
“Yeah, I just need to know when. I have to check on the tomatoes.”
“Oh I remember, Dad. You can go home when you don’t need the catheter.” I hated lying to
him.
“This damn thing? Oh, ok.”

It was like that, and each time I came it was worse. He was dying in slow motion, the opposite
of visiting someone’s newborn baby at three or four week intervals where change and
growth was more noticeable compared to those who were with the baby everyday. I started
making my visits without Greg.
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“So Dad,” I said after we had breakfast in the dining hall one day, “how are you doing?”
“Ok. No complaints. Sometimes I draw when I can’t sleep.”
“Draw?”
“Yeah, draw. You know.” He pantomimed drawing something.
“What do you draw?”
“Lines.”
“Lines?”
“Yeah. Parallel lines.”
“Hmm. Then what?”
“Perpendicular lines.”
“Yeah? What do you do with that?”
“Then I have a calendar.”
“A calendar?”
“So I can make plans.”
“Like what?”
“Next year’s garden.”

He was still pretty much Dad at that point but by my next visit he was struggling to move and
speak, although he still had the will to stay connected to the world and his perspective of it.

“There,” he said pointing at the dresser.
“The picture?”
“No,” he said still pointing.
“Your harmonica?”
He nodded and gestured for me to bring it to him, then gestured again to come closer.
“Go get the boss,” he whispered.
“The boss?”
“Supervisor,” he said still able to put annoyance in his tone.
“But…”
“Go.”

So I found myself in the dingy, pungent, orange lit hallway of a slightly below-par
convalescent hospital, looking for a supervisor for reasons that were not clear. I walked from
one end to the other without seeing anyone except for a few stray unstable, patients in their
wheelchairs, one of which was facing the wall reciting something in a foreign language.

I went to the front desk and no one was there, so I went back to Dad and told him that the
supervisor wasn’t available but he just pointed at the door. Out in the hallway again I spotted
a janitor and decided he would have to do.

“Excuse me, but could you help me? Could you come visit my dad for a minute?”
“No English,” he replied with a shy, apologetic smile.
“Esto es el quarto de mi parde,” I said hoping for the best, “my dad’s room?”
“Ya, si.”
“Le gusta usted musica? You like music?”
“Si,” he answered looking confused.
“Mi padre tambien. Ven con ami. Come on, my Dad wants to play some music.” I don’t know
why but he followed me. I wasn’t sure if my high school Spanish helped him understand or
made him more confused.
“ Como se llama?” I asked him when we got to dad’s room.
“Roberto.”
“Roberto, me llamo Jack, y mi padre es Frank.”
“Buenas noches, buenas noches. Senor Frunk.”
“Dad, this is Roberto. He’s the supervisor,” I said, and Dad waved me closer to his bed.
“Don’t just stand there,” he whispered, “ask him if he wants some root beer.” My sister had
taken to leaving a supply on his dresser.
“Roberto,” I said, feeling like a UN interpreter, “le gusta usted root beer?”
“No, gracias, no,” he murmured, head down. He was blushing.
Dad took the harmonica out of the box and held it up with his left hand.
“I will play a song from your homeland,” he said.
“Musica de Mexico,” I said.
“Gracias,” Roberto said, bowing slightly.

Dad put the harmonica to his mouth with his left hand and kept time with his right. I wasn’t
sure if he had the wind to play but soon enough the sounds began to assemble themselves
into a melody. I had trouble at first figuring out what he was playing; he didn’t know any
Mexican tunes as far as I knew. It was something familiar but not to Roberto. I raced through
my mental catalog of popular tunes and eventually it hit me. He was playing “O Solo Mio.”
Well, I thought, at least he’s in the Latin language family. Roberto stood with his mouth
opened slightly, head forward and nodding offbeat with uncertainty but still trying to find
either the groove or the connection. Dad played on for several minutes, as if we were singing
and knew all the verses. When he was done I applauded while Roberto relaxed and smiled,
realizing at last that our intentions were good. Dad extended both arms and bowed his head
slowly.

“Thank you,” he said. “That was for you.” Then he looked at me and pointed to the root beer. I
pulled a can from its plastic ring.
“Por favor,” I said, holding it out. Roberto accepted it and put it in his pocket, turning toward
the door.
“Gracias. I work now,” he said softly and went out.
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A few weeks later I came to visit again. He seemed tired and while his will to be in the world
was still present it did not have the same luster. He was a man making preparations. He had
one final lesson for his younger son. He didn’t greet me when I walked in the room; he looked
at me for a while, as if he were memorizing my features.
“The book,” he said, finally.
“What book?”
“The book,” he said, slowly turning his head in the direction of the dresser.
I looked at the dresser. There was no root beer this time but there was an oversized book,
one I had never seen before. I picked it up and glanced at it. It was an illustrated book of
Assyrian history. He gestured for me to come closer. He wanted me to go through the book
with him. We looked at a picture of men in chariots hunting lions with bows and arrows.
“You,” he said.
“Me?”
“You,” he said again, tapping the picture slowly.
“Oh, yeah. Maybe I should braid my beard like that,” I said playfully.
“No joking,” he said in earnest, signalling me to turn the page. “You.”
“Ok,” I said. He repeated the message for the next ten pages. Then we came to the winged bull,
the Assyrian icon. He pointed to the leg of the bull.
“Strength.”
“Yeah, I know. Strength of a bull.”
“You.” Then he pointed to the wings.
“Swiftness of an eagle.”
“You.” And he pointed to the head.
“Intelligence and wisdom of a man.” I said recalling the dozens of times he had described it to
me.
“You.”
We continued through the rest of the book, pausing for his monosyllabic directive each time.
“I get it, Dad,” I said, closing the book.
“Don’t forget it,” he said, his bent index finger quivering at me.
“Ok, Dad.”

The day before Dad died I was on a bus rolling down Highway 99, looking at the sunset.
When people say "God spoke to my heart", I admit thinking You heard what you wanted God
to say. But sitting on that bus looking at the sun go down on the grapevines on the long
boring highway that Dad call romantic, God spoke to my heart and said that Dad was going
home that day. I didn't want that but that's what God spoke to my heart. I was on my way to
coach a football game, trying to get my head in the football place before we arrived at the
stadium, but it was nearly impossible. I remembered the advice he had given me month
earlier to tell the team which seemed quite content to live well below its potential.

“Think of your best moment, the best play you ever did,” he had said, “and then challenge
yourself to do that again except a little bit better. And each time give yourself the same
challenge. Tell them that!”

I thought maybe when I got off the bus and on the field I would tell them Dad’s message, but
on the field with my hat and shirt and whistle and three by five reminders under the lights,
surrounded by thirty ninth grade kids in their away game uniforms, I was still thinking about
the sunset and what God said when He spoke to my heart. “Let’s go get’em,” was all I could
tell the kids. I don’t remember how they did, whether we won or lost and what it was like on
the bus ride home. I know that late that night Dad slipped away, moved over to the other side,
but not without leaving behind a legacy of root beer, music and an understanding of our
ethnic heritage. “We find our place on the path,” the song from the Lion King goes,
“unwinding in the circle, the circle of life.” I just hope that I can pass on all that I understand
and believe to be true and of God to my own children so that the circle can stay intact.

© JF Chavoor

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What we like about this story: What struck us was the authentic voice of the narrator in a story
that is redolent of the struggle for that authenticity. The loss of function of the older man
foreshadows the loss of original cultural markers in the coming generations. What is it to
truly belong in such a diverse community?

We like this story because:
It tells us something about personal
identity and how the lessons of our
forbears can help us through the
future. Nothing is ever truly lost.

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