Requiem for my father

12.25.07

When I was a little girl, my daddy was a fireman.  I felt so proud that my daddy had such an important job.  Other kids were in awe of firefighters, and trucks, and hats, and fire stations – and I was a kid who visited the firehouse regularly.  My dad showed me all the equipment, let me check out the inside of the truck, and pointed way, way, way up in the hose closet so I could see the hoses hanging to dry.  They looked like huge jungle pythons to me.  I think he loved his job, because I can’t think of a single instance that he ever complained about it.

 

How do you explain to a 4 year old at Christmas time that her Papa is dying?  She has waited so long for Christmas.  She loved decorating the tree and played for hours with the figures in the nativity scene.  She begged for pretty lights outside our house like on the houses we drive past every day. 

 

She understands dying, kind of.  Well, at least in the sense that the goldfish that no longer swam or breathed was fun to flush down the toilet.  She has a vague concept of Heaven, and God, but not a very clear idea.  In that respect she’s like a lot of people.  She understands that we’re sad about Papa being sick, and that these days Mommy cries an awful lot.  “I’m not worried about Papa,” she told me, “4 year olds don’t worry about things.”

 

I wasn’t worried about Papa, either.  If you knew my father you understand, and if you didn’t know him… ah, well, mere words will never do him justice.  He was a man of honor, and dignity, and humor, with a concrete sense of right and wrong.  During this sad time of good-byes, my brother told me, “I could call him about anything and he always had the answers.”  No kidding, I thought, how much easier our lives might have been if we had understood that when we were younger.

 

As my brother and I grew up and made mistakes, our father bailed us out from time to time.  But the help wasn’t offered, it was something we had to ask for.  It dashed our pride a little bit to ask, because we were raised to believe that grown-ups are expected to take care of themselves.  And yet… there was the safety net, only one request away. 

 

He was the kind of man to whom you apply the words, “fine” and “upstanding” without hesitation.  He would regularly wash my mom’s car, and then top off her gas tank so she’d never run low.  He always knew where to get the best deal on anything.  When I was 13 he took me to a Motley Crue concert because I was too young to go with friends.  Talk about self-sacrifice!

 

He was the man you could say anything to, talk to about anything, spark a rousing debate, and then agree to disagree.  We didn’t have to worry about reconciliation or apologies here at the end.  We didn’t have unresolved personal issues.  We loved him and he loved us, without reservation.

 

Let it be a tribute to Solvay Hospice House that my busy, often high-energy, little girl loved it there.  Something about the environment calmed her immensely, and gave her amazingly good control over her behavior.  I spent a lot of time with my dad during his last days, and my daughter did, too.  The last time my little girl saw him, my dad raised his hand and said, “Gimme five,” and she did.  How’s that for a fabulous goodbye?

 

My goodbye was a bit more emotional.  I told him I was so sad he had to go, and that I would miss him so much, and he said he was so sad to leave us.  But he knew he was going to a wonderful place, a place without pain or suffering or cancer. 

 

And my daddy died the way he lived, with honor, with dignity, and without fear.