Peace be with you, Daddy
December 28, 2003

My dad died peacefully, without pain. I wasn’t there at the hospital, and didn’t find out until several hours later. My brother came to my house dressed all in black – as soon as I saw him, I knew.

I had been so sick that I couldn’t even invite my dad over for the holidays for fear of exposing him to my influenza/pneumonia. Unfortunately, his phone wasn’t yet set up and the folks at the new nursing home wouldn’t pass on a message, and then for three more days, there was no answer. I did speak with him on Saturday the 27th – explaining why it was that he spent the holidays alone. He said, "well that explains it then!" and thanked me for bringing him an italian sub he had so craved on my last visit. He even told me he loved me before hanging up, something very rare – perhaps he knew somehow.

I went to see his body in the hospital morgue. It was strangely comforting – to see that in that cold corpse nothing remained of the spark, the essence, the soul of my father. He was gone, gone, gone.

It wasn’t unexpected. The double-whammy of advancing diabetes and the strain of dialysis along with his other health problems made it a bit of a mercy even – he was so tired. Still, I can’t help wishing he would have been able to last a few more months – long enough to hold my brother’s new baby, long enough to see me finish the Phd.

Though he wasn’t demonstrative, and we had plenty of conflicts through the years, I have understood in the last week that he bragged about the accomplishments of all his children. And I have also understood that I wasn’t the easiest daughter in the world for him to have either. I spent a lot of my life trying to understand my dad and have some sort of relationship with him that I could understand. I always thought I wasn’t good enough, and that I would never be good enough, for him to really love me. But I was wrong. During his last year, the year he lived in Atlanta, we didn’t so much overcome the problems as…sort of transcend them. I do miss him.

He really tried all his life to understand great thoughts and insights. He had been rereading Homer and Plutarch near the end. And it made him so happy to finally spend a little down time with at least two of his three children. It is hardest for my brother who lives further away – just had a baby, didn’t have the chance to be with dad much in the last few years.

My brother here in Atlanta has been really amazing – the youngest of us, he really dove in and took hold of all the tasks that needed to be done. I’m grateful to him.

This is the first day I’m feeling somewhat healthy, about midway through my second round of antibiotics. Haven’t had a cigarette in a few weeks now. The dishwasher broke and the house is really in a frightening state… but I feel somehow ok.

Peace be with you…and also with you…and with you…