Remembering My Father
On the First Anniversary of his Death, Nov. 22nd 2007
By now the trees in Tokyo are tinged in red. Walking through a light drizzle, wet leaves pasting the cement like motley papier-mâché, I remember this time last year, the season my father died.
Early in the morning, before the sun came up, the #80 bus ran about twice every hour from Mount Royal to the Jewish General Hospital. Every day I would bring my Dad the mail and watch his hands waver slightly as he read.
“Don’t shake hands like you’re a dead fish. Shake hands like you mean it,” he used to say.
Even in the hospital, he chastised me once for not holding his hand tightly enough. I responded in anger. After all, wasn’t I showing him enough love as it was? Perhaps not. Perhaps enough can never be.
My father was infinitely curious and infinitely interested in people—their roots, their trajectories, their lives. “Isn’t this great? I’m being taken care of by a Saudi doctor and a French Canadian nurse in a Jewish Hospital. Why can’t the rest of the world be more like this? This is the way things should be.”
Swabbing the purulent, cauliflower sores in his mouth and towelling diarrhoea from the floor, I thought, Damn Leukaemia. Damn it all to Hell. This isn’t the way things should be.
He turned his fragileThis month in particular, I miss my Dad. On the first anniversary of his death, as I grapple with the painful memories of last fall, I give thanks for the myriad happy and humorous images he left me with:
Body, like a child
And moaned
His bones knocking angrily
Against the bed’s metal rails
As he wailed one last, lucid phrase
I am completely normal.
This, from a man who was never normal,
Who shook his head and smiled
In the face of convention
Who bellowed and played the kazoo
Amidst the dull quiet of
Propriety.
I am completely normal.
Tuna fish sandwiches (dill, mustard and a dash of vinegar)Where are you now, MvB? One year later--has it really been a year already?--you are in our hearts.
Brightly coloured socks
A royal blue bath robe I bought him once on Father’s Day
The Crown Royal bag filled with his favourite pens
Postcards he never forgot to send
Kicking his heels and singing in the rain (he really did)
Buckwheat pancakes, hot with strawberries
Slapping his knee with laughter
Bending his head to listen
The glassy jade ring on his pinkie finger
Chocolate donuts in the morning
Baseball scores on NPR, old rickety radio
Banging pots to wake me up
Brushing Gus over a mug of coffee
Mustard yellow sweatshirt and always, a newspaper
The last words he ever wrote me, five days before he died:
Hello my sweetheart,
I love you,
Papoo.
3 comments:
Dear Sarah,
I've been thinking of your Dad , my cuz, Matthew, all morning, as I was making a batch of stollens. He got one every year for Christmas and told me that he ate his, in small portions, even after he was diagnosed with diabetes! His photo is in front of me at my desk, keeping watch. It is also St Cecilia's day, the patron saint of music. I miss him. He was a good cuz.
Lots of love from all of us
Katherine
My offering: The first time I met your dad, he read me a poem by Sharon Olds. I can't find the exact poem but I found this one entitled: His Stillness. I am not sure your father accepted his mortality as described but I know he admired Sharon Olds. (Poem found at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=5124)
His Stillness
by Sharon Olds
The doctor said to my father, “You asked me
to tell you when nothing more could be done.
That’s what I’m telling you now.” My father
sat quite still, as he always did,
especially not moving his eyes. I had thought
he would rave if he understood he would die,
wave his arms and cry out. He sat up,
thin, and clean, in his clean gown,
like a holy man. The doctor said,
“There are things we can do which might give you time,
but we cannot cure you.” My father said,
“Thank you.” And he sat, motionless, alone,
with the dignity of a foreign leader.
I sat beside him. This was my father.
He had known he was mortal. I had feared they would have to
tie him down. I had not remembered
he had always held still and kept quiet to bear things,
the liquor a way to keep still. I had not
known him. My father had dignity. At the
end of his life his life began
to wake in me.
Sharon Olds, “His Stillness” from Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2002. Copyright © 2004 by Sharon Olds. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Source: Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002 (2004).
Dear Sarah
I remember that Matthew used to make me feel that I was the most
important person whenever he spoke to me. I guess it was the way he seemed so interested in everything related to me. I am sure he made everyone he spoke to feel the same way. When was the last time you met someone with such interest in you? He will always have a special place in my heart.
A very special thank you to you for sharing your last days with him last year and especially his last written words to you, how you must cherish them. I cannot imagine
your incredible feeling of loss but I am happy to read so much of your incredible great memories of good time spent with Matthew.
Big hug and kiss
nicole
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