American Bed

My dad’s life is simultaneously representative of the iconic American journey and a life of unusual stories. When I think of the stories he tells that stick with me, I think of the ones where he was sleeping somewhere unconventional. From his youth sleeping on a cot on the screened-in porch during the Wyoming summers (there wasn't room anywhere else in the tiny Wyoming homestead) to his feather-soft queen sized bed in Moses Lake on which he sleeps next to my stepmother these days (his back pains him after years of wrestling and flying, and two consequent surgeries), where my dad has spent his nights highlights the path his life has taken. 

The cryptic reference to the hotel bathtub he used as a bed in Hong Kong from his navy bachelor days represents a time in his life that remains largely hidden from me. The night my mom died, his bed was empty. He had rushed her to the hospital, and that’s where she died. That night, he didn’t sleep at all. And the next time he did get to sleep, she wasn’t there. Tonight he is about to go to sleep on my air mattress in my guest bedroom in Phoenix, Arizona. He and my stepmom are visiting me, and we’ve had a lot of time to just talk because I’m currently getting my Master’s degree and it’s finals week, so I can’t go out and do anything interesting with them.

It seems to me like where and how you sleep can say a lot about what you’ve been doing during the day. That’s why I think it’s interesting to imagine all the nights my dad has had in his life. Everyone shares the night, but my dad’s nights symbolize the stories that make up one unique American story—one of many American stories that make up this American life.