The past year has been an earth-shaker for all of us. The anxiety about the unsettled financial picture, the excitement about Ed and Aliceann’s decision to move North, the frustrations and tribulations of trying to get them settled in, the medical worries, the seesawing plans, the need to say goodbye again. But it could be worse. When I think back to the way we were, I remember the constant parties where too much liquor flowed, the reckless spending of money, and the infidelities that broke my heart. But I also remember our children, a love that survived all wounds to grow into an abiding bond, and most of all, the healing grace of laughter.
As must be obvious by now, Ed Malley was a very funny man—sometimes even intentionally. For example, there was the rivalry between Edward and Blake that was destined to continue until one of them drew his last breath. Their biggest challenge was learning how to use the computers their offspring had prescribed for them. Ed called his “the machine,” along with other less civilized terms. John Stark was the expert who helped him manage the machine's mysterious ways.
To: Ed Malley
From: Ed Malley
From: Kathie malley-morrison
From: Ed Malley
What a coincidence, that the three of us should all decide to write a book about Ed. I do hope the old dear won't get discouraged. He used to be a marvelous writer, so who knows what he might be able to come up with.
9-9-02
As must be obvious by now, Ed Malley was a very funny man—sometimes even intentionally. For example, there was the rivalry between Edward and Blake that was destined to continue until one of them drew his last breath. Their biggest challenge was learning how to use the computers their offspring had prescribed for them. Ed called his “the machine,” along with other less civilized terms. John Stark was the expert who helped him manage the machine's mysterious ways.
To: Barbara Malley
Date: Thursday, May 10, 2001
I want you to know I'm thinking of you and will think of you on Sunday, which is Mother's Day. I wish you were still here, the mother of my wonderful children, my wonderful ex-wife. I do love you, dear. I wish we had more time together. Goodbye.
ps john stark helped me with this
To: Ed Malley
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2001
Subject: welcome
Subject: welcome
welcome to the world of email!!!
Love,
Barbara
From: Ed Malley
To: Kathie malley-morrison
July 05, 2001
Subject: I love you very much
Subject: I love you very much
From: Kathie malley-morrison
To: Ed Malley
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001
Subject: I love you very much
WHAT A LOVELY MESSAGE. THANK YOU DAD. AND I LOVE YOU TO PIECES.
XX
KK
From: Ed Malley
To: Kathie malley-morrison
Subject: save your Confederate money the south will rise again
From: Kathie malley-morrison
To: Ed Malley
Cc: Barbara Malley
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001
Subject: Re: save your Confederate money the south will rise again
hi, daddy. that's definitely one of the old favorite daddy malley
expressions. it was fun to get it.
love,
kk
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: Re: reply to outlook express
Date: Wednesday, August 08, 2001
Congratulations Ed! That's the best message you have sent yet. I'd love to see more, more, more. But not of naked ladies. Naked gentlemen would be okay. Now I'm going to try sending you a joke I sent before. When you get it, remember to scroll down with the little black triangle on the right so you will gradually be able to read the entire joke.
Congratulations Ed! That's the best message you have sent yet. I'd love to see more, more, more. But not of naked ladies. Naked gentlemen would be okay. Now I'm going to try sending you a joke I sent before. When you get it, remember to scroll down with the little black triangle on the right so you will gradually be able to read the entire joke.
Also some pointers on sending e-mails.
Love,
Barbara
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001
Subject: reply to outlook express
I will never know how to thank you for sending me that ?summary for outlook express. a funny thing happened when i started to type this i heard the machinwhene begin but could not see the actual typing imagine my surprise when i did start typing i
ALL MYLOVE
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Cc: Kathie malley-morrison
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001
Subject: what is knew ? i know love you.
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: Re: what is knew ? i know love you.
Date: Friday, August 24, 2001
That is a charming subject and so beautifully put. I only wish you had written something under the subject. I love you too, dear. Can you see, when you scroll down, you left the page blank? Did you mean to do that?
Much love, Barbara
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: my long e-mail to you
Date: Saturday, August 25, 2001
You seem to have the hang of how to read beyond what's in the space I'm writing in now. I told Kathie how well you had read to me a long joke I sent you, expertly "scrolling down" with the little black triangle on the lower right of this screen.
I'll be around much of the time today if you need help. I will want to watch the tennis at 2:00 and the golf at 4:00 (because Tiger is in it and doing well), but I would still have time for you if you call.
Love, Barbara
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001
Subject: Re: have missed you
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: Re: have missed you
Date: Saturday, August 25, 2001
Tsk tsk, you hit Reply okay, but you didn't write a message in the white space, like this one I'm writing in. I WANT A MESSAGE! Do try to write me a couple of lines next time. Love, Barbara
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001
Subject: re: john stark
we have been plauying aound so decided to call .
From: “Barbara Malley”
To: "Ed Malley"
Subject: Re: john stark
Date: Monday, August 27, 2001
Hi, I got word that you have been playing around. You were always pretty good at that--chuckle, chuckle. Love, Barb
From: Ed Malley
To: Ted Malley
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001
Subject: it has been a long timeof
how are all your business problems going? how about your family? how about you? after all YOU are the compass and pater faimilias and responsible for r all of us the rest of us.
somerhing went wrong how in the name of the devil did i get down here????
All my love THE OLDE BUZZARD
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: thinking of you
Date: Monday, September 03, 2001
I'm so glad you didn't have to stay at the hospital. That's a good sign that your mini-stroke was a mini-problem.
Have you been watching the U.S. Open? When I see the great ones smashing the ball back and forth, it makes me think of our younger days with the Thaxters. Cruising to Nantucket, going ashore for tennis and lunch, an afternoon at the beach, back to the boat for Happy Hour--didn't we have a great time?
Love, Barbara
Love, Barbara
From: Tim Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001
Subject: Update from Florida
Hi Mom-
Spoke to Dad when he first arrived home from the hospital tonight. Got a little choked up as if to prove my basically maudlin nature. I admit to crying over second rate TV shows and hope that characteristic doesn't undercut the true depth of the love I feel for all my family.
Tim
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Subject: reply to yours of9 3 01
Date: Friday, September 07, 2001
i am supposed to rest for a weekbut i could not resist your loving letter of those happy days
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Cc: Barbara Malley
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001
Subject: i still cant understand why every thin goes wrong at this point
????love you forever old old dad
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: the mail came through!
Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2001
Hi dear, I love you forever too. I was so glad to see you had successfully sent me that lovely message.
Love, old, old Mom
Love, old, old Mom
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001
but it is|nt stll get problems with that interrupts when i
try to enter NEW MAIL john is so busy he not available
until saturday. meanwhile please send with
your material instruction to print so i may heth h save for
my files i sti the l think you are he\\\\\\\ ll
[nn ow what in ell
lha vihinkhave i done wrong now/ISTILLthink yiue o are the greatest
old buzzard
From: Barbara Malley
To: Kathie malley-morrison
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001
I wrote Dad that I thought he might be entering New Mail, thinking he was then sending a message. I reminded him to click on Send instead. I have two other shorter messages, full of frustration over working for 4 hours with little progress. Poor old Buzzard.
Love,
Mom
Love,
Mom
From: "kathleen malley-morrison"
To: “Barbara Malley”
Subject: Re: Old Buzzard
Date: Monday, October 01, 2001
oh, poor dad. but that's priceless!
love,
kk
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Subject: bring you up to date
Date: Friday, October 05, 2001
sure and begorry tis a beautiffffffuuumorning hope it stays that way
wednesday was certainly a disasterrrrrr this is my first attempt since.
keep in touch all my love .. the old buzzard
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: Re: bring you up to date
Date: Friday, October 05 2001
Honey, all you have to do when you hit a few letters too mmmmmany is to gently back space, one letter at a time (using arrow pointing left (on the right of the numbers).
Love, Barbbbbb (Use black triangle on right to see your message and see what I'm talking aboutttttt.)
Love, Barbbbbb (Use black triangle on right to see your message and see what I'm talking aboutttttt.)
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001
Subject: HOO HOO HOORAY I,M OUT TO WORK TODAY
we had a great but quiet time. basically it was fun to have no responsibilities hpoe you get this
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001
Subject: Re: HOO HOO HOORAY I,M OUT TO WORK TODAY
Hi dear, welcome back. You stole your subject from the Seven Dwarfs--right? I'm glad you had a good vacation.
Much love, Barbara
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Subject: i am back right now i am completely frustrated i hate this damn machine
Date: Saturday, October 27, 2001
EDWARD W MALLEY JR.
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Subject: Re: i am back right now i am completely frustrated i hate this damn machine
Date: Saturday, October 27, 2001
You asked on the phone if I got anything else. I got this with your message contained in the subject. Down below, where the message should be, you wrote your name in capital letters. When you were there, that's when you could have written a much longer message. It shows you know how to get there, anyway.
Much love, Barbara
(below, using black triangle on right--you will see another message from me under your subject)
It sounds like you feel about the damn machine the way I used to feel about the damn golf.
From: Ed Malley
To: Barbara Malley
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001
Subject: just a little practise
there was a young man from Racine who invented a sexy machine it was both concave and convex would fit either sex and was the damndest thing ever seen). a l[ttle wickedness
From: Barbara Malley
To: Kathie malley-morrison
Subject: Dad’s novel & Blake Thaxter
From: Ed Malley
To: Kathie malley-morrison
Cc: Barbara Malley
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001
Subject: dear ladies such a week as i have had ?ikeep doing very well
and then some thing goeg wrong and i have one half page spoiled and to make matters even worse i fool around for another half hour as you probably know the past week has been one thing after another.at the moment itn is that damn mouse . the one that i have been using is a fancy thing that just quit. forjunately it came already installed on the pc.again fortunatelye were able to use it. now UNFORTUNATELY there is no question but that old age has finally got to me .more tomorrow if i blow this and Blaje leqrns this before i do shall hang my self from the highest tree if i can fimnd one O B .
From: Barbara Malley
To: Ed Malley
Sent: Monday, November
19, 2001
Ed, this is absolutely
the best e-mail you've written yet. I am truly impressed with what
you've accomplished. You're getting there, so stay away from that
tree and noose--we all love you and need you to be around, sending
more wonderful e-mails.
Much love, Barbara
To: Kathie
malley-morrison
Date: Friday,
November 23, 2001
Dad
just called. Blake has bought a machine and thought he could get a
guy to teach him for less than $60 an hour. After all was said
and done, Blake is paying the same, to Dad's obvious glee. Moreover
Dad's guy stops by to see how he's doing and charges nothing.
Then
he went on to tell me he will be starting work on a book about himself,
only it will be written in novel form. Did you know about this,
Kathie? The title is The Wastrel, and it won't have anything in it
about his family, it will be only about him.
Love, Mom
Attachment from Tim after visit to his father and Aliceann
It’s hard to write anecdotes about the Old Buzzard after managing to contain the welling sense of sadness and loss just long enough to make my exit. Some of it spilled on Aliceann in the driveway, as she in turn spilled hers, but most of it flooded out in the first few miles on the Turnpike. It was too brutal a look at the disintegration of a man who was such a large part of our lives.
One thing I did notice about Dad is that he has gotten creepy. I think it must come from Aliceann telling him so often, as I later learned, to “…stay put, Edward.” In secret rebellion he inches along in his chair (forwards or backwards, no matter), creeping to some destination known only to him. He is guided by lines of black tape on the tiled floors of the house, an ILS [Instrument Landing System] for the disabled pilot.
I noticed the same behavior at the golf course, when on the second hole I decided it would be nice (and hopefully non-lethal to our three-and-a-halfsome) to let him drive our cart. In unknowing mimicry of Aliceann, I advised him at each stopping point (reached at somewhat less than a walking pace) to “stay right here in the shade, Dad.” I would take my shot and return to the cart to find it…turned 180 degrees. Or behind our companion’s cart when it had clearly been in front of it. Or impossibly placed between two trees. Concerned that I might find him impossibly placed in a tree I began trying to catch him in the act, but it was several holes before I found him creeping imperceptibly from the quiet shade of an old Eucalyptus to a nearby concrete slab that must have been used to park idle equipment. When I asked him where he was going, he said “Oh, nowhere, just moving around.”
It’s hard to write anecdotes about the Old Buzzard after managing to contain the welling sense of sadness and loss just long enough to make my exit. Some of it spilled on Aliceann in the driveway, as she in turn spilled hers, but most of it flooded out in the first few miles on the Turnpike. It was too brutal a look at the disintegration of a man who was such a large part of our lives.
One thing I did notice about Dad is that he has gotten creepy. I think it must come from Aliceann telling him so often, as I later learned, to “…stay put, Edward.” In secret rebellion he inches along in his chair (forwards or backwards, no matter), creeping to some destination known only to him. He is guided by lines of black tape on the tiled floors of the house, an ILS [Instrument Landing System] for the disabled pilot.
I noticed the same behavior at the golf course, when on the second hole I decided it would be nice (and hopefully non-lethal to our three-and-a-halfsome) to let him drive our cart. In unknowing mimicry of Aliceann, I advised him at each stopping point (reached at somewhat less than a walking pace) to “stay right here in the shade, Dad.” I would take my shot and return to the cart to find it…turned 180 degrees. Or behind our companion’s cart when it had clearly been in front of it. Or impossibly placed between two trees. Concerned that I might find him impossibly placed in a tree I began trying to catch him in the act, but it was several holes before I found him creeping imperceptibly from the quiet shade of an old Eucalyptus to a nearby concrete slab that must have been used to park idle equipment. When I asked him where he was going, he said “Oh, nowhere, just moving around.”
 |
| ED AND FOURTH-BORN CHILD |
After saying our goodbyes and leaving the North Palm Beach Country Club we went to Circuit City to try to find Dad a better mouse. I parked his chair in the aisle marked “peripherals,” told him to stay put, and began scanning the shelves for the best mouse for a Parkinson’s victim. Out of the corner of my eye I watched him slowly leak down the aisle in reverse. I let him go, and eventually caught up with him in the “printers” aisle, which I have no doubt was not a destination but merely a waypoint on his journey. By way of defense he told me that Aliceann is always telling him to stay put, and he likes to be able to look around. God help us, taking pleasure in such simple actions.
Back at the house Aliceann confirmed that when she takes Edward food shopping or to Home Depot or Office Max she finds him creeping off despite her stern admonitions that he stay put.
We never did get much done with the computer. It only took about 20 minutes to realize how diminished his ability is to grasp both motor and cognitive skills. I switched his trackball mouse, a poor choice for a beginning pointing device, for a regular mouse. Being more intuitive, it should have been much easier, but for him it was learning all over again. It was easier to line the pointer up with the target, but then he would have to look at his hand to be sure to stab the correct mouse button, upon which the pointer would move.
On Saturday I awoke early to a fading thunderstorm, hoping to put together an instruction manual of sorts, using screen shots to give a visual picture of how to do things. By 8 o’clock I had all but given up, victim to cheap color printers incapable of reproducing a readable screenshot in black-and-white, and badly sidetracked trying to figure out what had become of his MS Office Suite, there but unusable. I thumbed through a few of his black three-ring binders of saved e-mails and invoices from John Stark, impressed by the effort and deeply saddened by the outcome. Dad got up, struggling at first to put a coherent sentence together. We had a too-hasty breakfast, during which he perked up enough to complain intelligibly about his latest aches and pains. I said my goodbyes to him in the kitchen and walked to the car with Aliceann, where we both fell apart.
As for her, I give her a B+ for being a person ill-equipped for this kind of responsibility who has risen to the task with great strength and dignity.
When Edward succumbed to Parkinson’s two years after his exodus from the Westwood apartment, Aliceann described his final days during our sad phone call:
January 9. 2003
Edward really enjoyed life when we first got back to Florida. We would go to doll shows and have a great time. He had an electric wheelchair he loved. I wouldn’t let him use it in the house and even outside I had to watch him because he’d be all over the road. Ted came down for a visit and had a fit when he saw the way Edward careened up the street.
He was in a nursing home and he got out of bed, thinking he could just leave and go home. A nurse screamed at him to stop, but she was too late. They took x-rays and he had to have surgery on his hip. I told Blake and Blake came into his room and said, “If you break your other hip, I’m going to shoot you.”
On Christmas Eve, he fell again in the nursing home. I yelled for the nurse. He had to have surgery again on his hip.
The morning of January seventh he had hospice in his room. I came in that afternoon with the kitten we had picked out when it was two weeks old. Edward loved seeing the kitten. Around four o’clock I went home to feed the kids and take them out for a walk. I went back to the nursing home. It was dark already and freezing cold—it was when Florida had that freezing spell. I would get Edward bundled up in that LL Bean jacket like Frank’s and take him out for a walk in his wheelchair.
So I was sitting and talking to him and he was tossing and turning. I said, “We’re going to get through this. I’m going to be okay, don’t worry about me.” Then I told him I loved him. He didn’t say anything, so I said, “If you love me, Edward, squeeze my hand.” He did, and then he died. Aliceann’s voice breaks. Wives #1 and #2 weep together. Aliceann is confident she will see her husband in heaven. I remain a doubter, but who knows? Edward proved he was a champion at overcoming obstacles like thresholds . . .
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