KEYS TO WATERVILLE
"Being together in silent snowfall, with the quiet hush of skis on the icy tracks, was a specific kind of soul language only we understood."
I always said my dad and I could be stranded on a desert island, not speak for three months, and still have the most perfect time together. We understood each other—both of us quiet, sensitive, somewhat introverted, lovers of good books and long breakfasts and great hikes. We felt the same emotions about the same things. Through him I learned to love classical music and foreign languages, the mountains and the woods. When we talked about reincarnation and what we’d want to come back as, I told him I wanted him to always be my dad.
He was an orthopedic surgeon. He’d grown up in Bronxville, New York, but went to med school in Bologna, Italy, and those five years abroad, to use his phrase, opened him up. He learned to speak perfect Italian, to drink good wine with dinner, to appreciate different cultures. And—so meaningful—he learned to ski. It grew into a lifelong passion.
Where we lived in New Hampshire, the ski resort of Waterville Valley was the closest thing we had to the Dolomites, so he and my mother bought a condo there, and we went up every winter weekend. My father and I especially loved to go for day-long hikes and cross-country ski treks. The Valley was home to countless trails leading over small rushing rivers, winding between rolling mountains. Being together in silent snowfall, with the quiet hush of skis on the icy tracks, was a specific kind of soul language only we understood.
We’d thought longevity was his destiny—his mother had lived to be 98—and indeed as he approached 80 he had the athleticism of a healthy 55-year-old. He’d been captain of the swim team at Fordham and he still swam every day, went for 10-mile bike rides, meditated. So we were totally unprepared for the diagnosis of Stage IV pancreatic cancer. As long as I could remember, I had feared my father’s death, and now here it was, the end of him and the end of our era together on earth.
He lived nine months. They were filled with dreadful firsts and lasts. The first time he experienced paralysis. The last time we rode bikes. The first time he needed a wheelchair. The last time he breathed easily on his own. We did a lot of reminiscing, much of it about Waterville. The hot chocolate and soup at the pop-up lunch chalet on the trail near the golf course. The way Mount Tecumseh changed depending on the light. Stern, unsmiling Margaret Rey, co-author of the Curious George books, who, after I went off to college, bought our condo. Her plans to paint the whole thing a semi-gloss light blue still made us laugh.
On one of his final days, a special screwdriver was needed to fix the oxygen machine. I found it in a tool chest, and also something else—35 years old, long-forgotten, a bit rusted: the keys to our beloved alpine escape. In a flash, so many memories rushed in. The smell of autumn leaves, Friday night spaghetti, reading the paper on Sunday mornings while watching the snow fall, the click of ski boots in bindings, his cherry-red Descente ski jacket, the sweat on his forehead after a long trek, the fog on his glasses. I was holding the keys to the place where we’d all been so happy. Keys my father was likely the last person to have touched.
I didn’t say a word, just slipped them into my pocket and took them home. I keep them on my desk now, and reach for them sometimes when I miss him. They take me to the place that comes to mind whenever I’m asked to describe myself—when, instead of summoning adjectives, I picture a crystalline winter forest, sunlight spilling through snow-covered branches, the peaceful presence of my father nearby, our souls together as they were meant to be.
—Jennifer Smits-Kilgus
Jennifer Smits-Kilgus lives in The Netherlands, where she’s a senior lecturer in public policy at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. She is currently working on a collection of essays about Washington, DC.
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What a lovely story of a wonderful relationship.
You were both so fortunate to have had such a deep and healthy connection. May his memory be a blessing!