Apple cider

Scent. The most powerful of the five senses. The sense that transforms reality. The faintest smell of a perfume makes the world melt away as you reexperience your first kiss. The aroma of freshly cut lawn brings back the carefree summers before the burdens of adulthood. A whiff of apple cider strikes a devastating blow straight to your heart.

Three things that I remembered about my father – he had long fingers, he had tiny ears, and he loved apple cider. Have you ever tried peeling an egg with one hand without putting it down? My father would dream up of the most ridiculous games when you least expected it. In all these ridiculous games, he never went easy on me. He won the egg game because of his long fingers. But he would also invent games that he knew I would win. Have you ever tried taking pistachio nuts out of their shells without breaking them, then seeing how many empty shells you could fit on your ears? My father had very small ears with virtually no ear lobes. As mightily as he tried, each ear would run out of real estate by the fourth shell. I loved the pistachio game.

Every Sunday, we embarked on crazy adventures.

“We are going to the zoo today,” my father announced.

“Are you crazy? It’s freezing!”

“Dress warmly then.”

As the only two people in all of New York insane enough to go to the zoo in zero-degree weather, we had the zoo to ourselves. Running wildly through the zoo, we sang at the top of our lungs:

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong

Under the shade of a Coolibah tree

And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled

You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me

My fingers throbbed with pain in the bitter wind. My toes ached as the frigid cold seeped into my boots. Amidst the chilling cold, my father handed me a cup of hot apple cider. I held it in my hands, breathing in the steam. It warmed my heart.

September 1, 1939. The normally bustling streets of New York were eerily empty as people were glued to their radios getting updates on Germany’s invasion of Poland. The invasion was a harbinger of an era filled with tearful farewells and broken promises to return.

As the train pulled into the station, I held my father tightly, clinging to our final moments together.

“Don’t worry, Bea. I will be back before you know it,” my father promised as he boarded the train that would take him away for six years.

August 6, 1945. The world witnessed the first child of the Manhattan project annihilating the city of Hiroshima. Three days later, the second child of the Manhattan project did the same to the city of Nagasaki. On August 15th, the years of devastation have finally come to an end. Like many others that day, I waited for my father’s return at the train station with a profound sense of hope for a new era of peace.

In physics, a time warp describes a hypothetical phenomenon that disrupts the flow of time by making it faster or slower. Surrounded by joyful reunions of strangers, I was trapped in my personal purgatory waiting for what seemed like an eternity. I made up bets with myself in my mind. If the next person who walked through the door had a hat on, I would see my father in the next ten minutes. If the next suitcase I saw was red, I would see my father in the next half an hour. I won many futile bets. My father was nowhere to be found.

In a singular moment, the wait was over. Amidst the sea of faces, I saw a solitary figure standing at the edge of the platform. The rest of the world blurred into insignificance. I screamed with unbridled joy as I ran to my father and held him tightly. My father stood motionless. That was when I realized that my father failed to keep his promise to return to us.

Everyday, my father sat in his chair, trapped in his own thoughts. I sat by his side, hoping to help him find reprieve from the demons in his mind.

In barely a whisper, my father asked: “Can you forgive me? Why are you not angry with me?”

I held his face and looked into his eyes. “I don’t know what happened but I will always forgive you. I have waited six years for you. I cannot afford to waste any time being angry with you. Please forgive yourself. Please come back to us.”

In Greek mythology, as a punishment for cheating Death, Sisyphus was forced to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. Every time he neared the top, the boulder rolled back down. There were moments when sparks of my father’s old self emerged. He did not know that I was watching him when he was dancing the waltz with a photograph of my late mother, asking her: “Tell me three wonderful things about yourself.” He was light on his toes and I remembered thinking that the question might just be the most beautiful one ever asked.

However, like Sisyphus’s boulder, the all-enveloping depression would soon overwhelm him again. It was only a few days that the beautiful question was followed by a letter that might just be the most devastating one ever written: “Dear Bea, please know that I love you with all my heart. But I can’t go on anymore. I am tired. I am so very tired…” I could not finish reading the letter. I was not ready to say goodbye.

The early 1950s was the Golden Age era in America. America led the world in taking actions such as the establishment of the United Nations and the Marshall Plan to avoid another world war. The geopolitical conflict with the USSR was only a smoldering ember that had yet to become a furious blaze. It was during the Golden Age when I met Joseph, a man with long fingers and surprisingly tiny ears, and welcomed our daughter, Catherine.

Jubilant screams and colorful balloons filled the crisp late Autumn air. I took Catherine to her best friend’s birthday party. I sat with the parents as Catherine scampered around with the other children. “Have some hot apple cider,” said one of the moms as she passed me a cup. I held it in my hands, breathing in the steam.

Suddenly, I was back at the zoo on a freezing winter day. My father and I singing Waltzing Matilda at the top of our lungs. With an abrupt clarity, the realization that the only other person who shared this memory was gone forever screamed inside my head.

Scent. The sense that transforms reality, like the devastation of a whiff of apple cider.