overdue

It’s long past due, and I’m sorry about that. I wish they made an electronic “Interwebs, thanks for your support during my father’s death, and the really, really tough months that came just before and after it” card, but I haven’t found any of those to send to you. Just so you know, if I were allowed to design one, it would surely be one of those black and white cards with children dressed as adults on it, only on this one the little boy in the top hat would be putting a single red rose on top of a casket, and the girl with the pink lips would be bawling uncontrollably next to him. And it would ruin those cards for everyone who keeps them in production and spoils my trips to Hallmark stores. Just as it should be.

I’m not sure many of you really knew what was happening up until my dad’s death. I kept it quiet, mentioning it only in a few posts. Even then sometimes I’d try to capture the part of his life that remained funny, like I did with the Oreos escapade. Because much of our lives was really, really funny. Or he and my family made it so, mostly because we had to, because the alternative of thinking about the imminent or openly moping really wasn’t even an option. We save most of that kind of drama for our friends and boyfriends, anyway.

The truth is that it was pretty awful, those last months, maybe longer, although I don’t think any of us knew it at the time. I know from pictures that my father was on oxygen for our cruise to Belize in 2005. At that point it was hard for him to make it down the hallways of the ship, and we’d stop with some frequency for him to catch what little breath he had, making it look like we were staring at the ocean or discussing the cheddar eagle atop the buffet. He was hauling around a newfangled oxygen container then, one which finally didn’t make it look like he was about to fill dozens of children’s balloons, and it was the envy of many on the ship. It’s sad even to think about that. He was on oxygen 24 hours a day, even then, more than two years before he passed away. So I guess it was pretty bad for a pretty long time. It just didn’t seem that long to us.

I was afraid for some reason to write in depth about my dad and his illness, afraid that I would be doing a disservice to his privacy and what I perceive to be his legend as a father. Always thin, something that irritated all three of his closest girls, he was still always incredibly strong, particularly in the upper body. In the summers of my childhood I can remember him being able to lift tools and wood and furniture that he probably shouldn’t have. I recall him working under cars until the late hours of summer nights and holding a three-year old me on his shoulder for hours in the airport. The hospice nurse would comment on this remaining strength the day before he died, actually.

He was also ridiculously bright. An engineer, my father almost couldn’t comprehend what it was that his two daughters didn’t adore about physics. I would sit kitchen tableside under his tutelage, crying with frustration because I didn’t understand – and frankly didn’t care – about the velocity of a bullet shot into wood. Or was it the velocity of the wood we were concerned with? I remember him demonstrating the principles of lift and drag to us with pieces of paper. I still don’t understand it, but man was it cool that he did. He loved science and math so much that he still had many of his college textbooks. I loved that. And he was funny. He laughed so hard at bad jokes and great greeting cards that he would be forced to wipe away tears. And I was in awe of him. I continued to be, even in those times when his illness would sneak a little of his lucidity. The father I knew remained intact, questioning medication amounts and laughing with hospice nurses up until his death.

And by not writing about it so much, I think I allowed things to stay that way. For the most part, I don’t feel that I need writing to remember just how awful things were, how his body was disintegrating and refusing to cooperate with his unwavering optimism. I have a surplus of those mental images, and a few concrete ones, and those should suffice for a lifetime.

You didn’t know my father, this man who convinced me I could learn Algebra at an age when it likely wasn’t legal, who wore jeans in the summertime, who cheered for every Florida State game even when many on the team were in jail or on the verge. And most of you don’t know me. But when my father died, I knew I had to come here to post that it was so, partially because I needed to put it into print, but also because part of me needed you to know. And you were completely gracious. You commented, sent flowers, sent private messages, many of them sharing with me your personal experience with losing someone who was a crucial part of your world. I checked your comments and emails during those days with somewhat alarming frequency. I wanted to hear what you had to say, to be close to this community of mostly faceless folks who have been accepting of me and my 12-13,000 neuroses. I needed that support in the face of losing that man, the mathematical wonder, the lover of puns, éclairs, and Peeps, the inexperienced father who once let me throw up in his cupped hands because he couldn’t find a garbage can fast enough. Poor thing.

I loved that man more than I can capture here, and although you didn’t know us, you knew that. Thank you all so very much.