In Loving Memory of...

So that no one feels mislead, I guess I need to make it clear that this isn’t some great piece of literature. It's not an answer to any research question. It’s just something I wanted to write in remembrance of someone I love very much.

Today is the fifth anniversary of my father’s death and I’m feeling a little, oh, I don’t know. Weird, I guess. It’s been that way for most of August. Like I’m in a time warp or something. Memories I’ve tried to ignore just seem to be coming at me, feeling much as they did then five years ago.

That’s a long time. On one hand it feels like forever. Then again, it feels like it can’t possibly be that long since I’ve spoken with my dad.

I try not to dwell on it too much because, when I do, I find that I am on the verge of tears. And I have to say that whoever said crying makes you feel better was nuts! All crying has ever done for me is bring on exhaustion and a headache.

But on this anniversary I find my thoughts turning to those final thirteen months and thinking about things I try not to think about most of the time. Like how terrified he was. How angry he was. How much he didn’t want to die.

I also think about how brave he was, too.

Brave enough that he put his family ahead of himself on many, many occasions. With everything he was going through, his top priority was that those he loved not worry or be anymore afraid than necessary.

And so Dad became an expert liar.

The distance between the state he lived in, and Michigan, was too great to allow many visits during that time. And so we relied heavily on the telephone, which Dad never had a great love for. Still, it was the only real way we could stay in touch for the eighteen years he lived there and he eventually got used to it.

It became even more important after the cancer diagnosis.

Over the phone Dad was just dandy. He felt great, was eating good and feeling better. His voice was strong and cheerful, and anyone would think that he had nothing more than a common cold.
Those infrequent visits, however, told the truth.

How the chemotherapy treatments were causing him to waste away to a shadow of the man he’d always been, making him look so frail it broke my heart and made me feel more helpless than I’d ever felt in my life.

But Dad refused to let go of the charade, and so we would pretend right along with him. That everything would be fine when all of us knew that, without some kind of miracle, it wouldn’t be. And so we made the most of every opportunity. Talking about things that made him laugh, about things that might help him forget, for a few minutes, that our time was running out.

About a month before he died, my siblings and I headed south for a final visit with him. A visit spent frying fish he’d caught at his lake property up by Mount Pleasant earlier in the year. And grilling steaks. Basically it was one big food-fest. Because it was important to him to cook for his kids one last time.

It was also his first introduction to the benefits of ear candles. At some point during his treatments, he‘d lost the hearing in his right ear, and it really bugged him. I was scared when he convinced me to use a couple of them on him. Afraid that a spark might burn him, or that the candle itself might cause him more pain. But he thought it was pretty cool, even though it didn’t help the hearing problem a bit.

We tried to make that weekend the best we’d ever spent together. To make it as normal as we could, while trying to get our fill of being with him. Something that was utterly impossible.
When it came time to leave, we kept right on pretending that everything was okay, hugging him goodbye, like it wasn’t going to be for the last time. And then craning our necks and waving, as he stood in his driveway watching us drive away.

Wow.

Typing that last bit out was a lot harder than I thought it would be. But then it’s never been easy to remember that last picture I have of Dad while he was still alive. I’ve always wished that I’d jumped out of my brother’s car at the first stop sign and run back to stay with him until it was over. I think we all felt that way.

Leaving him that day was one of the most horrible experience of our lives. We all knew that the next time we’d all be together again would be at his funeral.

I hate these memories. And yet I wouldn’t want to lose them, even if I could. Because as much as it hurts to remember the heartbreaking moments, there are also the special moments. When you know there isn’t much time, you tend to appreciate every one of them.

Was my dad perfect? Not even close. Like every human being on the planet, he had faults and flaws. Some of them glaring, some of them that weren’t shortcomings at all. Except in his mind. He set a pretty high standard for himself. And he held himself to it, right up until the end.

I don’t think I’ll ever like Labor Day weekend again. I know what I was doing five years ago today. I know what I was doing five years ago tomorrow. I’ll remember vividly the phone call I got five years ago this coming Sunday morning, because he died so late on August 30th, that my step-mother waited to let us know. There really wasn’t anything we could do, I guess.

And I know what I did on Labor Day five years ago.

I pulled in to the driveway and ‘saw’ my dad standing there. Like he’d been standing there when my brothers and sister and I drove away just weeks before.

I guess I’ll always see him standing there.