My father is dying.
Even saying out loud sounds weird, and I feel more than a
little guilty that I am that kind of blunt, but it is true. His body is
failing. He is being kept in comfort,
and pain controlled , which makes him “half” here, and only some of the
time. He is in the hospital and has been
for the past 11 days. We are now just
waiting.
So before the only memory I have is the hospital smell in my
nose, the taste of hospital food on my lips, and the sound of the snore-gurgle
my father makes as he slips in and out of sleep in his bed, I thought I would
write this.
This is about my daddy, as much as I can write right now.
I have a picture of me, about age two, riding a tricycle in
front of our garage. The tricycle was
purple, though the faded picture makes it look like it was teal. I am smiling
and being all cheesy for the camera.
My brother, just a baby of maybe 8 months old, is in a wind up swing,
sleeping, in just a diaper, looking like he is about to fall out. Sitting in a
lawn chair, in the shade created by the open garage door is my dad. Shorts. White
T-shirt. Sandals. He is smiling at something, maybe something I just did, or
maybe something my mom just said that made him laugh. I only assume she is the one taking the
photo.
In all the years since, as if this memory happened yesterday,
this is how I see my dad. Happy.
My dad is the quiet one in our house. Not a man of many words, though when he did
say something, you knew to listen. His
voice and laugh was deep, and you could hear it across rooms, and baseball
fields, and lakes. It spoke volumes in
one or two words, knowing right away his mood, or need. Praise was limited, but
if given was meant. There was never
anything false in his words. You knew exactly what he meant.
He was not classically affectionate, and I would not need
more than one hand to tell you how many times he felt comfortable with hugs,
especially in public. It was not his
way. I often wished it was because the
couple of times I remember holding his hand, I knew I was safe.
He showed love in ways you had to search for.
He assembled and stained a desk for Christmas the year I was
10. I still have that desk, and (when
not being used as a catch all for laundry) has been a place I have read at, and
written in my journal, and sat at just to ponder the world for years and years. I think about seeing that desk for the first
time, with the ribbon on the matching chair, every time I sit down.
He washed my car.
Grumbling the entire time about how I never took care of my stuff, and
why did he have to do all the work. It
was spotlessly detailed, interior windows cleaned, vacuumed, and wax applied.
He took me to dinner on my 15th birthday. Just me.
We went together to the fanciest restaurant I knew at the time, and
alone because one of the few things we had in common was that we both loved crab
legs. We ordered them and ate them by
the bucket, which should have been a dead give-away the place was not all that
fancy with its plastic bibs, and he ordered me a glass of wine, and then a
second one, without even flinching. We
laughed, and tried to talk, maybe the only time we ever really did, and I
walked out feeling deliciously happy, and maybe a little drunk. It was fine.
He whipped me with a belt one time, for lying and being
hours late, then cried more than I did because of it. He never hit me again.
I only ever saw him cry two other times. Once the day his father died, and once the
day my son died.
He was a really good swimmer, and although he threw me in the lake off the swimming barge once when I am sure I was whiny and scared, he swam behind me all the way back to shore, just out of my reach. I remember throwing sand at him when we got there I was so mad. He still brought me a towel.
He made me do yard work.
He liked to barbeque.
He was wicked skilled at horseshoes. And cribbage.
He built me a toybox at some point before I remember, and
put a bunny decal on the front because supposedly I liked bunnies. I have that toybox. I refinished it back when my children were
too little to remember, but I didn’t cover up the bunny. It lives in my living room.
The most gentle I ever remember my dad being is when he
became a grandfather. My daughter had
him wrapped around her little finger.
She could crawl on his lap any time she wanted. She could get him to read any book she
wanted. She could give him kisses and
hugs and he didn’t flinch. And she could make him smile just by being in the
room. For her (though maybe for other
kids too, but not really) he worked the Easter Egg hunt every year, and would
point out for her the “hidden” eggs. My
son, the ever crabby baby, could still crawl up on Papa’s lap, and they would
watch TV together, both stretched out on the recliner. My dad taught my son to love baseball.
Every memory I have right this minute, as I see my father
struggle, reminds me how much I have loved him, do love him, will love
him. With all the imperfection, kept at
bay, I can honor the parts that were and are really good, without any smoke and
mirrors to what wasn’t perfect. I can do that right now. Because there is a complete full life to know
before I fall apart. And so much more to remember that is not limited to these
final moments.
This is just the first
page, before I forget.
