My Dad-Don

It’s almost a year since my father passed away. He was 87, but he seemed to be impervious to death. He survived diabetes, colon cancer, heart issues, a burst appendix . . . his health was declining for sure, but none of us thought he would die of a massive heart attack in the middle of the night last February. In so many ways, we are grateful that he did not have a prolonged illness. But in so many other ways it was a total shock.

I’ve been thinking about my father so much recently; and I’ve been talking with his best friend Dwight fairly often, one of the kindest people ever to inhabit this planet. I’ve been thinking about all the baseball games we attended together, thinking about the miracle of his diner buddy friendships, thinking about how that once a year Yankees game formed the tapestry of life-long friendships, between me and his friends, thinking about how proud he was of me. Thinking about how much I miss him.

And thinking about last Christmas (2022), when my partner and I decided to drive up to Marcy, NY and take my parents out for lunch. I didn’t know that would be my last lunch with my dad. And about six weeks later, I was at a very special dinner with one of my most beloved clients, Peter H. Reynolds, and at the end of dinner, be bought me a box of chocolate to send my parents. There was a scrabble theme to it, four of the chocolate pieces spelling LOVE. My parents wrote me how much they loved it, how they researched the French chocolate factory it came from, and how they were rationing out the pieces each day. I didn’t know that was the last gift I would be privileged to send my father. He was a lover of gifts.

So these past few days, I’ve been overwhelmed with how much I miss him, and I’ve been playing LAY MY BURDEN DOWN by Caroline Herring nonstop, crying much of the time. A day or two ago, I called my super, Nelson, to remind him to stay in touch with his father in Puerto Rico. He was on the phone with his father at the time, and he put his father on hold to listen to me. He told me that he was afraid to go on the trip to PR alone, and that his wife didn’t want to go. But he was resolute that he would make the trip because his father is aging and he wants to see him.

I have to call this experience “other”. Whether one believes in God or a higher power doesn’t matter. I do not know what I believe except that there is so much “other” in this world if we pay attention with our heads and our hearts. I’m okay not knowing exactly what “other” is. The fact that it’s there is enough. Nelson has a trip planned, and I hold my father in my heart, always. He’ll be with Nelson on his trip, I’m sure. And I bow down to my mother, who has found a way to be strong, alive, and grateful, even though Dad is gone from this earth.