“They were all so happy that Mr. Castiglione had been able to join them that day,” Cooper said softly.  “They had no way of knowing that he would live to speak at the funerals of Uncle Remy and your great grandfather.”

The woman sat quietly listening to her father in between sipping from the straw she held for him.  In his weakened state, it was better for her to hold the cup of water for him than to watch him trembling to navigate cup and straw on his own.   Her own household was slowly coming apart.  Her husband was beginning to display signs of neglect and her daughter no longer wanted to come with her as often to see her withering grandfather. She had believed that she could simply split her time between all of the people who needed her, but her heart was with her father.  

Cooper knew these things about his daughter.   He had tried to tell her that it was all right and that she didn’t need to spend so much time with him in the hospice care facility that would be his final residence.  They had always enjoyed a wonderful relationship and shared even the most difficult sentiments openly.  She had acknowledged fears that her husband was spending time outside of the marriage and that her daughter was beginning a relationship that she was simply not equipped to handle. He could see the toll that this was taking on her.

She could only discuss her troubles with him for short periods at a time.   When it became overwhelming… she would ask him to tell her stories of her Great Grandfather Papa Jules and his “Tuesday Friends.”  She had grown up listening to these stories and they had been the delight of her childhood.  Now, as a middle-aged wife and mother, her father was unable to make the telling of these tales as entertaining as he had as a young man… but it still filled her heart with a measure of comfort.  

“They all called him Tutti Paul,” he went on.  Even now he realized that it was difficult for him to call the man anything other than “Mister Castiglione.”  This is how he had first been introduced to his father’s friend as a young man and it had stuck.   "The man had been fighting some form of respiratory illness for years.  They didn’t even expect him to be able to make it to the bistro on "Copacetic Day"… but he was there.”

Of all of the Tuesday afternoons... the one that stuck with him above all others was what he called “Copacetic Day.”  It was the last day that all five of them were ever together.   They’d found Papi’s body alone in his home in the Village.  (Fat Remy was always Papi to him.  Officially, Remy Desbois was his Godfather.  Unofficially, Papa Jules and Papi had actually raised Cooper after his own father had simply disappeared one day.  Papa Jules had provided all the love that he could have ever wanted.   Papi had supported him financially until he could support himself.)  Papi had apparently died of a severe stroke and was only discovered when Uncle Jacob came looking for him.  Jacob had wept inconsolably for several days and all throughout the elaborate Roman Catholic funeral.

He recalled sitting alongside his grandfather at the funeral.  Papa Jules sat there quietly and never said a word, other than to accept the condolences of those who understood the depth of his friendship to Papi.  Cooper’s own sense of loss when he’d learned of Papi’s passing had been traumatic.  He knew how this would affect his grandfather… but he felt like he had lost a father as well.  As much as possible, he had grieved alone. 

Two weeks later, Papa Jules was rushed to the Emergency Room when he collapsed in their family room.  He died that very night surrounded by his family.  The funeral for Papa Jules was a blurry kaleidoscope of people and pain.  He had never reconciled the image of lowering his Papa Jules into the ground.      

Cooper had embellished the story of Copacetic Day over the years for his only baby girl, so that it had become her favorite… bar none.  The way he told the story, Papa Jules had gotten up on the bistro stage during the band’s break, and held the audience in rapt amazement with a poetic spoken word rendition entitled “Copacetic.”   While he was talking to the growing crowd of people… members of the band returned and began providing musical accompaniment, allowing Papa Jules to sit and play the piano while continuing his Spoken Word.   The ongoing mantra throughout his performance was, “Everything is Copacetic.”

The way Cooper told the story, since most of the crowd knew that Papa Jules was blind, they had thrilled to see him doing little dance steps and clapping his hands to pump up the bistro onlookers.  It was not unlike Stevie Wonder might have done back in his day.   He liked using Stevie Wonder as an analogy for Papa Jules.  His daughter’s personal recollections were limited to pictures of the man sitting at his piano and wearing his dark glasses.   In reality, his grandfather was an excellent musician who never got a break with his music… but people loved him.  

Throughout the years, during good times and bad, “copacetic” had become a special word between Cooper and his only daughter.   If she was just alright… she would tell him that she was “alright.”  But if she was particularly happy about anything… she would tell him that she was, indeed, “copacetic.”  They understood each other.

Now he looked at her intently as she fussed with his cup of water and straw.   For just a moment, he saw her as she really was. (To him she had always been the unconditional star of his world.)  But now, gone was the vivacious beauty that had been the envy of his friends.  These days she had put on weight and the light in her eyes was hard to find.  He didn’t like the idea of leaving her now, but he owed his God a death and it was about to come due.   He was settled inside of himself with it.   He had already shared as much as he could with her… the lessons that Papa Jules and Papi had taught him.   

He had tried to share it with his granddaughter as well, but he didn’t think she was listening.   That part of his life felt unfinished, but he wasn’t sure that there was anything that he could do about it.  He would check with God to see if he could look after his grand-baby somehow. Maybe he would get to see Papa Jules and Papi again?

He saw that his daughter was once again engaged with his tale of Papa Jules’ Copacetic performance.  In the retelling of the story, the bistro had emerged larger than life, and his friendship with Papi, Uncle Jacob, Mr. Castiglione and Dave Groth was epic.  He had used it to give her a sense of the importance of interpersonal relationships and the value of caring for others.   She had been a happy soul until marriage and life began to tear her down. Still she herself had developed good friends that were assisting her as she cared for Cooper now.                         

He believed that she would be alright.  She was vulnerable in many ways, but she had a rich and beautiful soul and friends that cared about her.   The numerous friends that he had made in his lifetime would also look out for her and his grand-baby.  It would be alright. 

Actually… it would be copacetic.