I found myself talking to my dad last Father's Day from Batu Ferringhi, a beach on Penang Island. I called him about 7:30 in the morning my time; it was 8:30 PM the previous evening for him. He was home alone, as he is most of the time. I was only alone for the moment - my children were still asleep and my husband was having coffeee at the only cafe on the beach that was open at such an early hour.
I walk up and down the beach as I talk with my father, imagining him in his tiny bedroom off the small, cluttered kitchen in the house on the hill overlooking Port Mouton Bay. We cover the usual subjects first - where I am, how he is. I am on vacation for a long weekend with my husband and children, he is getting around OK but has a doctor's appointment later in the week to check into some recurring symptoms that have been bothering him again. Neither one of us knows that he will never return home from that appointment, will spend months in the hospital, nearly die and then wait long weeks for a nursing home placement. Although I may return to Penang Island some day, he will never return to his bedroom, but we do not know that on Father's Day.
So I think as I watch the brown water, murky from a weekend storm, that he is on the coast, too - the rugged coast of Nova Scotia with its icy water that forbids swimming. His house is less than a kilometer walk to a white crescent beach and we talk about the beach, but I realize he has probably not been there for months - perhaps more than a year. He's been too unsteady on his feet and tires too easily to attempt the rocky descent to the beach. He can see the ocean from his backyard, but has not felt it or stepped in it for years.
Our conversation moves beyond my location and his health, and I am conscious as I always am these days, that he is still clear, articulate. I struggle for the occasional word, he never does. I mention Burma and he begins quoting Kipling, "O the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!" He tells me that he has always thought the best example of onomatopoeia in the English language is the line, "Elephants a-piling teak In the sludgy, squdgy creek."
We talk about Penang, and he tells me about early missionary work here. I have read the Lonely Planet and Rough Guides to Malaysia, and recently a child's biography of Hudson Taylor to my girls, but he knows details about the history of the gospel in Penang that I've never encountered. Frankly, I'd never heard of Penang until we moved to Malaysia last year, but he is conversant with the history of the Malay Peninsula as well as the island. Rangoon, Mandalay, Georgetown, Malacca are all familiar names to him.
Our conversation leaves Southeast Asia and moves to Europe. He tells me that my cousin's son has recently been to Dieppe with his middle school French immersion class, and that he actually looked up my Grandfather's cousin's grave. My dad tells me about Dieppe, and how many Canadians were killed there. He reminisces about Cousin Harry's visits to his home in Windsor, Ontario, when my dad was 7 and Harry about 14, how Harry played catch with him in the back yard. Harry was only 22 when he died. His young widow remarried and had more children with her second husband. Harry's one son, the only Horner in his family, looked up my Aunt many, many years later in Toronto. My dad remembers it all clearly.
Our conversation shifts again and he tells me he's heard about political demonstrations in Bangkok and wonders if my two eldest children- his grandchildren- who are traveling in Thailand are safe. We talk about where they are staying, where the political unrest is located, how long they will be there and what they are doing. He prays for them daily.
Finally we speak of his recently composed plans for a memorial serivce after his death. He tells me the three hymns he wants: When All My Labors and Trials are O'er, another one so old and unfamiliar I am not sure I know it, and his all-time favorite, The Sands of Time are Sinking. That one I could have predicted. He tells me the names of the people he would like to speak at the service; I am one of them. We do not mention his son who may not be out of prison before he dies. If he is, he will not be able to attend the service since it will be in Canada and he will be on parole in the US.
We talk for nearly an hour, then say goodbye - he to prepare for bed in his cramped bedroom, easing his old frame into his small bed which has been moved to the first floor to avoid the stairs, I to wake my children, have breakfast at the cafe on the beach and pack for the trip back to Kuala Lumpur. My mind is cluttered with things like wet bathing suits, room keys, checkout times and traffic. But I imagine his ranging wide as he waits for sleep - across the globe, through time, over the faces of long dead cousins and traveling grandchildren, through Burma, Penang, Rangoon, Dieppe, Mandalay, Siam, Heaven.
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