Reflections on My Dad

(originally published June 7, 2015. My original blog, on Wordpress, was hacked in early 2016. All of the original posts, through January 2016, have been re-posted here on Blogger.)

The art of living well and dying well are one.

Epicurus

I haven’t written anything for a few weeks. My heart hasn’t been in the writing, or much else.

My Dad died two weeks ago.

So today I’m not going to write, as I usually do, about running marathons or pushing past limitations or conquering adversity. I’m going to write about my Dad. Yet – this is very much about pushing past limitations and conquering adversity – for my Dad lived those traits.

To attempt to capture the essence of a soul that walked this earth for 84 years is a fool’s errand. Certain things can never be reduced to mere words. Instead, I offer this stream of consciousness in the hope that, in some small way, I can give a glimmer of insight into the man my Dad was, and what the life he lived can teach all of us.

This was the fourth time cancer came to him uninvited. He overcame his first cancer while barely into adulthood, serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. His second and third cancers likewise proved to be no match for his determination to live. His fourth cancer – pancreatic cancer – may have ultimately prevailed, but not without being beaten and bruised and taken to the mat many times. Hardly anyone survives pancreatic cancer. Most people last three to six months. My Dad survived for over 2 ½ years.

He did so much more than survive, though. In his illness, he taught everyone he met what it means to live – to truly live. To affirm life. To hold oneself with dignity even in the most trying times. To choose not to complain or even express discomfort – not ever – and instead use his condition to inspire others.

This past fall, the oncologist solemnly told my Dad that the cancer was spreading rapidly, that the chemotherapy had not helped, that there was nothing more he could do. He advised my Dad to go home and make the best of whatever time he had left. He told my Mom that my wife and the kids and I should fly in immediately to see him. When my Mom suggested we might visit in a couple of weeks to accommodate school schedules, he warned, “I wouldn’t wait that long.”

A few days later, we were at his side for what we presumed would be our last visit. Only – it wasn’t. By the time we left, he seemed stronger, more upbeat, and not in any frame of mind to leave this world anytime soon. His 84^th birthday would be in late January, and even though it was only September, and the doctor was sure he had only weeks left, he was determined to turn 84. He simply decided – it made no difference to him what the doctor or anyone else said.

That’s how my Dad approached all of life – on his own terms.

The months rolled by, and I was soon making plans to fly in again for his 84^th birthday celebration. As family gathered around him nearly half a year after the oncologist had made his grim prognosis, he sat up straight, joy on his face, looking like someone ten years younger who hadn’t been battling a horrible disease.

When I said to my Dad, “Happy Birthday. How does it feel to be 84?” he replied simply, “Now let’s see if I make it to 85.”

Despite his optimism, I thought that surely this would be my last visit. It wasn’t.

As winter faded into spring, my wife and the kids and I prepared to visit him for Passover. Never had we imagined he would be with us by April. By this point, he had lost so much weight. But he hadn’t lost his smile. He slept much of the day, but when a well-wisher would call, he immediately perked up and sounded so robust that more than a few questioned the gravity of his condition.

Alas, when our visit ended in April, it was to be for the last time. On May 20, the nurse from the home hospice program called to let me know that his condition had worsened, that he was now bedridden, and that the end was likely a few weeks away. Less than twenty-four hours later it was my Mom calling to tell me that my Dad had passed away, going on to the next world peacefully in his sleep. Through tears, my Mom said that all along, she had been asking God only that my Dad not die suffering, and that God had answered her prayers.

More than any other relationship we have, our relationship with our parents is characterized by permanence. They have been there literally from the beginning. We have never known a time they have not been part of our lives. And until the day they die, it seems like they will always be there.

When a parent passes away, our entire reality changes. For the first time in my life, my Dad is not there, and nothing is the same.

The mourning process in the Jewish tradition is focused, in part, on helping the mourner confront his new reality squarely, working through his grief in as healthy a manner as possible. Confronting that reality can be hard to take, but it must be done.

I know, of course, that my father is no longer with us. Yet, it doesn’t seem possible. Defying all the odds, he had hung in there for a very long time. Part of me had wanted to believe that he would keep hanging in there, indefinitely.

My new reality sinks in a bit more as we enter the cemetery. I gaze at the cemetery street names on the way to the grave site – King David Street, Ruth Street, Naomi Street – the very same street names to be found in the town where I live in Israel. Only – those streets are teeming with life, with the laughter of children. These streets have no place for laughter.

Reality penetrates a bit more at the grave site, as I stare at the plain pine coffin draped with an American flag, to be presented before burial to my Mom by friends from the Jewish War Veterans group in recognition of my Dad’s service. I tear my jacket in a place close to the heart, and pray the ancient Hebrew words – Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, the True Judge – continuing a long tradition that began thousands of years ago when Jacob rent his garments upon being told that his son, Joseph had died. I watch as the coffin is lowered into the earth, and join with the other mourners in pouring the first few shovelfuls of dirt onto the grave.

Each of these acts takes me closer to confronting my new reality. But nothing pulls me into that reality as much as coming back to my Mom’s house and seeing my Dad’s chair.

The rust brown leather recliner where my Dad had spent much of the past few years, where he held forth with the many visitors who came to see him, where he read and watched TV, and offered his opinions about the world, where he had had his last conversations with me.

The chair now sits silent. It still fills its corner of the room, but is empty just the same.

Part of me fully expects my Dad to come back and sit again in that chair. As if he just went out to get the morning paper, and will return soon to read it, again offering his opinions on world events, and enthusiastically conversing with me as he always has.

Part of me desperately wants to believe. But I know there will only be silence where my Dad’s voice had been. I know his chair will always be empty.

I stare at that chair, replacing my Dad’s presence with memories. They come flooding back to me from every direction. The kind of father he was – how he was determined to be a different parent to my brother and me than his parents had been to him. The kind of husband he was. The kind of friend he was. The kind of person he was.

Memories of how, whatever life sent his way, my Dad would embrace life without any inhibitions. I think back on when I was 11 or 12, and my Dad spent a week with my Boy Scout troop in upstate New York as the newly deputized Assistant Scoutmaster. Just one day into the trip, the Scoutmaster was summoned back to work to deal with an unexpected crisis, leaving my Dad suddenly alone, in charge of 15 boys, in the middle of the woods. It didn’t faze my Dad in the least. With no experience to draw from, he just continued on, not dropping a beat, and managed those boys all by himself. I think about how much of life he approached like that – giving life all he had to give and not letting anything stand in the way.

Memories of how my Dad would not accept the word “can’t.” When a doctor had the temerity to suggest that my brother had eye-hand coordination issues that would prevent him from riding a bike, my Dad immediately marched out to the bike store and then took my brother to the park, where he learned to ride a bike perfectly.

Memories of my father as the eternal student. When I began piano lessons at age 12, my Dad was already in his mid-forties. He looked on, lamenting that he had never been given the opportunity to take music lessons as a child. But he didn’t lament for long, Soon, he was taking piano lessons, for the very first time, and wondering why many other people his age weren’t doing the same thing. He couldn’t conceive of starting piano lessons in his mid-forties as being unusual – for my Dad, if you wanted to learn something, then you would just go out and learn it. Simple as that. My Dad continued playing piano, even in illness, until just a few weeks before he passed away.

In his late fifties, shortly after he had retired, my Dad stumbled upon an ad in the paper to become a guide at Museum Village, a local re-creation of life in the 19^th century. In short order, he read everything he could get his hands on, becoming an expert on the material he presented. At 6 foot 4, he would get down on his knees to speak to children, so he could be on their level . He remained at Museum Village for 23 years, even into his illness. Over the years, he would receive many letters of gratitude and regularly get stopped in his travels by people who recognized him from their museum visits.

In his seventies, my Dad started learning in a Talmud class – also for the first time. The rabbi was amazed by his seriousness of purpose, telling me, “Most people his age just don’t do that.” My Dad – of course, he did that.

During my last visit with my Dad in April – even though he was failing – beside his chair sat a stack of books – even then, he was learning Hebrew, studying history, philosophy, and poetry.

Now, I walk over to the empty chair. The last book he had been reading sits beside it – a biography of Walt Whitman. I turn to the page with his bookmark, the very place he stopped reading before he died. There, I find one of Whitman’s poems, which begins:

                         Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,

                         For that which was lacking among you all, yet needed
                         most, I bring.

That was my Dad – the eternal student who kept knocking on doors until they opened, and enriched everyone else in the process.

I also hear many memories not my own – from the large crowd who came to the funeral, and the steady stream of visitors who come to the house for many days following. They tell me that what resonated with them from my remarks at the funeral was when I said that, even in illness, he left visitors feeling better at the end of their visit than when they first came. People tell me that whenever they would ask my Dad how he was doing, he wouldn’t talk about himself, but would ask about them, their children, their lives. One woman relates to me, “Whenever I would visit your father, I always would leave with a smile on my face.”

I learn just how many lives he touched. “Your father never met a stranger,” one neighbor tells me. I am, frankly, surprised by how many people talk about him so fondly and genuinely miss him. Not only neighbors and co-workers and long-time friends – when we visit the local supermarket, a cashier with tears in her eyes embraces my mother, saying how much she enjoyed knowing him and how much she will miss him. The same thing happens at the local print shop where my mother goes to have a second set of acknowledgement cards printed, necessitated by the overwhelming number of condolence cards and house visits. It is the same story at the bank and the pharmacy. It seems like there isn’t a person in town who wasn’t touched by my Dad’s presence.

I confess to feeling weepy when I think about my Dad, and I expect it will be that way for some time to come. He’s gone and I am living a different reality.

But he’s not really gone. The chair may be empty, but I feel his presence still. I see the kind of person he was, the people he touched, the honesty and integrity he brought to everything he did, the dignity he maintained throughout his illness, the example he set, the inspiration he provided.

And the inspiration he still provides. Exactly one month from my Dad’s passing will be Father’s Day. This Father’s Day, I won’t be sending a tie or a corny greeting card – I’ll be reflecting. I’ll be thinking about how so much of who I am and what I’ve done is wrapped up in him. How, as I move into this new reality, the life he lived is forever there to guide me.

The chair may be empty. But I am blessed.

_________________________

My father's obituary appears here.