LAST CONVERSATION WITH DAD
By Joyce Rankin
“Okay dad, start from the beginning.”
I never really knew my father, or rather never took the time to ask him about the details of his life. His life had always been focused on mine. It was always about me. But isn't that the way it's supposed to be? I mean, I was his daughter. Spoiled? Yes. Deservedly so? Of course.
But now that he's approaching 80, I'm feeling it's finally time to put the focus on him. My plan is to ask him some questions about his life and write down everything he says. It's not that I'm afraid of his dying. At 78 I can see him living for at least another 10 years. Except for his back problems, he's doing fine. It's just that it's time to put the pieces together to understand him better and, in the process, perhaps understand myself a little better, too.
So that day, across that little Formica table, we finally began to talk….
—Joyce Rankin, 61, is a retired school principal who lives in Carbondale, Colorado
JACKIE'S JEWEL
By David Scherer
Jackie is arguably the grumpiest koala at the Featherdale Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills of southern Australia. All the koalas there are grumpy. You would be too if you were nocturnal and someone kept waking you up all day while you were trying to sleep it off. That's right – sleep it off. The average koala is perpetually intoxicated from gorging on eucalyptus leaves, which ferment almost immediately in its tummy.
The reason Jackie and her buddies are repeatedly roused from their enhanced slumbers is so they can be hugged and photographed by tourists, who make the pilgrimage to Featherdale and an increasing number of other preserves for just that transfiguring experience. Whatever department in the Aussie government oversees such things is now moving to outlaw the practice, which is understandable. How would you react, mate, if you were trying to sleep off a dozen Fosters and some round, furry creature reeking of eucalyptus kept waking and mauling you?
—David Scherer's collection of travel stories, Ramblin' in Paradise, will be self-published this year
SON
By Georgina Areia
I back the Mercedes SUV out of the garage and click the garage-door opener. The door slowly descends. I notice that the oaks and maples are tinged with specks of gold, orange and yellow as summer fades into fall. Our white colonial home with its blue shutters and green lawn sloping down to the trees and stream appears calm and peaceful. The foundation plants are neatly trimmed. But there are no flowers in my garden this time of year. It's a beautiful September morning, the sky clear and the temperature still in the 70s. But a storm rages in my stomach and thoughts race around in my head as I search for an explanation for the nightmare that has become our lives. The house is filled with angst and a riot of emotions. Michael, my handsome, brilliant, talented 30-year-old son sits slumped in silence beside me, now overweight as a result of his medication, depression and compulsive eating. Where he used to be lively and talkative he is emotionally flat and unexpressive. His olive complexion is sallow, and there are large dark circles around his empty brown eyes.
Jesus, how did this happen?
—Georgina Areia is a pen name for a mother still struggling to come to grips with what happened to her son. Her memoir, of which this is the first chapter, is helping her do that.