History, Memory, Myth
It's been about a year. What a year. On 9/11 I talked to my Dad on the phone. He was blithely unaware of what was happening, why I was calling him. He didn't know where I was. I told him I was in NY, but I was safe. Told him everything was okay. I told him this because my entire life he had wanted to know this. I told him this because my entire life he'd taught me that people who loved you wanted to know you were okay. Despite the fact that he never once told us just how sick he was - just how horribly he felt - just how much pain he lived with every waking moment... just how sad he was, just how much it had all gone wrong for him. He didn't tell us this because he never wanted us to worry. Take the two ideas together: 1 - the people who love you want to know you're okay, and, 2 - try not to worry the people you love. That defines my Dad's approach to family. I learned it all too well.
He passed away from complications of surgery - surgery I didn't know he was having, that he didn't really talk about. He had colon cancer. They were trying to remove polyps. He never recovered from the surgery.
He didn't want us to worry. I got a phone call after.
What a year. My brother and sister and I sorted through what we could of his belongings and his life. The only thing - the only material thing - I took from the pile of stuff was a company jacket. It was one of my Dad's most treasured possessions. It speaks to the other side of him - the other side of a man, which is work. My Dad was very smart, but he kept it very simple. There were only two things: work and family. My Dad only ever wanted to work - work as much as possible, work until he could work no more. No matter how sick, tired, depressed... no matter how much pain or how great the physical cost. Work. I learned this, too, all too well. Work is the definition of a man in the world. You are the work you do - that is your value to the society you live in. When you can no longer work, what are you? Dad worked until he was physically incapable of working... long past where it was reasonable to expect a man in his condition, in his amount of pain, to work. He wore this jacket at every opportunity until the day he died. It was his badge of honor, the sign and symbol to the outside world that he was a worker.
This, to me, represents everything about my Dad the man, in the same way that his rules of family communication represent everything about the man, my Dad.
