Obituary

Recently, this is a common story.

On the weekend, my father, who has been in a care facility for three years now, suffering from Alzheimers, began to go downhill.  By Wednesday he could no longer eat, and ceased to interact with those around him.  Thursday, we were told his platlets were in the hundreds and that the intravenous wasn't having any effect.  The doctor called me yesterday morning and I went up to see him.  And in the hour that I was there, about 5 minutes after one o'clock, he died in my presence, with my hand on his cheek.

Not of covid, as it happened.

He was 84.  He died on the 25th of September.  My mother died 8 years ago, on the 27th.  My birthday is on the 15th, and my daughter's is on the 26th.  Today.

I struggled with writing a post yesterday, not because I couldn't, but because I didn't think I should.  What I really don't want to hear is a lot of people rushing forth with condolences.  See, I had ceased to be friendly with my father about 13 years ago.  When some moment would bring us together, such as my mother's death and funeral, my daughter's wedding or some such things, I would be civil and he would be civil.  But there was, and is, and will always be, a great deal of unresolved anger.  And frankly, I despise that people, when met with this fact of life, rush to presuppose that everything is a hallmark card.

The world is full of terrible or selfish people.  And a great many of the good people in the world can remember a time when they were at the mercy of those people -- as children, as young adults, and even into their 40s and 50s.  On behalf of the victims, who press their lips together and nod politely when asked about their family, who sit through hundreds of television shows depicting loving families getting together at holidays, and who cannot begin to express how abandoned and isolated they felt for years at a time, before being able to gather together a real family of people they came to trust and sacrifice themselves for ... on behalf of us, please do not express your condolences at this time.

A man I knew died in my presence yesterday, the first time in my life that has ever happened to me.  I am unresolved about that.  He was a man that I loved once, when I thought that was my duty; he was a man I respected for what he accomplished, a respect I still possess for him.  But he was not a giving man.  He was not a forgiving man.  He was a man who always had to have his way; who expected that the obedience of his children was an unqualified right, period.  He was a man who had a friendly face, who was good company so long as you did not know him well, and so long as you did not ask for anything from him.

He worked harder than any man I have known.  He was passionate about what he loved, that being engineering.  He was married for 54 years, to the end of my mother's life.  And he sheltered and provided food for three children.  He did not "raise" three children.  He ordered three children about and he ignored three children.  But he did not raise us.  He fed us and he hurled us out into the world and when we did not follow the exact specifications of leading the life he expected us to lead, he acted the miser.

Damn him.  But without him, I wouldn't be here.  I wouldn't be me.  I wouldn't be this hard, inflexible, righteous bastard, who lays out what he believes in cold, heartless English.

That's all I have to say about that.