Remembering My Father...And Lost Opportunities

This is what happens when I have time on my hands

Be kind to one another, for each of us fights a battle the rest of us know nothing of.

• Me, every single f’ng day

It’s been almost two-and-a-half years since Dad died, and I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately. I’ve no idea why, but now and again, random questions about him will pop into my head- like why was his sock drawer so stuffed full it almost required a crowbar to pry his balled-up socks out? It turns out that Dad was a quirky bird, something I inherited and have come to appreciate about myself. It can drive Erin nuts at times, which I consider my superpower.

One of the things I’ve long known, but I’ve come to increasingly understand and appreciate, is how little I truly knew my father. I lived with the man for 18 years before leaving for college, but I never really knew him. I knew what angered him, ‘cuz Lord knows I excelled at that, but I didn’t know much else about what made him tick.

During my last few years at home, I was scared of him and avoided him when possible. I certainly wasn’t about to open myself up to him and involve myself in conversations that involved feelings and emotions. That kind of vulnerability was more than I could handle, so conversations were kept on a safe, above-the-surface plane. I wasn’t about to bare my soul to someone I didn’t trust with my emotions, so when Dad started asking questions, he got my “POW” response- name, rank, serial number. Or, in my case, the bare minimum of information required to get me out of whatever situation I was embroiled in.

After I went to college and all the associated unpleasantness of those years (those cards I’m keeping close to my chest), there was a period of close to 20 years where I had virtually no contact with my family. I’d occasionally hear something from my brother, Mark, whose a year younger and whom I’m the closest to of my three siblings.

But, since my parents never initiated phone calls over that time, I always assumed that they were okay with how things were. During that time, my father had a stroke, and I was literally too broke to afford a bus ticket to go see him in the hospital. I suspected that that was held against me for a long time, but no one ever raised the issue. The resentment just festered with time.

Then Erin and I decided to get married. At that point, I determined it was time to break the ice and invite my family. Erin was all for it, with the proviso that she meet my family before the wedding, which seemed a reasonable request.

(At the wedding, my brother, Mark, pulled me aside and said, “Don’t f**k this up.” I still think the family likes Erin more than me. And I’m OK with that.)

As soon as I called everyone and asked if we could get together, everyone agreed, rearranged their plans, and showed up. My brother, Michael, rode his motorcycle from Albuquerque, NM, to be there.

During this period, Dad couldn’t add anything because of his stroke, which had impacted the speech center of his brain. He could speak in short bursts, but processing information was complex, and getting responses from his brain to his tongue even more challenging.

Behind all that, though, Dad’s brain worked just fine. He could observe and see things as he always had; he just couldn’t participate verbally. But, if he needed to, he could demonstrate his point, which he sometimes did. The frustration was almost tangible for him. There were times you could see how badly he wanted to communicate what he was thinking. But that mind-to-mouth connection had forever been broken.

After Patrick, the last of the four boys, left home, Mom and Dad settled into a familiar routine. Dad had accepted a job at Fort McCoy, WI, about 20 miles east of LaCrosse. Mom and Dad bought a beautiful two-acre piece of land with a simple but not exceptional house because Dad loved the property.

Over the last 35+ years of his life, that property was his sanctuary, therapy, and recreation. He loved the never-ending projects it provided him with. The backyard sloped down to a cold, fast-running stream that featured the very occasional trout.

His routine, which continued for years until the day he died, was to go out into the yard in the morning, work on his project(s) of the day, and then come back up to the house for the lunch Mom had prepared for him.

After lunch, he’d head back out to continue work until he got tired, at which point he’d come up to the house and watch the 5:00 news with Mom.

Then, on July 22, 2020, he went out into the yard as he had every day for years. Except that he didn’t come back for lunch. Mom, who only moves well if she moves very slowly, went out into the yard to look for Dad. After a few minutes, she began to suspect something was wrong…and then she found him, face down next to a tree that had recently been felled.

She knew immediately that he was gone.

The rest are just details, part of a story I’ve told before and don’t wish to belabor again. But it’s part of something I’ve been thinking about lately.

My father, over the past 35+ years of his life, spent a lot of time by himself working in his yard. I often find myself wondering what occupied his thoughts. What was his inner life like? I get a lot of my intelligence and my inquisitiveness from him; he wasn’t one to mindlessly work for hours. Like me, he could ponder.

But what did he ponder? What did he think about during those long hours? What thoughts occupied his time? I know he was angry at me early on, and perhaps he had good reason from time to time. Like a typical youth in my 20s, I could be self-centered and self-absorbed. I didn’t always consider the feelings of others. So, that was probably part of it, at least in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. But after that?

Did he think about women? Missed opportunities? Other things he could’ve done with his life? Did he wish I’d turned out differently? Did he wonder about “what ifs?” Or was he at peace with where life had brought him?

Was he proud that he’d raised four boys who, except for me, had made him a grandparent (and great-grandparent) several times over?

And what about that day in July when he never made it back to the house for lunch? I often wonder about his final thoughts. Did he recognize what was happening to him? Did he understand that “this was it?” Was he frightened? Or did it happen so quickly that he never had a chance to process his final moments?

Dad had just turned 82 a month before he died. He’d become increasingly frail, and his health progressively more precarious. There had been a few close calls, some that no one knew about because my parents lived out in the country and kept to themselves. After Dad passed, we convinced Mom to move to southeastern Minnesota near my brother, Patrick, who was two hours away and the closest of the four of us. She didn’t need to be taken care of, but she needed someone to look after her.

Dad died without me having taken the chance to get to know him. Part of it was location; living two time zones away in Portland, Oregon, made it difficult for all of us, but I don’t want to live in the Midwest. So, in the end, we did the best we could. It wasn’t much, but…it wasn’t much.

The last time I saw Dad, I remember him laughing and wordlessly patting my belly. It was his way of telling me he noticed I’d put on a few pounds. I recall being mildly offended and then remembering how he could communicate. Now I wish he was still here to pat my belly again, and not just because I’ve lost some weight.

One of the things that have happened since Dad passed is that I’ve been able to get to know Mom in a way I never could’ve before. I’ve learned more about her in the past two-and-a-half years than in the past 60. As a result, she’s as at ease with me as I am with her, something which never used to be true. She was (literally) sleeping with the enemy, so I could never be too careful.

Perhaps I feel a sense of responsibility for her as the last surviving parent…and I’m her oldest son. It’s also easier for me to drop what I’m doing and fly to Minnesota to be with her than for my brothers in Milwaukee and Albuquerque, who have demanding full-time jobs.

I’m grateful that Mom’s still with us. She just had a pacemaker installed a couple of months ago, and she’s running on all cylinders, albeit a bit more slowly than before. Of course, for someone about to turn 82, that’s to be expected. She’s still a smartass (and you wonder where I got it), so she'll be in good shape as long as she’s still got that going for her.

I don’t have Dad anymore, and that’s my loss. I’ll always wonder what his inner life was like, what he thought about, what he dreamed of, and what he lamented. Likewise, I’ll always wonder about his last few seconds and what he thought and felt when he knew he’d reached the end of the line.

Then again, I suppose some things remain unknowable by their very nature.

I miss you, Dad.