The Dream Chaser

As 2007 drifted through Spring and into Summer, my Father grew stronger, but he was clearly not the man he once was, or even the man of the year before. I could not help but think he looked an old sixty nine. The long period of time spent in bed had robbed him even further of the remaining vestiges of once broad swathes of muscle. As a man my Father had been distinguished by broad shoulders, a barrel chest and a thick neck. He had bulled his way through life, both figuratively and literally. At just a shade over six feet in height, his usual weight of two hundred and fifty or two hundred and sixty pounds - or more - left an impression of heft and bulk. Despite his size my father was surprisingly light on his feet, an attribute he often demonstrated when sailing. When he was moving at speed on deck you were well warned to stay out of his way. Any collision was apt to be both memorable and bruising. He had know reached a stage where he needed thyroid medication to keep warm and testosterone gel to restore some muscle mass and some oomph. Formerly trunk-like thighs and legs were weathered and withered away like the rib timbers on a beached ship-wreck. The doctors had recommended and I had purchased a walker for my Father but he adamantly refused to use it. He claimed to use it, but I wrapped its wheels in towels like a court spy and day after day they remained in place, despite his stories of long jaunts. Walkers were for old people. And soon he was going to be pacing on the deck of the Dream Chaser somewhere in the sunny Caribbean and if I had an ounce of sense I'd come along for the ride.

The chance at a pacemaker was the carrot dangling from my Father's stick. His congestive heart failure left him gasping for breath after a few flights of stairs or a few hundred feet and he would have to stop to regain both his breath and his strength. As a marathoner my Father envied me my youth, relative to his, my endurance and my wind. Old age "sucked", in his opinion. And I had better pay attention he warned me, because this is what I had in store. Of course given all the miles I ran my knees were probably going to give out in a few years in his considered opinion. As he wavered back and forth like a reed in some nonexistent breeze my hand was never too far from his elbow. His upper body was pocked and mottled with purple and blue splotches were he had lost a fight with gravity and the blood thinners and heart medication that filled his medicine cabinet meant he suffered spectacular sunset-like bruises. Breath regained he'd snap like an old turtle and say let's get going God Damn it we don't have all day we have things to do! And off we'd shuffle again, the black slippers on his feet scraping the pavement, the only thing he could wear now because of the extent of edema and swelling caused by his kidney failure and congestive heart failure. His persistence was admirable. His determination came from knowing that the doctors were not going to give him a pacemaker unless he managed to get his worst symptoms under control, his blood pressure and heart rate, his blood sugar readings and his weight. I filled out and gave him the equivalent of a marathoners training journal. Getting him to fill it out was a battle, getting data from him that was accurate probably a mirage. And yet he kept at it as best he could.

Going to the doctor with my Father was a surreal experience. How do you feel Mr. Hemingson? If I was any better I couldn't stand it! Perfect! Better than perfect! Or some variation thereof. Then my Father would give detailed instructions to the doctor of the moment about adjusting his medication and a lengthy analysis on my Father's part of his medical history, his treatment and where the previous doctors had got it wrong. My opinion of medical professionals and the truly inspired patience they exhibited with my Father increased my respect for them tenfold. On those occasions where his symptoms warranted a visit to an Emergency Room, the surreal was elevated to the near psychedelic. It was as if my Father was on mushrooms or peyote buttons. His admitting interviews became the stuff of legend. How do you feel, Mr. Hemingson? Perfect! Why are you here, Mr.
Hemingson? My son panicked. My son worries all the time. My son is an old hen. I learned to keep the tip of my tongue permanently between my teeth. It was just easier that way. When it became time to take a medical history, Kafka had nothing on my Father. Any problems with your heart, Mr. Hemingson? No. No? Uhhh, Dad what about your bypass surgery and your heart attacks? The Admitting Nurse invariably perked up at this revelation. Oh, so you do have a history of heart problems, Mr. Hemingson? Well, that's all behind me. I thought you were talking about right now! Right now I feel perfect.

Of course, if the doctors could just figure out my medication I'd be even more perfect! At this juncture I would be standing behind my Father, rolling my eyes and wildly gesticulating in the background and making the kinds of strange gestures that you expected from John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers. The Nurse would then gently steer my Father into an examining room. We'd go through the same charade when the ER doctor showed up and once my Father actually relented to an examination and the results came back, without fail he'd be admitted to the Hospital.

Needless to say, I was not the most enthusiastic supporter of my father living on a boat even as luxurious and as well-fitted out and as well-appointed as the Dream Chaser. I was busy trying to find him a spot in an assisted-care living facility. One that was close to his doctors and the treatment center at the hospital. My Father would reply that the Dream Chaser was in every way so much better and so much more practical than a condo or an apartment. The boat was stable. Like a rock. The boat could be moved, from one sunny port to the next. If I insisted, he was even willing to bring the boat through the Panama Canal back to the Pacific Northwest just so he could be closer to me and the rest of his family and friends and his doctors if need be. The boat was simply everything he had ever wanted and was everything he would ever need. And if I had an ounce of common sense I would come along for the ride. My Father had been in sales of one form or another his entire life. It wasn't even important that he convince me, he had already convinced himself. Sell me? My Father was already sold. And every conversation was bolstered with an endless series of Cape Horn Trawler facts and figures. See Cape Horn advertisement

I suspect that for men of a certain vintage, and my Father certainly qualified, a boat can be an alluringly feminine subject. My Father always referred to the Dream Chaser as such, as in "She's a real beauty, Son", and his hand would reach out and stroke some part of the Dream Chaser with a caress as tender as any he ever reserved for any loved one, perhaps even more so. "Once you get to know her, you'll appreciate just how special she is...". I didn't have a clue as to how to counter that. And late in the Summer of 2007, my Father purchased, although in many ways it was if he had married her, the Jeanne B and promptly re-christened her the Dream Chaser. There was a short period of time where my Father entertained the idea of naming the Dream Chaser something else, but it was in hindsight merely a passing whim. He had always thought of her as the Dream Chaser, couldn't really imagine her with any other name. And he gave voice to the notion that he was chasing one last dream. Within weeks of purchasing the boat my Father had his pacemaker installed. I had admitted him to the hospital and was the one who picked him up and took him home. Twenty minutes from the hospital he was violently ill. The next day he was back in the hospital and as he recovered in his bed, was as down as I had ever seen him. I left the hospital and I went out and bought several identical fleece vests, each of them a soft dusky blue that reminded me of a twilight sky. I bought half a dozen matching baseball hats. I had large compass stars embroidered on the back of each vest, under the name Dream Chaser in two inch letters. On the right breast of one vest it read, Captain. On another First Mate. All the hats were embroidered with the Dream Chaser's name. I wore First Mate's vest into the hospital and handed the Captain's to my Father. It was a little bit of Christmas and a birthday all rolled into one. Normally as verbose an individual as one was ever likely to meet, he was quiet, turned the vest over and over in his hands and he smiled. He put the vest on and remarked it was probably one of the nicest things he'd ever been given in his entire life. We both knew that he'd won. He wanted his boat, he got his boat, who was I to disagree, let alone judge? I was resigned to the fact that my Father was going to do exactly as he wanted. He rarely took the vest off after that. It was his new uniform. He wore the vest everywhere he went, even when he got to the heat and sunshine of Florida and eventually, the Bahamas.

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