When January 1 dawned like any other morning, it broke Dad’s

spirit. He never again mentioned Y2K. He slipped into despondency,
dragging himself in from the junkyard each night, silent and heavy.
He’d sit in front of the TV for hours, a black cloud hovering.

Mother said it was time for another trip to Arizona. Luke was serving
a mission for the church, so it was just me, Richard and Audrey who
piled into the old Chevy Astro van Dad had fixed up. Dad removed the
seats, except the two in front, and in their place he put a queen
mattress; then he heaved himself onto it and didn’t move for the rest of
the drive.

As it had years before, the Arizona sun revived Dad. He lay out on
the porch on the hard cement, soaking it up, while the rest of us read
or watched TV. After a few days he began to improve, and we braced
ourselves for the nightly arguments between him and Grandma.
Grandma was seeing a lot of doctors these days, because she had
cancer in her bone marrow.

“Those doctors will just kill you quicker,” Dad said one evening when
Grandma returned from a consultation. Grandma refused to quit
chemotherapy, but she did ask Mother about herbal treatments.
Mother had brought some with her, hoping Grandma would ask, and
Grandma tried them—foot soaks in red clay, cups of bitter parsley tea,
tinctures of horsetail and hydrangea.

“Those herbs won’t do a damned thing,” Dad said. “Herbals operate
by faith. You can’t put your trust in a doctor, then ask the Lord to heal
you.”

Grandma didn’t  say a   word.   She just    drank   her parsley tea.

I   remember    watching    Grandma,    searching   for signs   that    her body