This is absolutely beautifully written. And as my mother is presently in a rehabilitation facility with a tracheostomy tube in her neck, it is resonant, urgent. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this memorial. It means a lot when others share their recollections of the important role a parent played in their lives. Your’s resonates across the decades of my personal loss. Both my parents are gone but my father’s death tore me apart for months. I would close my office door and weep with impossible grief. My last conversation in 1995 was to tell him I was coming to CA to visit the next week. It was an impulsive trip, driven by the need to once again be the son to a wise and cheerful father. And friend. He was buoyed by the unexpected trip and our conversation was upbeat. Sadly, he was dead of a stroke within two days. Time can be a thief and I was forever robbed of his voice, his laugh, his life. Whether three years or three decades, the longing remains. Thanks again for this special column.
You write: "there is no serious way to prepare for death. There is no guidance that is worthwhile, no advice, no means to ready yourself for what it is for a person to never speak to you again" -- that flies in the face of my experience. When my father died, in a nursing home on the upper East Side, I was ready for it. He had dementia, but I remember well that a new nurse was on the floor, and I told her about my dad's life, in a long tribute, at his bedside. Then we went out of his room to get a cup of coffee and when we came back, he was dead. I had acknowledged the fullness of his life. Also, there are many traditions that prepare one for death, and they have a lot to say. Whether it's about reincarnation and how to prepare for it, or whether it's the conclusions that Socrates came to about death not being an evil at all. Anyway, beware of portentous phrases.
In a way the day my father died, and he was about 45 years older than me, was the day I became a man because there was no longer a male figure above me, even if I often felt like he hated me from my earliest memories. He was still my father and someone who I greatly admired and looked up to and wanted to be like someday meaning that I would become a book publisher or a writer. It really hit home the morning after when I went to buy a coffee and saw the front page of NYT and there was his obituary. I'd already seen his dead body and said goodbye as it were but seeing his photograph and his name staring at me was a lot to bear. Later I would learn that a memorial was not for the family but for everyone else and I was very, very happy about that. I think I talk to him now more than I did when he was alive. It's probably a good thing he doesn't talk back being he rarely said anything nice to me but at the same time when I do send him query's about life in a way I feel his answer and maybe I'm conflating it with nothing more than my own intuition but I choose to not think this is so because I am directing my question or plea to him so I like to think the response, the next action I choose to take is at the very least in part directly from him. It gives me some peace anyway, peace he refused to give me before he died.
Hola , Muy Buen Ensayo. Me Gusto Mucho Éstas Palabras: " Por qué nos esforzamos por triunfar? ¿Qué anhelamos? Nunca me importó mucho el dinero. Quería, sin duda, impresionar a los demás. Supongo que el éxito importaba porque podía hacer felices a mis padres. No me lo exigieron. No me negaron su amor.". Un Saludo.
Absolutely beautiful. I hope you keep writing these lovely elegies year after year, August after August.
Well written. Your father would be proud.
Really really nice and really hard to do, both being the survivor and writing this. Good on you.
This is absolutely beautifully written. And as my mother is presently in a rehabilitation facility with a tracheostomy tube in her neck, it is resonant, urgent. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this memorial. It means a lot when others share their recollections of the important role a parent played in their lives. Your’s resonates across the decades of my personal loss. Both my parents are gone but my father’s death tore me apart for months. I would close my office door and weep with impossible grief. My last conversation in 1995 was to tell him I was coming to CA to visit the next week. It was an impulsive trip, driven by the need to once again be the son to a wise and cheerful father. And friend. He was buoyed by the unexpected trip and our conversation was upbeat. Sadly, he was dead of a stroke within two days. Time can be a thief and I was forever robbed of his voice, his laugh, his life. Whether three years or three decades, the longing remains. Thanks again for this special column.
Spot on, Ross Barken! So many truths in one essay. Thank you.
To Alan Saly, I say beware of pretentious comments.
I always enjoy when you write these personal posts.
You write: "there is no serious way to prepare for death. There is no guidance that is worthwhile, no advice, no means to ready yourself for what it is for a person to never speak to you again" -- that flies in the face of my experience. When my father died, in a nursing home on the upper East Side, I was ready for it. He had dementia, but I remember well that a new nurse was on the floor, and I told her about my dad's life, in a long tribute, at his bedside. Then we went out of his room to get a cup of coffee and when we came back, he was dead. I had acknowledged the fullness of his life. Also, there are many traditions that prepare one for death, and they have a lot to say. Whether it's about reincarnation and how to prepare for it, or whether it's the conclusions that Socrates came to about death not being an evil at all. Anyway, beware of portentous phrases.
In a way the day my father died, and he was about 45 years older than me, was the day I became a man because there was no longer a male figure above me, even if I often felt like he hated me from my earliest memories. He was still my father and someone who I greatly admired and looked up to and wanted to be like someday meaning that I would become a book publisher or a writer. It really hit home the morning after when I went to buy a coffee and saw the front page of NYT and there was his obituary. I'd already seen his dead body and said goodbye as it were but seeing his photograph and his name staring at me was a lot to bear. Later I would learn that a memorial was not for the family but for everyone else and I was very, very happy about that. I think I talk to him now more than I did when he was alive. It's probably a good thing he doesn't talk back being he rarely said anything nice to me but at the same time when I do send him query's about life in a way I feel his answer and maybe I'm conflating it with nothing more than my own intuition but I choose to not think this is so because I am directing my question or plea to him so I like to think the response, the next action I choose to take is at the very least in part directly from him. It gives me some peace anyway, peace he refused to give me before he died.
Hola , Muy Buen Ensayo. Me Gusto Mucho Éstas Palabras: " Por qué nos esforzamos por triunfar? ¿Qué anhelamos? Nunca me importó mucho el dinero. Quería, sin duda, impresionar a los demás. Supongo que el éxito importaba porque podía hacer felices a mis padres. No me lo exigieron. No me negaron su amor.". Un Saludo.