Dad

I don’t recall my father ever missing a day of work due to illness. I can’t produce a mental image of him lying in bed during the afternoon or popping prescription medications. Perhaps this resistance to illness furthered my perception that he was so much more than your average mortal man.

To my mother, every situation was a mine-field of possible disaster. She lived her life in a state of constant frenzy and panic. My father…we sometimes referred to him as “The Buddha.” He could calmly filter out the chaos that traveled hand-in-hand with Mom and radiate an air of serenity and understanding. It’s a trait I wish I had inherited.

It was late summer, 1999 and my father was experiencing severe pain in one of his hips. He’d just turned 74. Finding himself unable to get out of the bed, my mother called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Memories of a scare five or six years earlier involving early signs of prostate cancer concerned us. However, years had passed since the surgery and hormone treatments and Dad had experienced no other symptoms.

The hospital discovered a tumor on his hip. Radiation was prescribed to reduce the tumor and eliminate the pain. The treatments successfully reduced the discomfort almost immediately, much to the relief of all concerned. But Dad was tired all the time. He took long naps. As time went on, my mother reported him sleeping as many as 20 hours a day. The doctors assured her that radiation was tiring to the body and that his unusual exhaustion was a temporary condition.

The radiation treatments finally concluded and my father’s mobility returned to normal. His lethargy, however, continued. At the next doctor’s visit, my mother insisted that it couldn’t be normal. She was right. The doctor told her that the cancer was in Dad’s bones and spreading rapidly.

When I was growing up, my father worked as a high-level executive with a commercial construction firm, headquartered in New York City. He wore business suits, attended cocktail parties and drank Manhattans. The calm, controlled image that served as a buffer to my mother’s constant state of panic, also served him well in a business environment. He was an excellent negotiator and skilled at resolving issues and disagreements.

Dad was not effusively affectionate. I never doubted his love for me, but he never seemed comfortable with verbally expressing those feelings. I recognized this discomfort from an early age. Maybe it was so evident to me because I am so different, being highly expressive and openly affectionate. Not wanting to offend his sensitivities, I took to buying him sappy sweet cards for birthdays and Father’s Day. It was my chance to openly say, “I love you.” (With a little help from Hallmark.)

It was Columbus Day weekend when I got the call from my mother. She tried to paint an unrealistically optimistic picture. Hospice was a big help. Hospice is only assigned to patients expected to live less than six months.

My home was over 1,200 miles from my parents’ house, but I traveled there as frequently as I could over the next four months. My Dad’s calm serenity only occasionally wavered, despite the challenge of awakening each day weaker and closer to death. He began to lose the ability to remember simple words. Once a master at negotiating skills, he found it a struggle to communicate simple thoughts. Dementia might have been a blessing, keeping him from being aware of his newfound disability, but he was completely aware of what was happening to him. The inability to sufficiently communicate his thoughts was far more difficult for him to accept than his failing mobility. It was heart-breaking to witness.

He died at home in February of 2000. Mom said that he had wanted to see the calendar turn over; I’m glad he made it. I was there, holding his hand when he died. I’d arrived at the house only 15 minutes earlier. I don’t know if he was aware of my presence. He was never conscious during that last visit. I’ll forever regret having not taken an earlier flight. I wanted to drop the kids off at school first. In retrospect, would it really have mattered if they had not gone to school at all that day?

I spent the next year bitter, depressed and angry. I stopped going to church. God had betrayed me. I felt no desire to worship. I stopped caring about a lot of things.

Five years have past. With time and healing, I’ve come to view those final months of Dad’s life as a blessing. Had he died suddenly, so much would have gone unsaid. Knowing one’s time is limited breaks down the need to exhibit a strong, dignified persona. Dad freely expressed his feelings during those months. He told me he loved me. When it began to seem like each visit could be the last, he told me upon my departure that he’d never forget the time we’d spent together during the previous days. (That was excruciating. Not only did it emphasize the finality, but the truth was that he was very likely to forget, as the cancer had begun to invade his brain.) My fondest memory is watching an episode of “60 Minutes” with him one night. The episode was unremarkable, but my father held my hand for the entire hour. Dad was not a hand-holder.

The experience was, without question, the most excruciating and life-altering of my life. Still, I wouldn’t trade the pain for those treasured memories.

I love you, Dad.