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Monologue About Nora

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“True, but you still listened to him anyway,” Aunt Becky chimed in.
Lucinda continued, lowering her voice for dramatic effect. “So just as Nora got half way across the pond, the ice starts cracking. She panics and starts running back – not the smartest choice. The ice broke all at once, and little Nora fell straight in! But your father, Ben, immediately took off all his clothes, you know, because of hypothermia, and dove into the ice water. Seconds later, he came up with Lucinda in his arms. He carried her all the way back to the house in the snow. It was so dangerous. We were all so young.” Lucinda looked at my father and gently smiled. “Nora ended up fine, but we all had to pile into the pickup truck to take your father to a hospital over …show more content…

The stories reminded me of the nature of my father’s disease. They seemed like an exciting prologue to a half-written play, ending abruptly in the beginning of a promising second act. No dramatic build up. No cliché. No moment in which the audience is allowed a sigh of relief. No heroic reversal of fortune. No applause. No reason to.
I remember, after all these stories, my Dad looked back at me as drool dripped down his chin. My dad had been particularly adept, as some fathers tend to be, at hiding his pain. This time, my dad hid nothing. His face was expressionless save for his watery blue eyes. They said all you needed to know. He hated the drool. He hated that his son saw him like this. He hated that his body had failed him while his mind was still sharp. He even hated he was bald.
It was the first to go, the hair. The chemo had taken it in a week. A couple of months later, I bought him Rogaine for his birthday as a gag gift and we all laughed. My dad laughed so hard he sprayed his mashed potatoes all over my mother. We laughed even …show more content…

I had expected it. The offer had become familiar and fatiguing. Of course, I never did let him know. I never intended to. Nor anyone else, for that matter. It wasn’t that we didn’t need money or food. Because we did. It was my mother, truly. She never asked for help from anyone outside of the family. She didn’t ask for help when her first husband had abandoned her with a child when she was twenty-two. She didn’t ask for help when she raised my sister by herself. And even though she had no college degree, she worked full time to provide for her child. It wasn't until my father came into the picture that she let her guard down. It might have been my father's loving pushiness that did it. He had a remarkable way to push people just enough to inspire them to action, like he did to me on that sleepy summer Sunday. But now, with the prospect of losing another husband, my Mother did the only thing she could; she dug her feet deep into the grit, and put one foot in front of the other. Or that’s how I saw it. I don’t know if it was pride, stubbornness, ego, or all three that did it. But the Bradshaws did not ask for

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