Dad

My father had a massive heart attack when he was 64. He survived that wake-up call and, uncharacteristically, paid attention when the doctor told him to stop smoking, stop working and to take care of himself right now, or die. That kind of talk can get your attention, as it did for him. Dad quit his law practice in NYC, quit his three pack a day cigarette habit that turned the ends of his fingers brown, and moved away from New Jersey traffic to North Carolina coastline. For the next two years he learned how to fish the surf and walk a ten-mile loop between two prominent piers every day. Although he did ramp it up again after that and was the driving force behind incorporation of the town of Pine Knoll Shores, serving as mayor for two terms, he stayed healthy. When death came knocking again at age 89, he was ready to answer the door, and did.

We never hugged or said: “I love you.” A handshake was what fathers and sons did back in those days, and that was OK. But sometimes shared rituals speak to such things without being uncomfortably direct.They help us connect. For my Dad and me, it was limericks. We both looked forward to getting a letter in the mail with the immediately identifiable handwriting...

Dad wrote:

An amoeba from old Potawatomi,
Was beset with recurring dichotomy,
She split and she split,
And after a bit,
She observed: “There's a hell of a lot-o-me!”

I responded:

An old salt went fishing most days,
Catching fish in incredible ways,
The fish he was gleaning,
Were like ovens: self-cleaning!
And most days he caught just fillets!

Here’s the caption for this picture of him. He loved his dogs, much the way I love mine now. I even live in a different place near the ocean called "The Shores".

A lazy old man from The Shores,
Wraps his dog round his neck while he snores,
Sitting up on the couch,
With a dog-induced slouch,
He feigns sleep to avoid all his chores!

In this increasingly disjointed world, while I pretend to be an adult in charge, I miss my Dad's stable, reassuring, wise council. I know he's around me though as I can hear his voice quite clearly if I close my eyes. We speak as we did before. It has also become more frequent, now that I'm about the age he was in this picture, that when I open my eyes to look into my mirror, there he is.

If he's out there now, looking over my shoulder, I just want to say to him out loud so he hears me clearly: “I love you, Dad.”... but you already knew that.

hmh