Birthday Dinner

Tonight I hosted a dinner in honor of what would have been my dad's 69th birthday. My household family was there, of course, as well as my mom, sister, and father-in-law. The way I wrote it in the 55 is pretty spot-on; I do like things to be just so, especially since my dad can't actually be here, and though all intention that falls short of execution will go completely unnoticed by the living attendees, it will not go unexcused by myself.

Of course I know my dad was here today. It didn't take much more than my almost involuntary reaction to the Lions' awful performance today against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for me to realize that. And I've been on an emotional edge today for other reasons. So needless to say the dinner tonight was pulled off almost exactly as if my dad was trying to hide his smoking in my basement (which is to say, with much tenuousness and crabbiness on my part).

I do miss my dad. Terribly. I miss his sense of humor and his laugh, and his seriousness. I miss the things he was passionate about that almost always surprised me (except football and politics). I even miss his short temper and often too-quick reactions to things that weren't really that big a deal. It's a convenient side effect of his passing that I no longer have to deal with some things, but I miss them nonetheless.

I wanted to make a grand toast tonight at my dinner table, but I decided it'd taken so damned long to get everyone around the table in the first place, and on top of that the steaks were getting cold, that I just plunged into the dinner. There was still a toast, but no speech. So here is the meager edited version of what might have been a spectacular (though likely very long-winded) impromptu oration.

I've had this journal with me for months, carrying it to and from work and school every single day. I have it with me more often then I have my cell phone. I've written in it sporadically over the years and never really gone back to see what's in there. Tonight, for a completely unrelated reason than today's tangent, I pulled it out and opened it to the first page, dated 8 December 1997. It reads:

"Well, today we found out for sure that N is pregnant. We already knew as of Saturday, but the doctor made it official today. Congratulations, to me.

"I feel as if I should be doing something, becoming something. I mentioned it to N and she feels that way also. Of course, it's exciting. Of course, I wanted a baby. Then why do I not feel so full of joy, so excited at the prospect of becoming (being?) a father? I hope I will not ruin these first days of discovery for myself, or especially N. It would be a shame to remember our first days of knowing we'd conceived our first born as confused and troubled.

[And here I discuss possible reasons that seem trivial after all this time.]

"My deepest fear is that it's simply because N's pregnant. I want so badly to be a provider, a man of morality and integrity, worthy of greeting my first child and leading him/her through life. I want to be strong, responsible, intelligent, improvisational, reasonable, funny--I want to be what I think the perfect MAN should be. But then, I've always wanted that.

"Maybe this is about all of a sudden not being all those things when, in 9 months, someone will arrive into this world who will expect and need me to be nothing less. Can I be a good, decent father if I am not all those things? Sure there are lots of scumbags who can pass along their DNA, but I want to be something special. Will I be? My fear is that I will not."

That child I worried so much about being a father to turned 15 this summer, and I still have the same worries on an almost daily basis. I love this kid more than any words can express. He has a younger brother and sister now, too, so the worries have only compounded. My inability to be a good enough man has left for them potholes they won't know how to navigate around, because their mother and I haven't learned ourselves. I have watched them fail in detestable ways and seen only a reflection of myself. But I have also seen a miracle occur: I have seen them succeed in ways I never could have imagined for either myself or them.

I didn't get to know my dad very well before he was killed by cancer and chemotherapy, but I knew him well enough to understand that he also lived with these same fears every day of my life. He was a bastard sometimes, truly. He was an alcoholic and an abuser. And I don't make excuses for him. But I understand him, because from an emotional perspective, I have become him. He was in pain his entire life. He was ill equipped for manhood and fatherhood, because despite what society demonstrates, men are taught to be Men; it's not automatic, and the expectation that it could be is a Great Bullshit Lie. After learning some things about my dad later, things he would certainly have been loathe to share with any other human being, let alone those who called him Dad, I think his performance as a father was nothing short of a miracle.

Tonight I honor my dad, not just with a meal or company, but with the weight I carry in my heart. He died was taken away before he could fully become himself, and we were all therefore deprived of an even more amazing person. Every year since his passing, I realize how much like him I'm becoming, and that I'm on the same painful journey of self-discovery he never really started in earnest. He and I have the same unfinished business.

I'm not taking on his burdens; I have my own aplenty. But I will still carry with me memories of his painful nights, his addictive fits, his simple loves and pleasures. I will consult his life's laboratory notebook while doing my own painful experiment in Happiness, and as I complete my own, I'll jot down a few solutions for his benefit as I work though them. He wanted happiness for me, and my siblings, without having a clue how to find it himself. This I understand very painfully as a parent myself. But in his nobility as a sufferer, he did so much of the footwork for us ahead of time. He could never have known this; in fact I'm certain it was a point of shame for him, but it's something for which I will always be grateful. I truly think he knows it now, and it may even be satisfying, though he no doubt still carries great regrets over the man he wanted to be while he lived.

As for me, I will try to become a good and decent enough Man for the both of us. Happy birthday, dad. I will always, always love you, and miss you forever.

55: Birthday

Image credit

The day of his birthday, I always stressed a little. I wanted everything right: dinner, card, dessert, and family around the table. I grilled steaks, and we ate like kings.

Later that night, I put the sealed envelope into my drawer, next to five unopened birthday and Father’s Day cards.

I really miss my dad.

* * * * *

FFF-55 Vol. LXIV. Tell a story in exactly fifty-five words. Go see G-Man. In honor of my dad, who would have been 69 today.

The Old Tree

Here there once stood a great tree, which sprouted perfect and true. But through years of improper and cruel pruning, misdirection, and abuse, it became misshapen.

Still it grew as beautiful as it could, handsome and proud, though flawed, into the world. There it encountered many storms which, had it remained healthy, would not have affected it so. Thus this tree, as it aged, became gnarled and scarred as a result.

Over time the tree made offspring, and though they were born perfect and true, it knew not how to raise them so. Instead, it began to twist and stunt them in its own image, in the only ways it knew how to grow.

Over many years of storms and disease, the old tree succumbed. His last storm took him down in a sad and cruel assault. He fell silently into the forest. There lay his broken trunk finally open so all could see the beauty that was there, locked within.

And I, his offspring, grow truer and straighter without his shadow, but still sometimes wish for a guide, taller and hardier, as I make my journey toward the sky. I am still gnarled and scarred, but no longer can I blame the old tree--he did his very best. And looking back at the stumps of his past, I realize that he performed miracles of patience, and love, and nurturing, even though he did it with gnarled hands and stunted heart.

And now I will grow as straight and true as I am able. In honor, yes, but also for my own sake, and for the love of my offspring, who started out so perfect and true, but now are beginning to bear the signs of my influence.

Letter to Dad

This was supposed to be a 55, but turned out to be more like a 68 before it was even finished. I decided I didn't want to make it shorter; it deserves full expression.
* * * * *

Dear Dad,

Last night I dreamt we were hectically busy, and supposed to meet you somewhere, but couldn’t. We did our business, and I tried to think of the time, when all was settled, that I’d be able to apologize in person for ditching you. Then, outside the dreamscape, I realized I hadn’t seen you in a long, long time. Then I asked myself why. Then I remembered.

I miss you, Dad.

Love,
Son

Fury From the Sky

At the place where I work, I volunteer to lower the US flag to halfstaff on those days when it's appropriate. Usually, it's to honor a fallen American, especially those from Michigan. Looking back, I've lowered the flag seventeen times since September 11, 2008 for various men and women, young and old, according to the Governor's emailed announcements. I feel a sense of duty to them and their families, and since I'm not serving myself, I do what I can to thank them for their sacrifice.

Today, I lowered it for Army Sergeant Dillon B. Foxx, of Traverse City. Now, I didn't know this young man. It's a coincidence that I have family in Traverse City, and that caught my eye as peculiar. What really got me, however, was his unit: the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment. I'm pretty sure this Army unit is a direct descendent of the one my dad served in. Back then, it was called the 508th Airborne Infantry Regiment. My dad served at Fort Kobbe, in the (Panama) Canal Zone. Over the years, that unit saw changes in mission and location, and was absorbed into the 82nd Airborne Division.

I've been lucky in that I've only known a few people who have died in the Middle East. I've been luckier in that I am able to live my life as I see fit while others defend my right to do so. It might be cheesy of me, but I feel a connection to this particular soldier, this particular sacrifice.

64

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 64 if his lung cancer and chemotherapy hadn't killed him in January. One year ago today, all of us trucked up to the hospital to see him. He was having diet issues and was going through radiation treatments at the time, so he was a pretty bony version of himself, but himself just the same. He crabbed at my mom and talked about how one of the nurses was stealing his pain meds (he turned out to be right though). He was glad to see the kids, though they wore on his patience eventually and asked a lot of questions about his IV and the bag at the end of his bed. We brought a cake, and the nurses had given him a mylar balloon that floated from the head of his hospital bed. I think we sang; I even think we lit a candle for him to blow out, but I can't be certain anymore. I took pictures with my cell phone that are still there. I don't look at them often.

I spend a lot of time wondering how my life now would be different if he was still here: questions I'd ask him, things I'd want his help with, conversations we'd have, what Thanksgiving and Christmas will be like. I hate admitting it, but some things are easier without him, or rather, without the problems that made his life hell. Though I've put many of my thoughts to rest about how he'll spend eternity, and how he's free of his many pains, and just exactly what all this life and death business means, my confusion still lingers. And I am still angry that he was taken away.

At work, I am quiet today. Nobody knows what's on my mind, and though I'd normally share it with a few close buds I have, I'm not interested. I need to mull over this; I need to be in this fog for a while. I need to remember what it's like to think of my dad and worry about him. I need to think of what I'd say to him if we were going over there tonight for dinner, which is what we'd be doing if he'd never gotten sick, or survived.

Today, I am acting like that's what happened, except that he isn't physically here. Only my mom's working, and I'm doing dinner at my house, and rather than having family over, it'll be our normal friends we have over for dinner. I don't really like that, but it's how things turned out. That, and all the immediate family members that I don't live with are inaccessible. So tonight, with whomever is there, we'll eat the famous barbeque pork loin. I don't know if there will be cake, mostly because I don't know if that would make our guests uncomfortable or not. And hopefully, as with me, my dad will be on all our minds, though I'm not getting my hopes up.

Of course, it doesn't really matter anyway; he's enough on my mind today for a whole house full of people.

Dad

I think my dad just came to see me.

I was dreaming. I'd just finished up some subconscious sequence and was standing around (with my coworkers, go figure) talking about it, and he ambled up to the door of whatever building I happened to be inside. Naturally, I know he's gone, awake and asleep, so I rushed outside to see him, confused but ecstatic.

He was led by my son, Brendan, hand in hand. Dad said nothing, but smiled and hugged me, and seemed older than I knew. The feel of his glasses and whiskers on my face was familiar. Then I hugged Brendan, and he said to me, "Daddy, when I'm older, and I ask you [something about visiting Grampa]..." and the rest that followed is lost to memory, but it was his words--the words of this child, my child--that clued me in:

Dad was just stopping by to say hello, to check up on me, and let me know that....everything is okay. That he loves me still, and knows I still love him. That he is at peace, and he is here with us. That all the pain of all those years is no longer a burden; it has been lifted. That the corporeal filters of experience and desire, of unmet needs and deep emotional deficit, are gone.

I love my dad, and I miss him so much. And as awful as I must have sounded to my wife when I woke, wailing like a child for as long as I did, I hope he finds moments, many more moments, like this one throughout my life to stop by again. I know I can never have him back, but if I thought I had even one more such visit to look forward to again, it would be a world of comfort.

SCW

Dads and Kids

This is a difficult week for me.

My first Father's Day after my dad's death wasn't particularly peachy. Yes, it had most of the usual accouterments, not including breakfast in bed (due to 1. my stupid cat scratching at the door over and over in the middle of the night, and 2. my boy coming into the room at 3:30am and puking shortly thereafter), but all things considered it was your normal day of paternal tribute...with one exception: my dad.

I'm still adjusting to not having him around. I miss him. The saddest part about this is, if he'd never gotten sick, if he'd never died, I might have gone this long without seeing or really talking to him anyway, and not really thought much about it. Now that he is gone, I find myself needing him more and more, and realizing that in fact, I always needed him this much, and was always too proud, or too afraid of some reaction, or too busy to let him know it. Or to acknowledge it for myself.

A good friend shared an essay by Steve Martin with me that provided some much needed perspective. Like Steve's, my dad was very critical, angry all the time, and prone to offend any number of surrounding people at any time without warning. I also, at one point, decided I officially hated him, that I wanted him to....not die, but just...be gone from our lives so many times as a young child, so disruptive was his presence in the small world of my mom and us little kids.

However, Steve indicates that the memories of the terrible persisted until a good long time after his father's death, after which point, he "recall[ed] events that seem to contradict [his] memory of him." The same thing is starting to happen to me, but in reverse. Maybe it was my dad's long sickness that started the process of forgetting the terrible, but almost immediately after his death, I internally canonized him, carving out this huge emotional construct by which I could use my memories of him to channel my own life in a direction he'd approve of. Although I can't recall any long list of great things he did for me at this or that age, I do have trouble remembering all the things I didn't like about him, all the things that made it hurt to be his son.

Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's why I did actually write down good and bad in my pre-death posts, because I knew that not only would I forget the upsetting things, but that even those things would become fond memories after his passing. Not fond like finding a Red Rider BB gun under the tree on Christmas morning, but fond like hugging a grouchy old man because you're happy he's your dad, even if he's not always your favorite guy in the world.

The other reason this is a difficult week for me is because in only a few short days I am sending my two wonderful girls home to their families in Germany and Indonesia. Sending an exchange student home is something we've already done once, and it was hard, but he's a boy, and he didn't show his emotions, and I gave him a very manly hug and wished him well, and we watched him walk toward security until Sophia ran to him and hugged him again, and then we all cried as if in a movie. But this time will be different, because girls are...well, different. I bonded with Santos in many ways, and I still consider him mijo, but the bond between man and daughter is a strange, mysterious, and beautiful thing. I do not really understand it, Sophia being only five so far, but I know its effects fully. And now I know them triple fold. And in just a few days, two of my girls will go off into the world. Although (yes, I know) they're going back to a family and culture and world they're far more familiar with than this one we've shared with them, it is nevertheless a family and culture and world without US, and they leave our home without THEM, and that loss will be felt a very long time. Fortunately, the joy we have had while they have been here will last even longer, as we have found with Santos, and knowing the three of them are out there in the world, little pieces of us in them, and them in us, makes that joy last forever.

Eulogy

For my dad. November 20, 1944 - January 31, 2008

* * * * *

My dad, Mike Simoni, was many things to many people. He was, in fact, more things than I ever realized during our time together. Today I'd like to tell you some of the things he was to me, and maybe to you, too.

My dad was a generous man. "Give you the shirt off his back" doesn't quite cover it, but "give you the couch from his living room" might come close. He'd buy things for himself only to give them away. Whether you were family, a neighbor, a friend, or a stranger in need, no matter how much or little he had, he would go out of his way to provide for any need he perceived.

My dad was a dreamer. I remember walking to the store with him for lottery tickets, his brief stint with the numbers prediction book s, and all the things he said he'd do when he won "the big one." One of his dreams come true was the property he finally bought up north, where we spent not nearly enough weekends together. Another were the salmon fishing trips he started taking with his buddies from work on the Benzie River. On his doctor's advice, he took his last one in October, despite his cancer diagnosis, then only days old. My dad was a dreamer right to the end: when he first began treatment, he talked about his recovery, about buying a dog and a Cadillac and driving to Arizona.

My dad never lost his sense of wonder. At a very young age, he and my sister and I would sit and watch Nova and Carl Sagan on PBS, and though I was small, probably only a toddler at the time, his awe and mine were equal. The last time I heard the word 'wildebeest' I was probably in his lap. As an outdoorsman, he was always mindful of the beauty around him. He loved and respected nature, and had a connection with the Earth I always admired.

My dad was not an artist, but he had an eye and an ear for the beautiful. He was a gifted gardener, as any of his neighbors can attest to. Despite his almost crippling practicality, he never failed to notice a sunset, the smell or warmth of a campfire, the sound of a salmon jumping in the river, or the beauty of architecture.

My dad was a patriot. He joined the Army at 17 and served six years as a paratrooper, jungle expert, and jump master in the 508th Airborne Infantry Regiment at Fort Kobbe, Panama, in what was then called the Canal Zone. His love of country didn't end with his service, though. He proudly flew his American flag even at the campgrounds, and was only slightly less tolerant than myself when someone displayed it improperly.

My dad was a blue-collar union man. At an early age I learned the meaning of solidarity, and never forgot that organized labor pulled our family through some very hard times. Dad knew the value of hard work, and the worth of an earned dollar. He loathed apathy.

My dad had an ironclad sense of justice. He knew what he thought was right, and never wavered. He stuck to his guns, and his right to bear them. Anyone who was brave enough to debate the man on anything immediately gained the whole family's respect. Sometimes we called him stubborn, but to imagine any of his opinions rooted in spite would fail to acknowledge the solidity of the beliefs he based them on.

My dad was candid to a fault, he said what was on his mind whether you wanted to hear it or know it or not. Sometimes he was rude; sometimes it was on accident, other times not. But no matter what he criticized, it was never malicious. Even when the words hurt, and even when they were wrong, they were always spoken out of a genuine intent to do right and express truth.

Maybe you knew this man I'm talking about. Maybe you recognize some of the things he was.
Maybe you've seen them in yourself.

For my part, I see my dad and all the things he was in me, and in my brother and sister.

I see my dad in the way my sister looks at someone who hurts children. I see him in the way she pursues her own happiness, sometimes even at the expense of her well-being. I see him in her convictions and the way she carries herself despite the odds against her every day.

I see my dad in my brother's committment to excellence, and satisfaction at a job well done. I see him in Joe's tireless pace, his sense of duty, and his love of using the strength of both body and mind to create a beautiful and useful thing.

I see my dad in myself in the way I feel after a day's work in the garden. I see him in my own simple satisfaction at a fire well built and shared with friends. I see him in the way I reprimand myself after a thoughtless unkind word. I see him in way I worry for my children when I reflect upon my own faults.

My dad was not what we usually would call a great man, but he had as great a heart as any hero. He was a man who was always hurting, physically and emotionally, but the pain he felt through life could never squelch his character. Though he suffered an epic betrayal that ultimately destroyed his innocence, his sense of goodness and morality held fast. No matter what he did in life, he gave it his all, and no matter what he loved, he loved fiercely and without refrain.

My dad was a good man: a better man than I knew, and a better man than he allowed himself to believe.

Although my dad is gone, taken from us to a better place, his laughter and his smile are his legacy. His love knew no distinction of family or friend. Let each of us carry him in our hearts, remembering what he was, and what he continues to be for everyone he knew.

I love you, Dad, and I will miss you forever and ever.

Questions

What do you say to a dying man?

What do you say, indeed, to the man who raised you, as he lay helpless in a hospital bed, only able to moan and huff? Do you recount the years of lost childhood? The memories of violent nights? The chair broken on mom's back, or the toy record player thrown down the basement stairs because my sister and I argued over it? The fight over the silk screened jean jacket when I was 17? No, there's no time for anger or bitterness.

Are you supposed to keep it light, sticking only to the topic of what the kids are doing? Are you supposed to reaffirm the promises made two months ago, that we will go fishing together this summer, and work on that fence? Are you supposed to make up for lost time, years upon years of not talking, even over mundane topics? Are you supposed to lay the sap on as thick as it will go? No, this is not a time for falseness.

Are you supposed to take out your shopping list of emotional needs and guilts, unloading each one to a man who cannot respond, and wouldn't know what to say if he could, for the sake of clearing the air? Are you supposed to be serious and dark and of formidable emotional stamina as you discuss the deep meanings of your relationship even as it comes to an untimely end? No, this is not a time for business.

Are you supposed to...?

How many of these questions I've run though my mind in the last 24 hours I'll never know. And more are coming. I don't have any answers to any of them. My conclusions are guesses, arrived at from a combination of gut feeling and TV drama. The conversations I am having with my dad are one way, and I'm not much of a talker. There are almost 35 years of baggage to mull over between us. Both of us are regretful of what we've ignored, and there's no time to remedy any of it, except for me to say that I enjoyed spending time with him this summer, and know he enjoyed it, too.

I spent--we all spent--every visit to my parents' house dreading the leaving moment, watching the time bomb in the easy chair tick tick tick with every red-white-and-blue can to his inevitable breaking point. We even had a signal when the invisible line had been crossed, when the point of no return had been breached, when nothing we said or did or told the kids would change his reactions. We knew then we had only so long to get out of the house before the next time Brendan screamed or Sophia played the piano over the TV audio he'd snap. This is how we always handled things, and when Dad got confused or mad or threw a fit over it we just rolled our eyes and talked about him later at sibling get-togethers.

So now, what do say to this man, after years of circling the threatening fire, daring not to take a burning branch and call it what it was? Sure, I did love him all along, and I learned to accept him the way he was, and (eventually) live a healthy life despite his unhealthy influence. In the last year, I made significantly more effort to get to know him, to not just avoid or work around his addiction and anger, but to stand stalwart as it passed through and around me, in hopes of getting a glimpse of its originator. I am thankful that I made the decision to do this, not because he was dying (even though he was at the time, and none of us knew it), but because it was necessary to finally create a real bond with my father, if not between father and son, then between men. I am both thankful and bitter, because I intended the effort, 100%, to be the beginning of some healing years, not as a requiem to a life of misunderstanding this man who did everything he knew how as best he could, but still came off as a failed and abusive parent.

I am mad as hell that this chance has been taken away from me.

Maybe that's what I need to say, for starters at least.

hours

It is only a matter of days now, dozens or perhaps hundreds of hours, before my dad succumbs to his cancer. I am faced--all of us, I think, are faced--with the prospect of what to do with those hours.

This is nothing like I imagined it. Early on, I thought the chance of recovery was slim, but still believable. I made real efforts to maximing the value of our time together, but real life--work, kids, marriage, money, friends, et cetera--asserted their hold over my life as usual. Dad was in and out of the hospital. Each time, he'd recover from whatever condition sent him there within a few days. Or recover enough that he felt "100% better" by the time he left. But when he went again, it was always for something a little more dire. During one visit, his last before being admitted to ICU a week or two later, he walked around the floor with me, slowly but surely, and we talked. Having never really talked to him like that for longer than a handful of sober minutes, it was awkward, and we both knew it, but each of made a noble effort. It was embarrassing when he'd do things like get bossy with the desk nurses, or call the very cute one "honey," but that's Dad, and I was just along for the walk, and the thought that, despite my embarrassment, if any one of them thought badly of my dad for it, they could go to hell.

This is how I thought it would be until the end. My belligerent old dad, being his belligerent old self until, well, he died. But this wasn't the reality of it at all. The truth of it became a slow decline into an over-medicated state of mindlessness. When he came home from ICU, he could barely speak. His responses to comments and questions were only a few words each. Sometimes he'd start to say something, but never finish the first word. Because he couldn't speak above a loud whisper, even these fleeing thoughts were meaningless by the time I could ask, "What did you say, Dad?"

Now, a scant week after his return home, he is barely aware of his surroundings. His body is destroyed, both due to his disease and its treatment, and his mind is deprived in the name of comfort. I cannot say goodbye to this man. I cannot tell him, during his final hours, what he meant to me. I cannot express my fears and be comforted, or comfort him of any fears he may express to me. All I can do now is hold his hand ask, "Are you warm enough, Dad?" and hope he can give me an answer.

I pray for some clarity. I pray for peace. I pray for these for both he and I, and everyone else dealing with this reality. I will hope for a moment of connection before he is gone forever when he will know what is in my heart, that he may take it with him when he goes. What I will say or do in that moment, should it come, is as much a mystery to me now as what I will do with my grief when it comes, but I pray for it just the same.

And despite all else, I will say goodbye, I will tell him what he meant to me, and I will comfort fears, both his any my own, in the knowledge that no matter what, he's my dad, and that will never, ever change.

Eleven Tuesdays, part 3

This Tuesday, 4 December 2007, my dad came home from the hospital. As of a late last week, he was able to get out bed and sit in a chair to watch TV, a near-miracle compared to previous weeks. I haven't been to see him yet, but he sounds good on the phone. It was nice to hear him talk about simply wanting to take a bath and go to bed. He has no more IV's and can wear his own clothes (technically, he never quit that--the man never once wore a hospital gown and insisted to be allowed to wear his own pajamas the entire hospital stay). I hope, maybe 99% in vain, that his home life now is spent so simply, taking in small pleasures. He will find out the status of his tumors in the coming days or weeks, and hopefully keep himself as healthy as he can. I sincerely fear, and disgustedly expect, to find him sitting in his chair when we visit, the smell of smoke still lingering and a red and white can in his hand.

Maybe I'm not giving the man the benefit of the doubt, or I'm underestimating any new appreciation of life he may have gained, or maybe I'm just being a selfish jerk, but a huge (HUGE) part of this whole ordeal for me has been the fact that, during my dad's hospital stay, he did not have any opportunity (Thanksgiving aside) to engage in his usual addictive behavior, i.e., smoking and drinking.

I do not think he has been clean this long my entire life. I believe it was probably scary: he probably had no idea who he was unaffected by his vices. I know I didn't. During my visits and conversations with him, however, I liked that person very much. He spoke of hope and sometimes faith. He talked evenly, even if it was sternly, without that unpredictable time-bomb of rage due to blow at any moment due to a disagreeable word or opinion. He shared himself with me in ways I cannot ever remember him doing, and finally accepted me as-is when I shared myself. I've always known my dad is a good man with a giving heart and soul and a sharp, critical mind, but I've only seen shadows of it beneath the surface of that smoky amber pool he lives in. During the last 11 weeks, I've met and gotten to know the man I always wanted to be my father. I am so desperately, vehemently afraid of who I will meet when I cross my parents' doorstep, that the man I grew up with will have once again taken over the man I met so recently. But I suppose all these things are lessons in acceptance, and I, of all people, cannot hold anyone's Evil Twin against him.

What the future holds for my family is beyond my understanding, something I am thankful not to have to carry the burden of. I will keep hoping, praying, and learning both about myself and my dad, whomever he may be, and loving him no matter what. I am not finished with any of the feelings, reactions, confusion, and sometimes turmoil I've experienced the last few months, but I do hope they make me a stronger, wiser, better person, and that I can make the most of each moment as a result.

Eleven Tuesdays, part 2

It was on another Tuesday, 6 November 2007, when my dad was admitted to the hospital because he wasn't eating or staying hydrated.

What we'd learned was that his cancer was stage IV, inoperable, and had spread to both lymph nodes, both adrenal glands, and his left hip. There were three tumors in his lung and three tumors on his femur which were interfering with the ball joint and making most movement involving legs very painful. They also found a blood clot in his lung which posed a more fatal, immediate danger than the actual cancer.

He was scheduled for radiation therapy and given morphine for pain, mostly due to his hip. He was still smoking early on. Over time, he went from a well-intentioned scaling back of his usual activities (smokes and Budweiser all day), to a few beers with his meds to help him sleep, to not being able to smell even an open bottle of wine without getting sick and puking up what little he'd eaten that day. His mood was deteriorating, and as his emotional state declined he became downright hateful to my mom. He would barely eat because it hurt to swallow. I suspect there was an huge amount of self-anger and self-pity in him, which is certainly expected for someone who learns he could be dead soon (and it's his own damn fault), but per his nature he hid all that behind an increasingly vitrolic wall of non-emotion.

It was partly this which led my dad to his hospital admission. He had driven himself to his radiation treatment when the doctor basically told him he had to go to the hospital and stabilize. An ambulance took him. I left work early to pick up my mom so she could bring his truck home. When I walked into the room, my father, a 62 year old man who'd inspired such fear and violence in me, broke down and reached for me as a child would.

I don't know what happened then. I cannot name the emotional or spiritual mechanism that caused it, but my heart solidified. I hugged my dad without thinking, sat with him and held his hand, asked him questions that allowed him to tell me things he needed to get out, and supported his crotchety decisions even when he raised hell with the nurses over his blood thinner. This was not a reaction like the one I experienced while driving to Benzonia, a patronizing reaction due only to my own fear and selfishness, this was 100% heart and soul love like I'd never felt it for my dad, like it was a natural thing I'd been doing my whole life, possibly even longer.

I visited or called my dad almost every day to ask about his meds, his treatments, how much he was eating and how he was resting. Over time, all the staff of his floor/section learned what I'd learned about my dad: that no matter how sick he is he's still a jerk when he doesn't get his way. My dad spent his 63rd birthday in the hospital, and when we took the kids to see him he was such an ass to my mom I wanted to slap him; I didn't care that he'd done 14 chemo treatments in ten days. He also spent Thanksgiving in the hospital, though he was allowed to come home for a few hours, during which time I visited with my wife and sister, and again he treated my mom so abusively I wondered why she bothered taking care of this man, dying or not.

After his return to the hospital, his blood pressure would not stabilize and he got an infection. The chemotherapy was killing him by this time and we all began to wonder if dad was going to ever make it out of the hospital. I could not visit my dad because they were requiring gloves and masks in the room, and I'd caught a cold. All of this, as well as a childish spat with my sister over the Thanksgiving weekend, put me into a spin I'm only beginning to recover from. But again, I'm being selfish.

Eleven Tuesdays, part 1

I know it was a Tuesday, but for some reason the date 26 September 2007, a Wednesday, sticks in my head. It doesn't matter which is right. That's the day I found out my dad has non-small cell lung cancer.

The emotions I felt that and the days immediately following were difficult to identify. There were pain and fear, to be sure, also other less son-like or familial feelings. There was anger (my dad's been smoking since his early teens and everyone, inlcuding him, knows full well the cause of his disease), admiration (the way my dad handled the news and discussion about his disease, treatment, future, etc., was so uncharacteristic of our past relationship it was actually a refreshing change), even relief (not related to the change in relationship, but something much darker and more selfish).

This news came early in the week preceding the annual salmon fishing trip with my dad (and occasionally my brother) in Benzonia. It was a sombre thing, preparing for this trip. Normally I'd be reserved and closed, ready to defend against any criticism or return any generic lashing out due to uncooperative hardware, physics, weather, etc., in kind. I typically become a different man when I'm with my dad out of habit and necessity. Due to the grave news of the week, however, this didn't happen. I was open and ready to help no matter how filthy the language or energy was that happened to be thrown my general direction. I was making an effort to remember that this man is my dying father, and it was damn near pathetic. I believed that this may be our last fishing trip together. It still may be.

Truth be told, it was refreshing and relieving to unchain myself from reactions to my father's life of ire. What I discovered was a fear beneath it, a very childlike fear. In my eagerness to spend such precious last weekends with him, I wanted to talk to him, to ask questions and hear answers, to learn who this man was who had raised me, or tried to as best he could. I made a very dramatic effort at discovery worthy of any Hollywood performance.

But I discovered something else, too. As we drove, despite my dad's frailty and sickness, he was still smoking at least one cigarette per hour (actually, a great improvement for him) and carelessly spewing his negative talk and occasional prejudices like nothing had changed. I was surprised, I was saddened. I was sobered.

What I'd discovered was that no matter how sick my dad gets, he is still the man I've known my whole life. He is still a mean old fucker when he wants to be. The news of the disease hadn't changed him the way it had changed me, and this was both disappointing (selfishness) and reassuring (stability).

Throughout the fishing weekend, his crotchetiness resurfaced in new expressions of father-son interaction. He practically called the National Guard when I failed to return from going to get food. He thought I meant McDonald's down the street when I'd actually gone to a local bar for a burger and beer, then scouting out the local bike trail. While visiting with his friends at another campsite the next night, we both had drinks, but he had the gall to criticize me for going back to party after I'd carried his drunk ass back to our camper. More than once, I had to remind him that I'm a grown man. By the time we drove home, I was content to read my book and settle for intermittent conversation between long bouts of silence.

So finally, I discovered something else: I must love my dad the way he is, no matter what. Whether he's sick or healthy, a saint or an asshole, he is who he is, and he's also my dad. True, he may be dying, and I must not waste any time, but to change who I am as a result of his cancer, or try to change who I think he is, would be to cheapen the relationship we've slowly built as grown men over the last handful of years.

I still do not know that much more about my father. I never got the stories about his Army days, or the girl in Panama he occasionally talks about, or the places he's lived, or his history with him mom and sister, or why he hasn't spoken to his own father in 30+ years, or the jobs he's had. But I do know much more about myself, and am much more accepting of who my dad is and what I do have with him. And for today, that will be enough.