I have a friend named Mike in my memoir writing group. He’s from Oswego, New York and goes back there every summer. He’s probably there now. When he’s in Florida, we sit near each other in class and share a similar outlook on life. He’s ten years younger than me but, like me, is a former educator. One day after one of us read something we’d written, we discovered our fathers had died just a week apart in June 1999.
His dad, like mine, struggled toward the end, and we both wrote about how their lives and passing affected us. Sometimes we’d quietly talk in class about the parallels in our lives. He enjoys my writing, and I enjoy his.
A few weeks ago, I published a blog inviting readers to send me something if they wanted me to post it. Mike was the only one who took me up on the offer. This is what he wrote, and today’s the day I’m sharing it.
My dad passed away on a Father’s Day, so it’s always been a bittersweet holiday for me. The last time I saw him alive, and spoke to him, was “Father’s Day Eve,” 1999. During his illness, Dad was insistent that he not be put into the hospital or a long-term- care facility as his health declined. He wanted to die at home. My brother and I honored his wishes, and with the help of our wives, we provided round-the-clock care at his West Van Buren Street home.
Towards the end, he was thin and frail—not the robust former star baseball player of the 1940s, and certainly not the strong, barrel-chested dad who taught me how to throw a curveball in the 1960s. On that final Saturday afternoon just before Father’s Day in ‘99, Dad’s doctor stopped by the house on his way to an outing at Breitbeck Park. He was alarmed that dad had declined so rapidly in just the week since his previous appointment, and he candidly told me, “It won’t be long now.”
What perplexed me about that prognosis was that, though he was gaunt and weak from the multiple myeloma that he had battled for a couple years, he wasn’t totally bed-ridden, and he was still able to carry on limited, coherent conversations.
On that final full day of his life, I was his son/companion/caregiver. The plan was for me to stay during the day, fix his dinner (that he probably wouldn’t eat), then my brother would take the night shift. For my entire life, dad insisted that dinner be on the table at 5:00 p.m., so on that Saturday, I helped dad out of his chair, and ever-so-slowly started the 14-step trek from the living room towards the kitchen. When dad was healthy, that trip would’ve taken mere seconds. That evening it was more like a ten-minute journey. We were about halfway there, with me supporting him every shuffling-step along the way, when his legs gave out completely. Unable to keep him upright, I gently set him down in a sitting position on the floor. As I did, the man who had been a respected pillar of the community; the kind of civil servant that they name baseball fields and buildings after, sat helpless and frustrated on his dining room floor. At that point, he looked up at me, as I felt equally helpless and frustrated, and said, “Now look what you did!”
I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I also knew that it was the cancer and the morphine talking, but what I didn’t know at the time, was that those five words, “Now look what you did!” were the last words he would ever say to me.
Fast forward to a Sunday dinner last month at my home. Nowadays, when our immediate family assembles for such occasions, we number sixteen—six of whom are grandkids under the age of six. To say these gatherings are chaotic—especially at dinner time—is an understatement. The six chairs around the table are occupied by infants, toddlers in booster seats, and a pair of silly five-year-olds. Our four adult children and their significant others generally hover over the kids, fixing plates, cutting food, filling sippy-cups, wiping up spills, and refereeing minor skirmishes—all while they’re trying to grab a bite to eat themselves. Throw in a noise level that’s comparable to a stadium of screaming football fans, and well, you get the picture.
So, at this recent dinner, as my wife was scurrying to get one of the little ones something, and I was heading in the opposite direction, we bumped into each other. I told her to turn around and look towards the table where sixteen people, OUR sixteen people, were shoulder-to-shoulder—eating, and talking, and laughing.
She said, “What am looking at?”
I smiled and said, “Now look what we did!”
She understood.
So, this isn’t just a melancholy Father’s Day story. It’s one that reminded me of the circle of life. How words spoken in the worst of times can be remembered and celebrated in the best of times, even two generations later.
Happy belated Father’s Day to my dad in heaven, and to yours, wherever he may be.
Mike shared this story with his readers on Father’s Day earlier this year. Lately, I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot and mentioned him in my last two posts. Maybe it’s synchronicity showing up in my life again, or maybe our dads are giving me a little nudge but today feels like the right day to share it. Handle it with care.