I never met my grandparents, not any of them, eight in all. That’s twice as many as you, my dear reader, probably have. That’s because I have two sets. That’s because I’m adopted. And the reason I never met them was a little trifling thing known as World War Two. Kind of got in the way. I was lucky to even meet my parents. All four of them. Hell, I was lucky even to be born. That is if you consider life a precious thing, something to be sought after lustily by unborn souls. I’m not of that persuasion.
But still, life, once given, must be preserved. For better or for worse, and as long as it bloody takes. I know this because my adoptive father was a doctor. He took an oath, Hippocratic, and he held to it. Not all doctors do. Take Josef Mengele M.D. (Mentally Deficient) for example. I also know it, genetically perhaps, through my actual father who was a tree-hugging hippie peacenik back in the 60’s. Between them I know that if you try and take a life, you’re probably an asshole. Make that a fucking asshole. If you didn’t know that then why don’t you come on over and take your beating like a man.
There’s something else strange to tell about my two fathers. They are a generation apart. The hippie, my actual father, is young enough to be the doctor’s son. And me, I’m old enough, soul-wise, to be both of their grandparents. What a family we make, ages all reversed.
When your parents reach a certain age, and anyone that is in the know will tell you, you do go through a kind of reversal. You need to take care of them just as you would a newborn. But it doesn’t work the same way, it merely resembles it. The difference being that you disassemble their lives and prepare them for the grave rather than try and prepare them for the life still ahead to be lived.
That’s what happened between me and the Doctor a few months back. He was forcibly retired at the age of 84. The people working around him - secretaries, nurses, orderlies and other doctors, began to notice his mental decline. I myself had noticed it years before, not long after my mother died. But there were people that hadn’t remarked it - his patients. They always remained faithful and even though he is no longer officially a doctor, they still call him for advice.
I moved my father, the doctor into an assisted living residence not long after he was diagnosed with a cognitive disorder at the Montreal Neurological Institute - the very same place in which my mother died.
He has trouble saying the words that he’s thinking and often reverts to his mother tongue, Hungarian. He is also, being Hungarian, very stubborn. The effect on him is that he loses his train of thought and once, regaining it and then losing it again, he regains it again. Basically, what you get is a series of false starts and the effect on the listener is sheer and utter madness.
It was during this move, rummaging through his infinite papers that I uncovered the document that revealed the past to me. That told me of an alternate self.
