He’s almost impossibly gaunt. One eye seems partially open, and his mouth is agape. But he is unconscious, out of pain. His paper-thin skin is bruised all over just from casual contact. He’s near death.
I have a photo of my dad in this state. I captured it on my phone June 14, 2023, as I sat in silence at his bedside. In the early hours of June 17, 2023, he died quietly in his sleep the day before Father’s Day. He was 80.
I haven’t looked back at this photo much in the past year since his death. I prefer the ones taken not only before he was on his deathbed in the hospice but before dementia changed his personality and left him with a narrow, random slice of his memories and stories.
This year, the first anniversary of his death comes one day after Father’s Day. It’s a date I’ve been conscious of, but it’s more complicated than that. While we mourned after he took his last breath, I and others in my family had grieved for months before that. When we moved him into the memory care wing of his senior housing community in March, a necessary step he opposed, he already seemed like a different person from that father we knew. And we feared how his life would be from then on. Less than three months later, he needed major intestinal surgery, he stopped eating during the recovery, and his life came to a quiet end not that many days later.
I said some of the following in the eulogy I wrote and delivered for his memorial service. He could be strict and stubborn, and we weren’t great friends during a good chunk of my 20s, but I knew he—and my mom, of course—were always there for me. When I decided to study journalism and communications in college, I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled. But his own father, a renowned metallurgist in the steel industry who was more strict and stubborn than my dad by a couple factors, had initially opposed my dad’s plans to major in business. So, my father implored me to learn a backup skill or two (not bad advice; I’ve relied on my secondary skills at times!) and made his peace with my major, even though he was paying for my degree.
And when my girlfriend and I told my parents we were moving in together after she graduated from college, my dad joined my mom in a disapproving phone call. Despite their pleas, we went ahead with our plan, and my dad, with my mom’s accompaniment, drove several hours from the Seattle area to Southern Oregon to help us with the move. I never forgot that kindness amid his disapproval. That girlfriend and I were married just over a year later, and this year is our 27th wedding anniversary.
I think nearly all children go through a phase of merely tolerating their parents; my own kids are nearly there. But as the cycle usually goes, my dad and I both softened with each other as we moved through life. We moved back to the Seattle area ahead of our first son’s birth, and my dad drove my mom weekly to our house so they could watch our son while my wife got a break and did freelance work. Even after we had two more children, this routine continued for years. My dad often caught up on his magazine reading or helped me with fix-it tasks around the house during those visits; his firsthand child rearing skills were limited. My mom took care of most of that. That said, he plainly loved and was proud of all his grandchildren and treated them well.
A year later, I’ve told my kids a few more stories about growing up under my dad. And I’ve clung to my deep loyalty to the Seattle Mariners, as my dad and I bonded over the love of baseball, which he first instilled in me at a young age. He'd be pleased with their first-place position in mid-June.
As the oldest of his kids, I look somewhat like my dad. I comb my hair similarly to his, partially because I inherited his fussy, fine-stranded hair, which isn’t easy to style. I also inherited my poor eyesight and congestion-prone sinuses from him. But that is not the only legacy I try to carry from my father. As my children grow up and prepare for college, I’ve remembered lessons from him and not pressured my kids to follow in my footsteps academically or professionally. Mostly, I just want them to be happy and safe.
Being an accepting father who helps to launch kind-hearted kids out into the world seems like a good way to honor my dad. And if my kids have children of their own someday, maybe they’ll tell good stories about both me and my dad to the next generation of our family.
Comments