The show is set in Albuquerque, NM, a beautiful place on the cusp of the Southwest. I once stayed the night in a church there while driving back home from a mission trip, and though I was impressed by the desert light, I hadn't thought much more of it since. Like Amarillo, Albuquerque was the sort of place you drive through, maybe stay the night. It didn't mean much to me. But also like Amarillo, which has become an important part of my narrative, Albuquerque has taken on a huge, maybe even mythological, significance to me. Every time I watch Breaking Bad, I think about life and death and my dad.
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I told my dad we were moving to Amarillo in March 2012, and when I gave him the news over the phone, he was absolutely silent for ten full seconds. When he finally spoke, his tone was unusual for him, brisk, to-the-point: "Kristi, the weather is awful there. It's dangerous." There were a lot of tornadoes, he said. And he had driven through there once or twice, but he'd never seen anything interesting. This wasn't a good idea. And to be honest, I wasn't so sure it was, either - we were moving even further from home - a full ten-hour trip by car - and I wasn't sure how often we might get home to see our families.
A couple of weeks after I told him, my dad seemed to come to terms with our move to Amarillo. Perhaps its because he realized Casey was taking a great job that would provide for his family, or maybe it was because he thought that this adventure was something he had never done (move away from home and start a new life for himself). But I think the real reason is that my stepmother found out that she was attending a conference in Albuquerque in July, and Albuquerque was only four hours away from Amarillo. We could arrange a visit! The idea of this trip gave us both a sense of optimism, the thought that maybe we would still see each other regularly, despite the distance.
In all honesty, over the next few months, I expected dad to say to me, "Kristi, something's come up, and I won't be able to make it to Albuquerque this summer." He hated traveling, after all, and our part of the trip would be very short, just an overnight stay. He would spend the rest of the week waiting each day for Lisa to finish at her conference. But dad called me shortly after I relocated in June and told me that he had made plane reservations for him and Lisa - the trip was on! I couldn't believe it. We made a reservation at their hotel, booking a suite that would give Marshall a separate space from us so we could stay up late and watch a movie! Oh, the feeling of things to look forward to!
Ok, wait. Let's stop right here. Let me jump ahead and say that this trip to Albuquerque was the last time I saw my dad as I want to remember him. He wasn't in a hospital bed, connected to a constant stream of intravenous pain medication. He wasn't unconscious or incoherent. He could eat and drink and walk and do all the things he had ever been able to do. In fact, he looked better than he had in years, having lost some weight through a very intentional diet. And he was so happy to see us, so happy to be in that moment with me and my family. Three months later, he would be diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer that had spread throughout his abdominal cavity, preventing him from eating or drinking anything. He would be dead just a few weeks after that.
I've taken this trip apart so many times, analyzed it, looked for clues that would have warned us of what was to come. But I've also taken the memories from the trip, shined them up, and placed them on a shelf in my brain that is labeled: "Very Important - RE: Dad." I've thought about it all so many times that I've made meaning from events that don't really matter. The details of my experience are so fully formed that I feel as if I could just turn around and walk into them, visit with my dad and my 18-month-old son, who now barely remembers him. The fact is, all of this makes writing this blog very difficult. What's really important? What is the overarching point I want to get across? Is it that the universe gave me this moment with my dad, a final chance to see him as he was - happy and funny and devoted? I don't know. Maybe. What I do know is that there are several things that I want to remember about this trip, and I want to write it down here and share it with all of you.
Memories of Albuquerque
1. When Casey, Marshall, and I arrived at my dad's hotel room, my dad gave Marshall a Finn McMissile toy that drove independently after you shook it. Marshall spent the next hour shaking it onto the bed and watching it roll across the hotel comforter. "Finn McMissile, British Intelligence," it would say as it plummeted over the edge. Meanwhile, my dad sat on his laptop computer, looking up information about Albuquerque. He always had a particular look to him when he worked on the computer, a slightly arched back, a hunt-and-peck style of typing that always made me smile.
2. Lisa was getting out of her conference later than expected that day, so my little family took dad to lunch, the first time we had eaten out alone with him (without extended family) in years. We ate at Chili's, and the whole restaurant - the floor, the table, the drinks - had that greasy Chili's quality, as if a toddler who's just eaten a grilled cheese sandwich has wiped his hands all over everything.
3. After lunch, Lisa and a work colleague joined us for some touristy stuff around Albuquerque. Our original plans to visit the zoo had been thwarted by the extreme heat, so we went to the aquarium instead. It was crowded in there and dark, and Marshall was wandering like a lunatic from tank to tank. I barely saw dad at all. When we all came out at the gift shop, dad bought Marshall a little orange shirt with a shark on it that said "Albuquerque Biopark."
We decided then to visit a natural history museum. We rented a stroller there and pushed Marshall through the exhibits about landforms and dinosaurs. At one point, we passed a life-size replica of a brachiosaurus femur, which towered over me and left me with an indescribable sense of dread. When dad noticed my look of anxiety, he said to Casey, "Kristi doesn't like out-of-scale things." And it was such an accurate description of all my weird issues that my mouth dropped open. I also remember feeling astonished that he knew this about me, which is ridiculous because he is my father.
4. For dinner that night, dad had made reservations at a Tapas restaurant/bar. This choice cracked me up, as dad isn't exactly a hip foodie, but he had eaten at a Tapas place in Chicago when he visited my stepsister, and I think it was one of the greatest moments of his life. When we got to the restaurant, it definitely felt like more of a bar than restaurant - there were quite a few youngsters drinking fancy wine and sampling various southwestern fare. But the meal was fun - and it was free! - so I really enjoyed it. There was some sort of street fair going on outside the restaurant, and dad suggested that we walk around. But Marshall had already stayed up a little later than I'd wanted, so I said we should be getting back to the hotel. If I could change one thing about that trip, I would go back to that restaurant, lean against my dad, and say, "Let's go!"
5. The next day, Lisa had to go back to her conference, so Dad, Casey, and I drove out to Sandia Peak, the mountain in Albuquerque that has a tram ride to the top. I am horribly afraid of heights, but I talked myself into the experience, which was one of the most traumatizing moments of my life. The tiny car is suspended above a horrific ravine with only a single cable preventing you from plummeting to your death. And the death mobile kept swaying in the breeze and stuff, which made things exponentially worse. My dad, an airplane mechanic, was also freaking me out by saying things like, "I don't know that I would have chosen this type of cable to support this weight," and, "When was the last thing that this thing received routine maintenance?" I was on the verge of hyperventalating the entire trip up, though my precious angel baby Marshall simply sat on the floor of the tram, gripping a Wheelie toy in each hand.
But our experience at the top was totally worth the trauma - amazing views and this quiet, cool forest that you could hike through. We decided to walk a way into it before heading back to the bottom of the mountain, and the very feel of the place, what my dad called "primordial energy," really resonated with him. We took a bunch of family pictures at the top, along the cliff and in the woods, and they are the absolute last pictures I have of my father, the only pictures I have of him with my entire little family. After a slightly less worrisome ride to the bottom, we all went our separate ways. Dad hopped into his rental car. We jumped in our VW. Marshall fell asleep in the car - a rare thing. I wish I could turn the car around now, find my dad, and hug him and hug him and hug him.
Ah, I really can't write any more about this now. This is so long, and there is nothing else to say. I miss my dad, and we had a trip to Albuquerque together. I think of it every day with wonder, grateful that it happened. I think of it when I watch Breaking Bad as Walter White and Jessie Pinkman drive into the desert to be threatened by hardened drug dealers. It's funny - one of my dad's favorite shows, one that he talked about a lot , was Malcolm in the Middle, and the dad from that sitcom is the same actor who plays Walter White. It has made the show's connection to dad even stronger for me. During each episode, I think to myself, "Dad would like this show." But would he really? Or is it the magical light of Albuquerque shining over everything and transforming it into beauty?
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| My family in Albuquerque, NM. |
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