On Saturday March 23, 2013 my Father passed away. It is one of the hardest things I have ever gone through in my life. It is never easy to say good-bye forever to anyone. I have seen the passing of a close friend, my Grandmother, and a brother-in-law. During those times I was saddened and I could even say I experienced grief. This was the first time that I have been grief-stricken. Grief for those who are grief-stricken is the bitter guilt you feel about being here when a loved one no longer is. It is living in a world without. It is never again being whole.
A father is special, the death of one's own father then is especially difficult. It is difficult to share with someone who has not gone through it, and yet the point of this post is not just to give myself an outlet, but to help anyone who is processing grief that has stricken them.This is potentially something that most of us will go through. In fact this is something that we fathers hope you all have to go through. One of my Pop's dreams for his children (as we all share) is that his children outlive him. For the most, save one, my Pop got what he wanted.
I try to teach my students to avoid false dichotomies and I try to live up to that as much as possible. My father was neither a good or bad man, none of us are. To celebrate him by lying is to not celebrate him at all. My father was both a good man and a bad man. In that way, he is like all of us; an everyman. A very human man. What I do believe made my father special is that he was a big man. He was the epitome of the man who lived large. This bigness contributed to both the good things and the bad things. My Pop had big appetites when it came to liquor and women. This got him into trouble more often than not. It was symptomatic though of his desire to truly live a big life. Ultimately it is this desire that led him to do some truly good things that far eclipsed any bad things. It is this balance that serves as an example that my Father can serve to everyone. If, at the end of your life, you have done far more good that bad, then you also have led a big life. My Father learned through the course of his life how to be a good person. He sometimes wasn't the best at being good, but the point was that he kept trying and ultimately succeeded. The good things are his incredible love of his family. My family is big both literally and figuratively thanks to Pop. Now his definition of family was multidimensional. First was his immediate family which he prioritized over all. But also for my Father was the larger Human family. He presented himself as an curmudgeon but for his family, especially his children; we knew him as the caring, compassionate, and considerate man he really was.
In fact that is his greatest legacy, one that we should all try to emulate. At the end he had created a family that, despite their tendency to criticism, shares and extends those qualities my Pop lived big to everyone. As long as there are those who care about others, are considerate of others, and are compassionate for all, my Pop will live on.
It is that legacy that I celebrate. I have seen others write about how my Father was a family man. What this means to me is that first-and-foremost he considered his family. This consideration played itself out in actions by prioritizing his family. This did not come immediately to my Father, it is a skill he worked on developing all his life. At the end of his life he was much more of an exemplar of this skill. How this manifested itself is that he always had an opinion about his children's lives because he wanted them to be good lives. That is what he wanted more than anything, a good life for his children. That is why is loss has been particularly hard on his children. Now this is not to sugar-coat it. Sometimes his opinions were not wanted, sometimes they created more problems then they solved. But for all of this children, we could always sense the underlying concern in his interest in us. I bet if my siblings were being honest they would all share that they felt that they were his favorite. I understand that fathers are not supposed to have favorites. What my father taught me is that there is a way to make all of your children feel like they are your favorite. For me it was that of all of my siblings, I look the most like my Father. In fact there are some picture of my Father when he was my age, and it is indeed like looking in the mirror. My Father also dragged me along on a lot errands when I was growing up that mad me feel a special bond with him. For instance, I often accompanied him on his Christmas Eve shopping spree through Macy's to get everybody he had to buy Christmas gifts for a gift. I am sure my brothers and sisters can tell similar stories of the special things that they shared with Pop that made them feel like they were his favorite. That is the point, he made all of us feel like his favorite. This made his family big. All of his offspring have inherited his innate consideration, almost to a fault. Sometimes we consider others before ourselves. If a family can be too considerate, it is the Reese's. That is my Father's Legacy.
Of course my Pop had one last lesson to teach and that is how to grieve. I have been grieving with my family now and I wanted to share some things. Grieving is about trying to understand that which is truly impossible to understand. I can believe where he is now, but I can never know where he is; all I know is that he is not here. That is the burden of grief. On The Walking Dead, Lori once said of grief, "You can never get rid of it; you just have to make room for it." What she didn't explain is that it takes a long time to renovate your spirit. This is when I envy those who have more faith than I. I am constantly haunted by, to use a book/movie, the unbearable lightness of being. I have never handled mortality well. The thing that has given my life some heaviness since my Pop's passing is the very family that is my Father's legacy. My family is my number one consideration. Family in this case is not about blood, it is about those who you consider. As I have gone through this, I have felt the love and support from all that I consider important in my life. I can never thank you enough but what I can do is tell you that in doing so, you all are living the legacy of my Pop. So celebrate, be big, and live large.
My final conversation with my Father will always and forever be etched in my memory. Here it is:
Me holding my Father's hand, "Are you scared?"
Dad: "Noooo." Smile.
Me: "I am so proud of you. You have created a legacy, your family"
Dad: "I'm proud of you to, Son. Here I have something for your boys."
Me:
"Oh Pop, you don't have to worry about that......" Then I held his hand
for around ten minutes, he was too weak to hold my hand back. Finally
he opened his eyes.
Dad: "Get out of here now, I love you Son."
Me:
"I love you too, Pop." I gave him a kiss on both the hand that I was
holding and his forehead while I gave him a gentle embrace.
