John Randall is a writer living in Missouri. His interests include camping, running, walking, cutting and burning wood, messing around with magnets, foraging, and listening to podcasts, many of them about baseball.
Outside in the courtyard at Shrine with my dad. Brad had a mask on but no-one said anything to me about any new Covid restrictions. Within ten seconds of my clapping his shoulder to announce my arrival, Dad asked me to take him outside.
The lawn crew is edging walkways and borders.
”Where are we, the Shrine?” he asks.
”Where do you think we are?” I say.
“I think we’re there. I’m just guessing.”
The edger drones on, throttling up and down, back and forth, in and out, left to right. My dad’s eyes are blue, red, and watery.
”You want to go out there even with that lawn equipment going?”
A rhetorical question he does not answer.
It’s cooler. Way cooler. The two-cycle engine quiets for a moment, just a moment. And the rest of the soundscape steps slowly out from wherever it was hiding. The whir of crickets. Voices from inside.
”You’re not gonna see much in the sky,” he says, “ A few birds, that’s it.”
There’s the song sparrow, reeling off its spell. Nothing happens. They’ll be back to mow, and then again to blow. Maybe we’ll be at lunch by then.
The sky is cloudy. It might not even be eighty degrees, a stunning turn of events. Church bells. I’d go to that mass sometime. There are people in there who know me. Maybe they don’t know my name but they know my face and they know I’m here for my dad. That’s all I know to feel welcome. That is enough. Knowing more would break the spell. Question me, question them. See ya in another life, brutha.
”You want anything to read?”
”No, I just like to enjoy it out here,” he says, “I got papers in there I read.”
Remember back when my parents said they saw a panther, from the St Francis entrance? They said they saw a panther go through some grass, at the edge of the back parking lot, and into the woods. I thought it must have been a dog, or possibly a bobcat…
The drive to the site yesterday was memorable. Through El Niño and Ojo de Agua, where we saw two houses we built, one last year and one the year before that. Bustling, this city. The Ojo de Agua road heads south and eventually makes an intersection with Highway 2. Busy intersection. There is a traffic light but the light seemed only to heighten the chaos. I was making a right on a green. A semi coming through from across the freeway must have had a green yield for its left-hand turn but this truck was bound and determined to make its left, oncoming traffic be darned. It was a free-for-all. We headed west/southwest on the highway for perhaps ten miles before preparing to take a left against/across the traffic coming the other way on what, at that spot, was a three-lane highway, with some cars traveling at about 50 mph. As is custom in Tijuana, some of the cars coming the opposite way see that traffic needs to turn and they stop so the turning traffic can get across the road. Two out of three oncoming lanes had vehicles pausing to let me turn, but one lane was still thrumming through at full speed. So the cars that wait out of courtesy get a hat tip from me but unless all of the traffic is going to wait, the partial courtesy is pointless. I waited a bit until I knew I could make it across regardless of whether oncoming traffic was going to stop or not. I floored it across the three lanes only to have to stop pretty quickly because there were all kinds of semis and other trucks stacked up at the mouth of the road we were turning onto, the surface of which was dirt and rough. There are basically no rules for driving in Tijuana except one: don't screw up. Luckily, I was not the only person uncomfortable with the idea of making this turn again, which we didn't. Our Amor rep Davíd took us to the site by way of another route the rest of the week—a route which was longer but also new, to me, and quite picturesque in the way Tijuana can be, reminiscent of an old dusty town in Italy I might visit some day next decade.
The troubling left hand turn behind us, we took the dirt road into the neighborhood of El Refugio. Which is absolutely booming. Huge factories, one after another. Maquiladoras: factories in Mexico run by a company from another country which will export the product out of Mexico to the U.S. and beyond. We started to climb the dirt road first around and then up and behind a huge long metal-roofed plant run by a company called Watkins Wellness, which an internet search indicated was in the business of making hot tubs.
Past the hot tub factory and climbing through a network of dirt roads cut into a towering hillside replete with pockets of construction, it was like the early days terraforming the surface of Mars. Climbing, turning, twisting, dry dirt roads that were actually pretty smooth, scrubland all around us, not quite the desert, not quite Sonoran. We kicked up dust, the van wearing it like a sheen. But as we got up higher into the hillside the view turned panoramic, looking west, north, east, the city of Tijuana one big factory chugging along in the dusty sunlight. City to the north below us, a quarry underneath our feet. Earth moving machines, Caterpillars, bulldozers, backhoes, jackhammers, hulking water trucks. Houses being built all around us, not densely but here and there as far as you could see. Terraces, steps, plumes of dust, roads being dug out of the hills. Not mining in space but mining for space. The city must grow, it will go where it will, into the hills, carve out a new neighborhood. Groundbreaking, small crews at work on some of the nascent buildings, others project on hold without anyone around, abandoned, for now. Some of the houses you'd be happy to live in in America, others more basic, others only half-done with cinder block walls. No cookie-cutter houses here, not an America-style development but much more diverse, each lot according to its own budget, its own schedule...
Last day of February and a beauty. Warm and windy, blend me some of that balm.
He's taking a shower. Or getting a bath. Per Karin. She saw me coming and intercepted. Not just to tell me about the shower but to tell me that, "He's more confused than usual today." She wanted to let me know so I wasn't blindsided.
Many of the days he's been here he's been confused so this should be interesting. Not a surprise to hear, per a text from my mom, and another a couple of days before that.
I haven't seen him in six days. I went to Farm this week. Two nights and a whole lot of bliss. Last time I saw him I wrote nothing. This writing, I fear, has gotten redundant.
I hear him moaning...
Farm, 2.24.25
They wheel him in.
"They got me, John," he tells me in a high-pitched voice. "They're gonna put me down. I been up too much."
"You know where you are?" I ask him.
"Dammert."
"You lookin out the window," I ask him.
He nods.
"Birds," he says. Rubbing his index fingers together, hands clasped, lying in bed now. Karin and another nurse laid him down, with the Hoyer. I could see his red and purple bottom. The other nurse put some cream on him. I'm not sure what her name is. She's not new but newer. Hell of a nurse. Dresses nice sometimes. My dad seems content but he is looking past me, out into the beyond.
"Anything new?" I ask him. "Anything going on?"
But he doesn't answer; just taps his fingers together. Is it Morse Code? Tap tap tap, tap tap dash.
"You hungry?"
No answer. Then he says I already asked him that, which maybe I did.
Now I hear the hairdresser reaming out the nurse for giving someone a shower. The hairdresser is upset because she just did this lady's hair and her family is coming to see her. Cringe. Bless these nurses. They work on behalf of God. Who could ever fault them for keeping the residents clean? Who cares about what their hair looks like.
I turn on the TV. My dad says something about me watching the stock market channel but they don't have it here. A shame. I find PBS Create, for a cooking show, which is what I watched here one recent Saturday for three hours, my dad in bed the whole time. It's peaceful with the sound off. A beeping somewhere in the background on this hall, not insistent, a slow pulse.
I had him up in the solarium 2.14.25, the only time we've ever been up there.
I know he wants me to stop asking questions but I don't know how else to talk to him, and this is all of him I have left. I ask him if he remembers his career, what he used to do.
"I used to, I used to...." he says.
I ask him if he remembers using his phone. He used to use it a lot. He doesn't remember doing that. Printing articles, I tell him, sending them out to people through the postal service, sending out lots of emails. He claims he never really sent out much.
He watches the cooking show intently, left index finger to his lips, rubbing slowly back and forth.
"You know how long you been here, in Dammert?"
"A couple weeks, " I think.
Which might be correct, if dating back only to his trip to the hospital on February 2nd, Groundhog Day, my sister's birthday, a day I was headed to Farm when my mom texted to say he was in the hospital with an illness.
I ask him if he's been having any dreams or premonitions. It's not the first time I've asked him about dreams. I've been having some strange ones. Strong and vivid. Odd. One last night that didn't feel like mine. About a kid worried about his gambling debt. I thought about it and told this kid that he might not have to pay the debt because he was a minor and never should have been allowed to place the bet anyway. Unclean hands on the other side, laches; other party estopped from collecting. I don't know who this kid was. And, no, I don't think he was me. B mentioned crazy dreams the same morning I woke up after some doozies Monday night at Farm. After feeling like it had been a while since I remembered any dreams at all. Stopped writing them down. This is as close as I'll get.
Footprints of a dream
The TV transfixes him. I don't know what else to do. I'll go out and get my salad out of the car whenever his food arrives. Could be half an hour, easy.
I listed to voices from the hall. Evelyn's daughter. Or granddaughter, who knows. I only had one interaction with Evelyn. Her chair was at a chokepoint in the hall. I wanted to move her. Asked nicely then just tried to wheel her a few feet but she put her foot down, literally.
"No," she said, "I don't think so. I'll stay right here."
Another time she didn't want CNAs to take her out of the lunch room. I look back and my dad has fallen asleep, his left index finger still trying to stay awake, to stay up, still pointing.
Evelyn played basketball in college. My dad snaps back, left hand back up to his face. It's her granddaughter that's visiting her, pretty sure. How am I the age of so many grand-kids here?
Earlier I asked him how he felt, overall.
"I feel good," he said.
It might be Evelyn who'd had her hair done—yesterday!—and then got the shower today. A whole $28 down the drain. The shower my dad got seemed to have revived him, definitely worth $28 to me.
Evelyn still has some lucidity. She still talks. I mean, I'd take pure gibberish from my dad. I'd take nonsense, non sequitur, monolog. Anything not hateful, anything not ugly. He said something to the nurses when they wheeled him in after his shower but I couldn't hear it.
Before he started eating the almonds right away. Before the first coat of stucco, tar paper and chicken wire.
Down the hill they were jackhammering into the side of the hill/mountain to create the space for building a new church. They are another couple who will utilize the house we built. Currently they are living in a minivan.
Looking uphill from the new church site. That’s their minivan. And a baño they had delivered there. It is apparently easy to get one delivered. Jason called one in for us on the first day and it was on site in ninety minutes.
View southwest from Camp Looking west from the work site, El Refugio The house frame going up View from site House site, before photo It is Tuesday, day two of the construction. We ended early today. Pad is down, house frame is up, plywood roof is on. Chicken wire, roof shingle paper, and first coat … Continue reading Tijuana 2025
I had called the Shrine the day before to make sure there wouldn't be an issue with my visiting. The person I spoke with was lovely and gave me very detailed directions on how to get to the memory care facility.
As I was driving around the main building, I had this lightning bolt-type remembrance of visiting the exact same place when my grandpa was there. It was eerie. I rationally knew it wa =s the same place, but I guess that memory was buried pretty deep. The last time I saw him, he didn't remember who I was. He thought my mom was his wife. It was all so sad. I guess I had repressed it.
After I was buzzed into the building, the woman at the front desk said that your dad was in B1, and as I turned to go down the hallway, your mom had just entered at the other end. When she saw me, she stopped-short, like she had seen a ghost. She recognized me immediately and was so happy. She said 'Ray, is that you? What are you doing here?' The best way I can describe her reaction was that she was both dumbfounded, with a look of both disbelief and happiness on her face. She was getting ready to leave, but offered to take me back to see your dad.
We went into the room and your dad was watching CNBC (or one of those channels. It was the one with the guy who rolls up his sleeves and gives financial advice. Jim Cramer?) on the TV. Your mom went to his side and said 'Brian, you have a visitor'. Your dad looked at me and I said 'Carpe Diem, Mr. Randall. It's Ray.' He looked at me and said 'Ray'.
Your mom then asked if he had just said something and I told her that he said my name. It was then that she told me about his recent issues with swallowing and speaking and how she had to call for hospice care. That he had only started verbally communicating again that day. He looked at your mom and said 'who called hospice?' She said she had. He then continued to watch TV.
Your mom stayed for about 10 more minutes and we chatted. She relayed how hard it has been for her. How she visits most days. She started crying as she told me this and then reiterated how happy she was that I was visiting. She said I could pop by the house any time I wanted. If she wasn't there, she was probably visiting your dad. I told her that I had started writing a letter to her, but I couldn't find the words. We had a long hug and I told her that I was happy to have run into her. I let her know that she could leave and I would stay with your dad for a while.
After your mom left, I pulled up a chair and sat next to your dad. He was watching TV and would occasionally look over at me. There wasn't much that would lead me to think he recognized me. I asked if he still followed the market and he said 'everyday'. I asked if he still followed any other news but he didn't respond...
The other thing that my dad said that surprised me because of the cognizance it showed was his identifying an old towel I had grabbed from out of the car in order to wipe down the chair I wanted to sit in.
"Looks like one of our old towels," he said.
It took me a moment to process what he had said but he was correct. It's an old Ralph Lauren beige hand towel from what is now his old house, Rockingham. The towel is about a third of the size of a bath owl, much larger than a square washcloth. Something like a foot by two feet.
That towel must be thirty years old, which is part of why I like them so much. They're useful. Wiping, drying, cleaning up, covering up. They can serve as your only towel if you happen to— Sneeeeeze!!! My dad rips off one of his patented loud sneezes and the pen jolts in my hand, skittering across the page. My dad is still one of the loudest sneezers around.
"Have any memorable meals lately?" I ask him.
"Fish with tartar sauce, two tartars," he tells me.
"Last night?"
"That could have been."
He's sharper today, no doubt. Down the road I could see myself working here. I'd volunteer or maybe take a part-time job. If they wanted another groundskeeper on staff who would also work as a porter, transporting Dammert residents to lunch and back. I'd fill in this pock-marked concrete. Do some hedge trimming. Sweeping...
It started early in the morning, when the whip-poor-wills whistled for love and strawberries shed their tiny hairs.
It was the time of year when mud daubers went in search of soft dirt and cucumbers unfurled their curious vines.
Frogs sprang with song from the creek and cows looked past fence lines for any sign of their kidnapped calves.
The bull was ripping grass from dewy ground while trees sorted wind with their leaves and the skin of a red onion floated like a petal to the patio.
Wherever possible, weeds filled cracks with stubborn roots and buntings spiced sunlight with their riddles.
A jet thronged with speed in the heavens and a phoebe sung its name like a jingle while farmers began rounds in unlicensed trucks.
News trickled like a leak from the speaker while a skunk settled into its hole behind the house and kitschy windmills erupted with each gust.
As fresh clouds unrolled their thick gray tarp a cowbird squeaked like quartz in a vise and Mr Coffee gurgled like a gremlin.
A hawk screamed its mind from the sky and a column of ants swarmed a beatle like photons. The forecast called for a storm or two and the mousetrap offered cheese with a catch.
Ticks waited for flesh to pass through the brush and vultures sat like statues on the dormers while lizards crawled like children over rocks.
Tall grass blushed at the stroke of an unseen hand and the cardinal sang, “It’s weird, it’s weird, it’s weird.” As rain began to fall on the fields, grasshoppers hushed their summer ceremony and a fly skittered across this page.
The cuckoo knocked its dull chime from a hidden branch and yarrow held tight in clusters of white and yellow while a spider sped between drops on its octagon of legs.
Mullein welcomed the rain into its fat rosette of velvety leaves and thunder arrived like something heavy falling down a hillside.
Raindrops hit the windows, washing them of their dust and lightning lit up the darkened land like an x-ray as the ghosts of prospects past plumbed the valley for veins of sunken zinc.
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