The New Jersey Pinelands skirt and go in and out of the fifty-something municipalities in which it resides, including the one in which I reside. The Pinelands National Reserve, as it is properly called, is a corrupted place. While it is a reserve, so much of it is not preserved in the state in which it is found by those who visit its wooded lands and the ghosts of smelting, forging, and logging villages that are now all but a memory or the set-aside corner of a state park.
So much of the Pinelands’ pine, oak, and cedar forests are no longer pristine. They instead have become what I call Suburban Woods, where the unnatural decay of suburban life conflicts with the natural decay and regeneration found in the woods that are asking to be left alone, if you don’t mind.
These woods are indeed a national treasure, as that is what the proprietors of this place call them. Yet, for too much of what lies within them, the forests and the streams that meander through them are not like the truly barren and remote areas of other states. Elsewhere—in the Adirondacks, for example—my son has learned to respect what was there before so many of us had shown up and disturbed the rest quietly enjoyed by tracts of land such as these. Here, my son is disturbed by what he sees on Pinelands trails near the neighborhood where he had done much of his growing up.
The suburban woods are not like unadulterated forests that my son has explored during summer camps, in another state, with chiefs and fellow campers. These local woods go down to the man-made lake and are subsumed by the waters imposed upon them. They have in them the evidence of kids getting away from their parents and getting away with drinking and making a mess. These woods are littered with the shotgun shells of hunters hunting and with the last of construction debris tucked away among the cedars, so that highway travelers are not affected by the eyesore (even though the hikers are).
These suburban woods have trails through them, but seldom far enough from nearby homes to not see those homes. These woods are in such close proximity to the highways that in them is heard the roar of tractor trailers and the loud humming of tires beneath the commuters eager to get back to their nests, some hour’s drive from the urban northland.
These woods are quite adulterated. They are full of the tracks of off-road bikes, ATVs, and SUVs, which may explain the lack of any other kind of tracks, save for the dogs that walk through the woods with their owners. They have in them the remains of the work of developers who have opened up a swath of land for a new street and new homes, only to abandon the project once they had gone bankrupt, without the funds to give the land back to the earth, if that were possible.
These are the woods that ask for some sort of recompense, but do not demand it from passersby or from those who have not maintained a demarcation between their own world and that of the oxymoronically named Pine Barrens where I live and where I tread. They do not demand, for their credo is one of Live and let live, in response to those who soil their soil with the stains of another world.
These tracts of sugar sand and moss, pygmy pines and pitcher plant, red fox and red-tailed hawk intrigue but a few who would take them for what they are. For those who have heard the wild calling them, these patches of land have become an irritant to their souls, rather than a retreat for the soul disquieted. What might have been a peaceful sanctuary has instead become a place where the teen party-ground sits as undisturbed as the pitch pines that shade the abandoned beer bottles and spent campfires. Yet the pines are disturbed, nonetheless, for I have seen the indigenous pines, cedar, and sassafras struggle to compete for sunshine with the many introduced bits of discarded civilization that have invaded the territory of the natural.
Further in, though, beyond the suburban woods is a deeper, cleaner place. Here, in The Deep, one comprehends what is not known in that earlier space where the wild is comingled with the tame. Here, one discovers that the suburban woods, as contaminated as they are, offer a layer of wooded insulation between suburban life and this new place, further in—where sanctuary is findable, reachable, and habitable.
The sanctuary gives the soul a momentary and needful respite, a chance to leave some things behind, or else bring them here to leave them here, in a peaceful place where they can, of themselves, slough off naturally. There, in the every-day physical world that you have left in the care of others is the rat-race, the world of schedules and deadlines, commitments and follow-through, and conflicts outnumbering resolutions.
Yet, here, where the soul can quiet itself, is a refuge where wooded peace supplants the anxieties that permeate the left-behind world, and one learns that the journey to this safe harbor is worth the trip, even if the trip must be undertaken through the zone where the natural and the unnatural cohabitate. Here is where one can be fully immersed and fully wild, as wild as the barrens themselves.
In this deep, you know how to return to the world that you typically inhabit. You know this because the world you left is right over that hill over there, or just through that path over there—the path or hill that brought you to your wooded refuge, after crossing through the intermingled region that had earlier disturbed you.
You know how to return and you know that, in your private sanctuary (or, so you think it’s private), you have the choice to go back to that civilized place—for you can clearly see the way back, though it clearly feels better here, in the deep. Or, at least this has been my experience in these Pineland woods, where life is refreshing and tolerable.
What is not refreshing, and frankly unnerving, is what lies even further in, beyond the safe zone, where landmarks no longer show the way out. Here, in the place that is Too Deep, once you have lost sight of the way out, your choices are limited, because, for all you know, you may be here for days in this place of inner darkness, where you are doubly insulated from where you had been.
Once you lose your way back home, you can no longer just exercise your choice to return home. You are now unmoored, without an anchor, and set adrift in the sea of your own forgetfulness, no longer sure of where you have been or where you are going, because suddenly everything is alternately familiar and unfamiliar.
Between you and home is the place where you had enjoyed solace and peace, away from the stressors of everyday life. There is also that place, passed through on the way in, which had marked the edge of surburbia, where you had first entered in and noticed that your world had intruded upon this world that you had hoped would be left alone—as you now are: alone. You are disoriented and suddenly no longer tied to civilized life. The peace you had known, just a short while earlier, has been robbed from you; you are no longer at peace, but are frightened for your life.
Beyond the area of safety, the anxiety that you had thought you left behind, in the restful place you had left behind, returns. It returns with a vengeance.
You find that what was once a wanted and even needful place of rest has instead become a place of terror, where the horror of the situation must be pushed aside long enough for you to attempt to once again find your bearings, if at all possible, so you can get yourself out. And you hope and pray that it is possible, because you quickly realize that the Pinelands are a nice place to visit, but you’d really rather not spend the night, if you could help it.
When you go too deep, you find that the Pinelands are like any other wooded area. You see that this place is polluted at the edges, and inviting further in, but still further in is the place where, if one isn’t prepared, one’s life may be on the line.
This is what my step-son learned, not long ago, when venturing off of the main path and then the secondary path, to find that there was no third-tier path he could follow, to find his way back to his bicycle. What he (and his mother and I) had thought would be for him just a bike ride to the state park aptly named Double Trouble turned out to be a seven-hour adventure.
This was a time that was supposed to have been spent by him reading a book in a park and returning home; instead, it was an afternoon of police in their SUVs blasting their sirens until he could follow the sound back toward the main path and out of the thicket, beyond the stream that he had fallen into. We later learned that, after losing his orientation entirely, he passed the same tree stands over and over, as everything began to look, as he said, familiar, but not familiar enough to lead him to the way he came in.
This is also what had happened to me, also not long ago, when my son had said he was in some nearby woods, and I found his bike as evidence of that intention, but couldn’t find my son. He knows what he’s doing in the woods, Pinelands or not, but he wasn’t where I had thought I might find him. I followed a path, along where he might have been, and found some high ground to yell for him. And yell I did, yet with no answer; the woods were silent.
Then, I noticed that the sun was creating longer shadows and daylight was getting scarce. The woods were no longer quiet. Or so I thought. What sounded like a growl was possibly getting closer yet not visible enough to identify itself, nor did I want to see whatever it was. I was now no longer concerned just for my son’s safety, but also for my own, quickly remembering how I got to that point in the woods and glad that I knew the way out.
My son was later found and returned home safely, like his step-brother before him. As it turned out, my son was in another part of the woods, and returned comfortable, calm, and cool. But I had another experience. By proxy, I had felt that possibly my son, as experienced as he was, had met his match. I had also thought that I was on the edge of that same experience, myself.
The situation reminded me of a classmate who had drowned in the ocean after her daughter had gone out too far beyond the breakers. I had wondered, perhaps unjustifiably, if this circumstance would have become like hers—if my son or I had proceeded further in, beyond the point of no return and into the heart of the darkness before me.
In the heart of the Pine Barrens, as with any other densely forested area, I know that beyond the place where the soul is comforted lies a place that can rock the spirit of the man who enters therein. As I was in the woods I am also with myself. I battle the inner darkness within me that lies beneath my inner comfort zone. I wonder about that place, thinking there is a Kurtz in there, waiting for me, beckoning me to submit to him.
As cynics go, my father was a model citizen. He never missed an opportunity where he could say something like “They’re all crooks,” or “they’re just in it for the money.” Nothing at all could restore his faith in humanity. He was a constant believer in man’s inhumanity to man.
I remember him as a jaded pessimist, yet there was a time, before I had reached adulthood, when my mother’s family and friends could tolerate him and he wasn’t quite so crotchety. He wasn’t the life of the party, but he could at least attend the party and appeared to want to attend, anyway.
That’s how it was with his kids, as he recorded some of the fun times in our lives on 8mm film; although, after a while, he seemed to not want to add much fun, either in person or on film, but instead just review the documentary evidence. With the adult friends of my parents, it was another matter, as vague, overheard objections seemed to either cloud those friendships or end them altogether.
When my mom passed away, Dad may have been in the early stages of Alzheimer’s—or, he had gotten to some other point. His pessimism was functioning as a computer’s operating system handles a PC: he appeared to be hard-wired to operate that way. He did later develop Alzheimer’s, without a doubt, but whether he had it at my mom’s deathbed, or to what degree, is unknowable. With her dying, and his life appearing out of control, he drew an assortment of incoherent conclusions, as he separated himself from reality.
Mom was dying of a gastric abscess, with breast cancer somewhere in the mix, also. During that time, Dad seemed to have everything to complain about, believing that no one was living up to their obligations. His regular intake of alcohol wasn’t helpful, either.
Mom’s hospice care was set up; they didn’t come often enough, he said. Mom was dying of an ulcer that was found too late, but he insisted that the oncologist come to the house; she, of course, did not. My ex-wife (my wife, at the time) reinforced what the hospital’s internist said: Mom had just a few days left. “What do you know?” was his response; “You’re just a nurse.”
My mom wasn’t helping, either. As she lay dying, she isolated my father even further. After she soiled herself, one night, my wife—with years of her own hospice experience—cleaned her up, making her feel more comfortable than my father had. Mom denigrated him one final time, telling him to be more like my wife: “Be gentle, Jay, like she is.”
When Mom finally did pass, my father wanted to get back at the world for taking her. He also wanted to get back at himself for allowing her to go the way she did.
The no-show oncologist got paid in tiny increments; he wrote her checks for $6.66, since he considered her the antichrist. My wife was another enemy. He believed she murdered my mom, since she administered morphine for pain relief and—ipso facto—she died, as a result; he later tried to sue her, to take away her license to practice nursing (My thought was, Never mind, Dad, that this woman supplied half of your grandchildren’s household income).
To get back at himself, he tried to kill himself. He attempted in front of his therapist, which was a relief to the rest of us—since he could then get immediate help. He wouldn’t admit that it was a suicide attempt: while drunk, he tried to drink the bottle of morphine that the hospice service failed to collect. Everyone around him considered it an attempt.
Dad said that he didn’t set out to end his life; he was just testing out a theory. He only wanted to see if the morphine would have killed him. That way, if the morphine did kill him, he would then know that it also killed Mom. He would then, if blame could be levied from the grave, have further reason to point the finger at my wife for my mom’s death. That’s how the blame game was working.
This was the aftermath of losing my mom. Later, with the Alzheimer’s obvious, Dad needed to be placed into an assisted-living facility. The time between these two phases of my father’s life were five years of tension.
I was torn between loving my father and protecting my family from his accusations. Weary worn, I opted to create and maintain a separation between the cynic and the nurse.
I made it clear to Dad that I had to consider my immediate family over him and that he wouldn’t be seeing his grandchildren as long as he was going to use my wife as a scapegoat for his wife’s passing. Nonetheless, he would still call every once in a while and ask about occasions we once celebrated together, as a family, and wonder if we could all get together again. He had no idea what I meant when I reiterated to him No.
Through the interim years of him being on his own, I called him infrequently. I thought about him a lot. That’s about all I could do—think about him, and wonder what was happening to him and why he had dug such a hole for himself.
I knew that he was basically alone, even though my needy brother was with him. I wondered what had crept into my father’s soul. Something undefinable was preventing him from eventually making a clean break with the past, and with the wife with whom he had finally been able to reach some amicable accommodation, in a relationship that was never noticeably comfortable.
After about five years into this quiescent relationship came the diagnosis. It was then up to me to somehow place a cynical, eighty-five-year-old, alcoholic, Alzheimer’s patient into an assisted living facility.
I then was able to see in him what I thought would never be seen. With the years that were added to my father’s frame, he lost some weight and gained some wrinkles. This wasn’t much of a surprise.
I knew he now had a disease of the mind; as such, he talked senselessly and endlessly on one tangent after another: his work as an industrial engineer; his service as a boatswain’s mate, in World War II; work he had done around the house, including how he had salvaged as many as 100,000 old nails from the old-board bin, in the basement; how he raised his children; how he was raised, during the depression; what he missed about his home town of Bayonne, New Jersey; his work as a jazz pianist, in Staten Island and New Jersey—basically, his life’s story, told as though it were all one disjointed paragraph.
This was how the disease worked. It created loss without the victim feeling the loss. Instead, there appeared to be a feeling that the present made no sense unless it was related to the past, which was then related to still more of the past. But as horrible as it was to see my father losing his mind, it was as much of a relief to witness his former cynicism fading. The blame factory had shut down.
He could smile once again and, whatever was affecting him, I was both glad about it and then felt guilty that I was glad. But the former tension between us was gone, and I saw that he was somewhat trusting of me, now—something he could never formerly do without reservation. He let me into his house and wanted me to stay a while. He let me take him places.
One place I had to take him was an assisted-living facility. I had three trips planned: to introduce him to the place, without meeting anyone; to meet some of the staff, to be interviewed and assessed; and then to move in.
After the second trip, I took him to a psychiatric hospital, to see how he would handle life without alcohol. After two days in the hospital, he was found unresponsive and sent to another hospital’s ER, to be treated for pneumonia.
The next few days were tense, not like the tension of years gone by, but because he was looking like he might not make it. Then, after four days in critical care and three more in a step-down unit, he started to look like he would make it after all, though he was no longer in shape for assisted living. He would now need a nursing home.
When I visited him, he seemed barely alive and looked like his time left would be measured not in days but hours. He was called cachectic by hospital staff, meaning malnourished, and he looked like there was very little left to him. As weak as he was, he seemed to take notice when my wife and I visited him.
The alleged murderer and I spent an hour with him a couple of times, as he was given every chance to recover. On one occasion, we tried to communicate with him but could hardly connect with him. The head of his bed was tilted upward. He could hardly open his eyes. He seemed to smile at each of us; he appeared glad to see us. He wanted to talk, but looked too weak to move his mouth at all.
My wife told him that she forgave him for the things he did, years ago, when his wife was passing and had passed away. I’ll never know what, if anything, registered. I only know that he looked at us and appeared happy to see familiar faces.
I spent that afternoon on the phone with social workers and nursing homes, so that Dad could be transferred out the next day. At about four the next morning, though, I received a call from the hospital. My father had passed away.
I was sad at the funeral, but not grieving. I think that I had been grieving his loss for some years, since the loss of my mother, and had had enough of that kind of thing. Instead, I was mourning the lack of mourners. The total might have been about ten, about a tenth of how many had come for my mother’s funeral.
Since then, I’ve been wondering what to make of this, in the same way as I had been trying to know what to make of him, while he was yet alive. The reason for the no-shows may, in part, have had to do with the seven more years that had elapsed since my mom had passed, and that some friends and family may also have died, as well. That made sense, I thought, but I also believed there was more to it.
I knew that his inherent distrust in his fellow man tended to alienate his fellow man. I knew this because it alienated me from him. And I never really knew how to gauge that alienation until the day of his funeral, in the number of empty seats. Despite how he presented, in his final weeks, he was yet known as a skeptic, a disbeliever in everything foreign to all he held dear.
I now find myself doing what I thought, for a while, I could never do: miss him. I miss the man, compromised as he was by Alzheimer’s disease, who was just happy to see me, apart from hidden agendas, or his expecting one from me.
I miss the father that was finally real to me. This was perhaps the same father who was as real to me as when I was a boy being raised by him. The difference was that I was only permitted a glimpse into how he might have been toward me, as an adult, had the bitterness of middle age not grown up within him as a vine that chokes the life out of the tree that supports it.
