Father’s Day, 1999

My mother woke me up and told me to get dressed, get ready right away, and come downstairs. There was something wrong with Dad at the hospital.

The night before, my parents had gone to the driving range to hit some balls. I didn’t recall the last time they ever did that because my father’s back problems prevented him from enjoying golf ever since I could remember. But he loved to coach mom in all things athletic, once quite an athlete himself, and so they went. I declined an invitation to join them, even if it meant the summertime treat of soft ice cream swirled high above a regular old cone. Dad always got the extra large when we went. He’d count down the days until our favorite summer place opened, and we’d go on beautiful summer evenings at dusk, sit at sticky picnic tables, and chat. Our conversations changed over time, but even in the awkward adolescent moments it was still the sweetest of small adventures for me. Dad loved the ice cream. He’d eat it all so effortlessly (as my husband now does). He seemed so REAL when he ate soft ice cream like that, surrounded by regular families with toddlers covered in sprinkles. Toddlers like I now have, like I now take to the ice cream stand.

Sometime between 10 and 11 pm my mother called me from the hospital that night. She told me that Dad had gotten short of breath at the driving range and she had insisted that he go to the ER. My father never took very good care of his health. Okay, that’s an understatement. I am talking about a man who smoked, drank, never exercised (bad, bad back), and pulled out his own tooth one night with the help of a household tool and a bottle of scotch instead of going to the dentist (like everyone else in the world would have done.)

My father was like no one else in the world. I do not exaggerate because he was my dad and I loved him so. He spoke, people listened. He was all and everything and more. Period.

The doctors had decided to keep him overnight for observation. It didn’t appear that there was anything serious going on. My mother would get him settled in a room and be home soon. Family BBQ planned for Father’s Day on Sunday; we should be able to pick him up in the morning.

She’s told me, my mother, on more than one occasion about how she left him in the hospital room that night. Apparently my mother had a few “choice words” for the pleasure he was taking in watching Howard Stern on the tv. She left and came home and went to sleep and woke up and our world changed forever.

I get the same feeling in my stomach now as I did then when I remember hearing the words, “Yes, it’s okay. Then put them on the phone…YES! I authorize you to take extraordinary measures. Yes, yes…. yes!”

[My brain: What does that mean? My GOD!]

Dad had an x-ray. He sat up. He couldn’t breathe. He went into cardiac arrest. They did not know why.

We got in the car. Why wasn’t she driving faster? It was taking forever to get there. There were no words to say, or even to think really. It took forever to park. It took forever to walk inside, to find an elevator, to ride the elevator, to spill out onto the hospital floor and into my future without a father.

We announced ourselves to the first person we saw. Yes, the person said, right this way. We were brought to a room. We were met by a priest. And I remember having no capacity to understand anything at all. “Why are you here?” I asked. He said many things that made no sense to me at all. “But, WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

In many ways I cannot believe that I am telling this story here. I thought that this day would come and I would commemorate my Dad. I told Jen, “I want to keep it short. You know, people don’t want to read a post that goes on forever.” I thought I would talk about all of the amazing things that my father gave me, and the amazing man that he was, and how he lives inside of us all – his children, and even the grandchildren that never had a chance to know him. But I feel compelled to tell the story. It hangs inside of me, like an old dress that no longer fits but I can’t manage to throw away.

My grandmother arrived at the hospital. We were in some sort of conference room or family room. Away from nearby patients who would have seen the pain in just the motion of my hand or of my eyes. They had called in the specialists. They called them in from home. A doctor in jeans came to speak with us. He left. I insisted on seeing my father. I don’t know if they asked. I don’t know how it happened. But we walked down the hall to the room where they worked to save my father’s life. My mother, my grandmother and me. They pulled back the curtain and there was an extraordinary number of people working to take extraordinary measures to save my father’s life. His chest was cracked open. They were shocking his heart. His body jolted. And I crumbled. I crumbled to the floor, and I crumble now as I close my eyes and see everything.

I don’t know how my mother and my sister will feel as they read this. But I need to write it. I need to make it real again. Many years have passed since that day. And on many of these anniversaries I have been celebrating Father’s Day with my own little family. One child, then two, now three. My husband is a lucky, lucky man. I have not allowed myself to think of the anniversary of my father’s death as any different than any other day when I have thought of him, and missed him. But on this anniversary it is different. Ten years. You can’t deny the magnitude of ten years gone from my life. Ten years and three beautiful children later. The first of whom is the embodiment of this man that I revered, and still revere. The day that Jamis came into this world I called my mother and said, “He has red hair. He looks just like Dad.” I cried then, and I cry now. Deeply, and without restraint.

We went back to the family room. Small minutes later a nurse approached. They stopped compressions. He was gone.

It was a long time later that I realized he was gone before we ever got there. They kept at it for us.

We walked back to his room a second time. My father was covered, though tubes stuck out everywhere. I held my mother as she cried. My grandmother stood behind us. I wanted so much to look at his face. I wish today that I had. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t brave enough. I held my mother and I stared at my father’s hand. The lower part of his arm. I could not go any further. I remember the color of the hair. It was the same color as Jamis’s is now.

I called my brother from the hospital. I tried to reach my sister but she was out. It was hours later when she finally got back to us. I looked into the priest’s eyes and asked him a question. A very important question that, until this day, I have always remembered. That detail has now floated away. I believe it went something like, “Do you believe in a heaven?” or “Do you think that my father is safe now?” It makes me so mad that I can’t remember the words. I do, however, remember the perplexed look on the priest’s face. And how he spewed a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo.

We left. We went home. Things happened. People called. We called people. And then night came. We went to our own rooms. My mother and I in a big, old house. Alone in our rooms. Round about 4 am or so I walked down the hall and got in bed with her. Neither of us had slept. We laid together. Silently? I don’t know. We spoke? I don’t know. And then we turned on the tv and watched something like I Love Lucy.

When light dawned, we rose. We planned things. We had a wake. A man walked up to me as I smoked a cigarette in front of the funeral home. He said, “I saw the obituary in the paper. I met your father in a bar. I never talked to him again but I remembered his name. He was…” My father had made such an impression in one conversation at a bar that a man appeared to pay his respects. Because that’s who he was, my dad. He talked, people listened. Sure, sometimes it was infuriating, but I’d give anything to have it back.

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My father’s favorite song was” Hey, Jude.”He couldn’t sing for shit but walked around the house singing “Hey, Jude,” and “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow,” from Annie, and “Mr. Bluebird’s on your shoulder…”

He told me that Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel were the best songwriters of all time.

He once slipped a note under my door that said “I’m sorry I’m so long-winded.”

His name was John. I could about write him forever. But I won’t. I’ve told as much as I can right now. I had no idea what would come out when I sat down to do this. But I’m leaving it all in. All of it. The words AND the tears.