Leonard

On Christmas eve, David, Maddie and I visited my father-in-law, Paul, at the house he shares with other seniors. We brought a few gifts with us for the residents that David has become particularly friendly with. We stopped at the drug store on the way and picked up a last-minute gift of a tin of cookies for Leonard.

I'd met Leonard very briefly on another occasion, but never had a chance to speak with him. We think he suffers from depression; my father-in-law has said that his meds make him zombie-like. Paul and Leonard were the only residents home that evening. We gave Leonard the cookies and he seemed happy to receive them. He offered cookies all around.

The house managers were getting ready to go out in a while, and had brought a meal of Burger King Whoppers for the two men. By the time Paul made it to the kitchen, the bowl of french fries that was sitting in the middle of the table to be shared had gone limp and cold. Leonard sat across from Paul, his large burger disappearing bite by bite. I sat at the head of the otherwise empty table, Madeleine beside me at the corner. David was off printing some pictures for Paul's new photo album.

Paul now carts around an oxygen tank and tubes which snake from his nose. Leonard is a tall man, a bit beefy, with a head of thick white/gray hair which curves over his crown in waterfall-like swoops. He moved slowly, his sizable frame seeming at once capable and deflated. The two men ate their Christmas eve dinner amid crinkling fast food wrap and vinyl place mats. (Next year we will cook an entire meal for them; we had envisioned a meaty centerpiece surrounded by tasty trimmings and senior citizens.) Leonard and I started to talk.

He began tentatively. For decades he worked for the railroad in Chicago. After his retirement in 1996 he and his wife moved to Phoenix where she died three years later after a second bout of breast cancer. He moved back to Chicago. He has children, both step and biological, and to my delight (and the surprise of Paul), Leonard brought out some photo albums and I moved to the chair next to him. I got to see his daughter and son, his grandchildren, the mass of people celebrating with him the new chapter of his life at his retirement party. As a young man, Leonard looked to have a Dean Martin-like quality - dark with a considerable presence. His photos showed a smiling man, grouped with friends, kissing grandchildren, an arm around his beautiful wife. As an old man, what I saw was a sad quality, a man for whom the thrill had gone; the skin on his face was peeling, his movements were almost unsure, old.

The weekend manager had breezed in and given wrapped boxes to the men. Leonard took his to his room by the front door. The rooms are small; they are not apartments, but bedrooms. Leonard's had a neatly made twin bed, a dresser filled with toiletries, a large TV and an easy chair. As I waited for David I watched Leonard bent over his easy chair, taking the wrap off his gift, opening the box. It was socks, handkerchiefs, impersonal stuff for an old man.

"I don't know where I'm going to put all this stuff," he said.

I shrugged. I thought about the Christmases he must have sprung awake, run to the tree and ripped open sparkly wrap, tore toys out of their boxes, laughed with glee. I thought about the gifts he must have shopped for, given to his wife, his kids, watching as they delighted in what he had given them. I watched an old, unhurried man wonder what he was going to do with his socks and handkerchiefs.