A Particular Death

This is a re-post. My Dad died in July, 2014.

I don’t want to write about Death in general today. I’m quite sure there is going to be plenty of it, as Covid creeps on. And on. No, today I want to write about a particular death, the death of my father, Michael. He died precisely six years ago today. Six years ago he was alive, then dead, all within that small span of time: one day. His heart attack was abrupt, unexpected, as I am sure so many of them are. Now he’s dead, and whatever I wanted to say to him, I cannot because he wouldn’t be able to hear me (unless he could; how do I know?). Whatever I wanted to ask him, I cannot, because he would not be able to answer, or at least not through any conventional means. Whatever things I wanted to express, it is, quite simply, too late.

He is in the ether now, in the sky, in the stars, in the form of a bird, tree, or other living thing. Perhaps. Or he’s in Heaven or Hell, if you believe in that kind of thing. I don’t. If it exists and if he were sentenced to the fiery below, I’m quite sure he would be his usually witty self, telling jokes and making people laugh–if they can do that there. He might even work his way into being one of Satan’s favorites, joking, telling stories, and playing fierce games of ping pong. He was an excellent ping pong player. If he were to go to Heaven, though, he would probably not be one of God’s favorites, because he was always a little too irreverent for that. He was a pretty good guy, though, in spite of his shortcomings. There have definitely been worse!

God would like my Dad, though, a lot. I know I did. Dad was kind and caring and had a good heart. (Well, until it betrayed him). He might have committed a bit of tax fraud here and there, but who doesn’t? Well, I don’t– and to my knowledge, nobody else I know is hiding cash from the IRS either, but that’s not the point. My Dad was still a good person, even though far from perfect. For instance, he married my step mother way too soon after my Mom and Dad’s 14 year marriage ended. I’m not sure the sheets had even cooled, so that’s pretty bad…but it’s only part of who he was. There was more than that, too. There was good.

Heaven for the climate and Hell for the company. {Mark Twain}

When my Dad was a kid, he took care of his sisters and brothers by having a paper route. Even though he was spectacularly bright, he dropped out of high school and then didn’t go to college so that he could take care of them. Then, when we kids were little, and he and my Mom had divorced, he sent the alimony checks on time, visited us for all those significant events like holidays, birthdays, graduation, etc. We were with him in the summers, and I always remember having a good time. He took us to Hawaii, too, and who doesn’t like that? Spoiled brats, that’s who, but we weren’t spoiled brats so we were grateful. We had fun with him, and he with us.

One of the cool things about my Dad, one of the amazing, irreplaceable things about him is his fatherly pride in us. No matter what we did (almost), he was proud of us. He bragged about us; he praised us, he admired us. He loved us.

I miss him. I miss talking with him, laughing with him, telling him about my life. I miss hearing his stories, too, though, like a lot of bad listeners, I made the mistake of thinking mine were better, more interesting. They were not. Sadly, now I can’t listen to his stories at all, but when he was alive, I didn’t listen enough; I didn’t ask enough. I could never be as proud of him as he was of me, of us. After he died, I realized I hadn’t even told him that I admired him. I am not sure I ever told him that I was proud of him, too, even though I was. I probably just didn’t make him feel my pride for him the way he did for me. I had too much sadness, anger and resentment seething inside of me. I was angry that he had divorced my Mom (their divorce was pretty one-sided, and her heart was broken mercilessly). Anger about all of it. Kids will do that after a divorce, and even Hawaii can’t erase that. I still loved him.

There was good, too, and plenty of it. He was a deep and caring listener, an amazing listener actually, even as he got more and more deaf (aka “hard of hearing.”) He made us laugh. He was excellent at Scrabble. He was terrible at Balderdash, which was surprising, because he loved words so very much. In his life time, professionally he did a lot–so much–for independent truckers by rallying for and supporting them politically. In the 60s he started the first ever magazine specifically for truckers, which he wrote for, owned, edited and produced for years. He was even once interviewed by Playboy because of his role in the truckers’ strikes in the 1970s. I’m sure we bought that edition, and I know it was “for the articles,” honest. I remember he was on the news then, too, and I was, at that time, very, very proud. I was in third grade, but I still remember. “Dad’s on the news!” He was a big wig, leading the truckers (the Independent ones, not the Union kind) in the shutdowns to protest rising fuel prices. When he was younger, he got a letter from Jack Kemp. He even dined at the White House once.

In his later life, after he had sold the magazine, divorced the second wife, then the third, his high points seemed to have crumbled, albeit slowly. The “Salad Days” were over. Eventually, he left CA and moved to Idaho for a time, working at a friend’s sandwich shop, and occasionally trucking. Then he lived in Northern California again, so he could be near us, his kids. He got a job as a writer for a small, local paper. He was good at it, too, but he never could quite let go of wanting to be in charge; I’m sure that the higher ups did not appreciate that very much. Later he moved to Minnesota. He continued to do his “trucker stuff,” and his political stuff as we always thought of it. In spite of our differences in political views, I would absolutely love to hear what he thinks about this strange state of affairs. I am curious, too, how he would see Covid-19 and the upside down world we are now all living in. I wish we could talk about the virus, protests, and Trump, and the upside down-ness of our surreality. I’d love to hear what he thinks about it all. I would be a better listener this time.

I miss you, Dad, and if you can read this, somewhere in the great beyond, I want you to know that. I want you to know that I love you so very much. I want you to know that I’m proud of you.