I was never daddy's girl. Everytime I start thinking about my family history, I am afraid to open the door too wide. I will tell you that I love my parents and lately, I am talking on the phone with my father almost every day.

Our phone conversations first began and became increasingly frequent when my mother had a stroke back in February. I think sometime in April, something amazing happened while I was having a phone conversation with my father. When I got off the phone, my mind did a double take.

You have to understand that my father was never much into saying, "I love you."  Usually, the rare times that I would talk to my father on the phone, he would say, "OK" after I said, "I love you" to him, or he would just mumble those three words almost soundlessly.

On this particular day in April when my father called, my mother's health had taken a bad turn, and she was about to have her leg amputated. My mind was disturbed and distracted. I talked on the phone with my father more to comfort him than for myself.

When we said our goodbyes, I said, "I love you, too."

I hung up the phone and my head said to me, "What did you say?"

I played back those last words, I love you  too with the emphasis on too.  I was floored. My father had said, "I love you" first.

My amazement could not extend to joy. My mother's failing condition has brought my father to an uncustomarily emotionally expressive state. At times, he cries. At times, we can actually relate to how we are feeling about my mother's decline.

Sometimes, these phone conversations are draining and take a lot of energy to navigate. First, mustering the fortitude to deal with my mother's condition and suffering is demanding but covering certain issues with my father is like driving over roadless and rocky terrain. I am constantly scraping my undercarriage on rocks. 

I persevere. I try to be careful with my words. I am attempting to get somewhere but do not know how far I can travel in this new understanding. In the way of my family, I find humor in the dark and sadness.

The sadness in our family can be mapped by courses that can not be erased. Some of our sad stories are acted out over and over again in telling and arcane rituals. My parents have had a mealtime ritual that has been played daily for over half a century.

I am going to call this ritual, the Your Food is Getting Cold ritual. The ritual begins with the ceremonial placing of the food on the table. Everyone is called to eat and assembles but my father.

The audio portion of the ritual starts with a yell from my mother, "Al, your food is getting cold!"

My father's food getting cold is an urgency that produces anxiety in my mother so that she is repeating this chant with increasing loudness and fervor mounting to anger and cursing. "Al! Your food is getting cold! God damn it!

SHIT! AL! YOUR FOOD IS GETTING COLD! COME TO THE TABLE!

Meanwhile, my father waits until my mother is whipped into a suitable frenzy before he makes an appearance and seats himself at the table. Most of the time they will have a heated exchange and then my father eats his dinner. This interaction has become such a part of their daily routine that my father must miss my mother fretting over the temperature of his food.

Although my parents moved to Florida years ago, they have taken these age old and portable rituals with them. I was in Florida recently to see my mother in the hospital and in her stead, my father is cooking. One morning he was making pancakes for my sister and me.

He placed the pancakes in a stack on the table. My sister sat at the table but I was writing and emailing responses to clients and wanted to finish before driving to the hospital to visit my mother. I was almost done the email tasks when the ritual started.

I heard my father from the kitchen, "Mary, come to the table before the food gets cold."

I was concentrating on what I was doing. My father became more insistent, "Come eat! The food is getting cold!"

"EAT!  THE FOOD IS GETTING COLD!"

I asked my father if this was role reversal. He didn't get my wry joke. My sister tried to explain to him but maybe the ritual had become as reflexive as breathing for both my mother and father. A ritual that made me cringe in my childhood and caused dark amusement for me in adulthood, was a daily song and dance that my father subconsciously misses now.

My father misses these normal (for them) interactions with my mother. Perhaps, performing this ritual daily was their strange way of communicating and connecting. My parents are not ready to end their rituals with each other.

My mother is not taking saying goodbye to this world seriously. My father is not ready to let her go. He is showing in many words and deeds, a reluctance that more than out rivals his delay to the dinner table. No need to tell me first, for this Dad, I love you.