“Cavitation,” he says. “The propeller is sucking air as it’s lifted up and down out of its element.” This trip lapped the fall of our previous year. In October, we started a watch with my mother-in-law as her kidneys failed at the end of a long and lucky life. The extended family took turns helping her ease out of life. The cell phone became our family’s main means of contact as we passed on the interstate or left notes on the kitchen counter on our way to and from Massachusetts for our shifts. As we settled into our vigil with her, in Pennsylvania, my father broke his hip and began to fail. His dementia did not allow him to work toward recovery and took away his last joy, his love of movement. In the dark of November, he died in a nursing home the week we scattered Marjorie’s ashes. We looked forward to gathering with family to celebrate my father’s life, but a Christmas blizzard blasted the Eastern Seaboard, preventing the Maine clan from attending my father’s memorial service. Holidays were muted. Work,
18 Points East August 2012
jury duty and the inertia that accompanies grief kept us close to home. Our only daughter moved to California.
Log entry, Sept. 9 Winds up to 25 mph in forecast northerly, and the whole of Massachusetts Bay to create a chop. Staying in Scituate today.
Log entry Sept. 10 Time to head back to Maine. A little gray bird perched on the dodger for some time today. Taking a rest before getting itself out of its predicament a mile out to sea in a stiff breeze. We have had a year of chugging along, sucking air, in and out of our element. Losses accumulate, but so does grace if we look for it. Sometimes a place will serendipitously present itself for a rest. The weather always shifts, and we can raise the sails to a fairer wind. Lee McCarthy lives in South Berwick, Maine, and works as a librarian in southern Maine.
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