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The Passing of Fathers
May. 18th, 2010 01:45 pmI just got an email from a coworker to inform me that a former coworker who retired several years ago passed away from cancer this morning. Mr. C. had been sick for a long time and we had gotten accustomed to the periodic updates on him, most delivered with a fair sense of humor, though we knew the cancer was progressing. I had known him for years, done work trips with him, and found him to be a jovial guy for the most part. His wife passed away soon after his retirement and he leaves behind two 20-something daughters.
The news hit me harder than I had expected, I thought of my own dad, and then I remembered the date. Today is May 18th. My dad passed away 11 years ago today.
Dad and the Twins, 1973
While Dad made me laugh far more often than he made me cry, I can’t say that we had a perfect father-son relationship. He always seemed to favor the twin, the jock, to me, the nerd. He wasn’t mean about it, but I suspect he didn’t know how to relate to me and the end result was an odd estrangement. He tried to get me to do things, like sports, that just weren’t interesting to me. Drawing and comic books were not interesting to him. Then one day he had a stroke and things changed. Then over the years he got worse and things changed along the way too. Eventually, things got as worse as they could before he slipped away during an early May 18th morning while his family literally slept around him in a hospital room.
It’s strange how time makes such a life-altering event fade. Well, maybe the event itself doesn’t, but the details get fuzzy. I remember how strange it felt to have such a constant figure in my life suddenly disappear. I remember feeling an odd sense of relief that his own medical ordeal was over. There was peace for him and for those he left behind.
The funeral was oddly entertaining. Friends and family came out of the woodwork to the funeral home, telling stories of things he had done to teachers in school, to friends at work, to my own mom. A constant jester playing for the yucks of the crowds, there was far more laughter in the chapel that day than tears.
The date that Dad died took less and less meaning over the years. The first year we all remembered it, maybe even the next two or three. Slowly May 18th lost the painful memories attached to it and returned to being just another day on the passing calendar. We all remember his birthday, my sister even uses it as the lock code on her iPhone. Mom always makes a point of reminding us as it usually falls close to Thanksgiving if not on that day.
In reading the email again, I fight back the urge to tear up. I feel for Mr. C.’s two girls. Losing their dad so soon after their mom and being so young will mean they will have to mature a bit faster than most. They’ll remember this date as it rolls around for the next several years I suspect, but I hope that eventually the date fades for them and they remember happier dates for their dad. I do for mine.
The news hit me harder than I had expected, I thought of my own dad, and then I remembered the date. Today is May 18th. My dad passed away 11 years ago today.
Dad and the Twins, 1973
While Dad made me laugh far more often than he made me cry, I can’t say that we had a perfect father-son relationship. He always seemed to favor the twin, the jock, to me, the nerd. He wasn’t mean about it, but I suspect he didn’t know how to relate to me and the end result was an odd estrangement. He tried to get me to do things, like sports, that just weren’t interesting to me. Drawing and comic books were not interesting to him. Then one day he had a stroke and things changed. Then over the years he got worse and things changed along the way too. Eventually, things got as worse as they could before he slipped away during an early May 18th morning while his family literally slept around him in a hospital room.
It’s strange how time makes such a life-altering event fade. Well, maybe the event itself doesn’t, but the details get fuzzy. I remember how strange it felt to have such a constant figure in my life suddenly disappear. I remember feeling an odd sense of relief that his own medical ordeal was over. There was peace for him and for those he left behind.
The funeral was oddly entertaining. Friends and family came out of the woodwork to the funeral home, telling stories of things he had done to teachers in school, to friends at work, to my own mom. A constant jester playing for the yucks of the crowds, there was far more laughter in the chapel that day than tears.
The date that Dad died took less and less meaning over the years. The first year we all remembered it, maybe even the next two or three. Slowly May 18th lost the painful memories attached to it and returned to being just another day on the passing calendar. We all remember his birthday, my sister even uses it as the lock code on her iPhone. Mom always makes a point of reminding us as it usually falls close to Thanksgiving if not on that day.
In reading the email again, I fight back the urge to tear up. I feel for Mr. C.’s two girls. Losing their dad so soon after their mom and being so young will mean they will have to mature a bit faster than most. They’ll remember this date as it rolls around for the next several years I suspect, but I hope that eventually the date fades for them and they remember happier dates for their dad. I do for mine.
