Then Again - Diane Keaton [69]
5. A note on a torn piece of paper: “Diane, Andy, me, and Don went to a restaurant in Mondello. I will call you with the name of the joint. Sit tight be right. Don’t fight. Love Al, Your friend.”
6. January 29, 1992, handwritten: “Dear Di. I heard that Anna Strasberg talked to you on the phone and may have mentioned something about my sending regards or some such amenity. Never did I do that. I would never use such a coy approach to trying to communicate with you. It’s unbearable to think that you would get that impression. I need no go between if I want to contact you. I apologize for having put you through this note. L. Al Pacino.”
7. August 19, 1995, on Chal stationery, typed: “Dear Di, Thank you for your very beautiful note about Lucky. Your warm words, thoughts, and deep understanding of my relationship with Lucky made me feel not alone. Thank you. Meanwhile, I heard about your mother and the news was upsetting to me. I send to you my thoughts and hopes for her recovery. I know it’s very difficult. It’s seriously a hard life, and that’s all there is to it. I feel now, of course, helpless to do anything for you except to let you know that I have some understanding for what you’re going through. Once again, thank you for your note. It helped me. My thoughts are with you, and I think about you often. Love, Al.”
A Portrait
At the end of November, Dad’s remains sat on the bookshelf of our Tubac, Arizona, home. Dorrie and Mom were waiting. I was flying in from Dallas to join them. Early that morning, Dorrie woke to the sound of a thud. She opened the sliding glass door to find a mourning dove lying in a pool of blood.
I arrived in time to help finish making Dad’s cross. We three women walked to the top of the little incline overlooking the valley below the Santa Rita mountain range. We hammered the handmade wooden cross into the ground. We thumbtacked a photograph of Dad above his name, date of birth, and date of death. We stuck a couple of hundred-dollar bills underneath the rocks. We figured he’d want a little cash on his trip. We placed the mourning dove alongside Dad so he’d have a traveling companion. We weren’t sure of their destination, but we felt better knowing he wouldn’t be alone.
1990 was the year I lost my father. It was also the year I lost Al. In a way, Dad’s dying was a preparation for Al’s goodbye. During Dad’s five short months living with brain cancer, I learned that love, all love, is a job, a great job, the best job. I learned that love is much more than a fantasy of romance. It turned out losing Al was predictable, but losing Dad was not. Losing Dad would change me in ways I never could have guessed.
One day I took a photograph of Dad looking unflinchingly into the face of death. He was pretty much flying on his own, soaring over California, checking out the lay of the land just before he was about to make his last flight. Some people say photographs lie. My father’s eyes gazing out of prolonged suffering is the truth to me. I’m aware that it might seem peculiar to focus on a portrait of dying Dad rather than young Dad or dynamic Dad. Yet I can’t pass it without reflecting on the way he left. Stripped of reason, hallucinating dogs doing backflips in his bedroom, Dad was on a wild ride. His face in his sixty-eighth year makes me hope I can engage in life the same way he engaged death. Straightforward, unembellished, and uncluttered.
“I know I can’t take this world with me. I don’t even know where I am half the time, but I’ll tell you, Diane, I feel better. You never realize how