June 10, 1998

What follows is a letter to my friend Melissa Conway, who goes way back with me, and who was concerned for my mental balance in the days immediately after the death of my father. Rather than edit it, I'll just let you read over Melissa's shoulder.

To explain. I got the call on Thursday afternoon at work. I was fine on the bus, fine at home, fine until saying grace at the dinner table, and then I began to cry. Laurie held me, and Abbie rested her hand on my arm, a gesture that really made me cry, and then I said, "I just wish it had been better." I think that's where most of my sadness came from, that it had been such a bad relationship, and I'd never know what it was like to have Ozzie Nelson for a dad.

But there were certainly up sides. The timing couldn't have been better; it was our only open weekend in June. Call us tacky, but we were immediately aware of this. I called a friend who has four cats for advice on a nearby motel; because he has cats, he knew I wasn't angling for a sleepover at his place. Our selection, the threadbare but homey Lord Amherst, a classy spot in its heyday when the Thruway eastern terminus was within eyesight; now a paint-chipped shadow of its former greatness with nice rooms for less than $50 a night if you apply your AAA discount. Plus, free breakfast and free Showtime! And just 10 minutes from my Mom's apartment.

We left Abbie with friends in Syracuse (she had a school presentation that night) and hit the Thruway. At some point, Laurie turned to me and said, "How are you doing?" And I said, "This may sound weird, but the fear is gone." And it was. It was the first time in my life that I had driven towards Buffalo without being afraid. What a deliverance.

We got to my Mom's at about 3:30 on Friday afternoon; she was alone. My brother Kent and his wife Donna were getting ready for a wedding that evening, and the pastor had come and gone. So the three of us chatted for a while, and I was given the run of my father's possessions; I found a few poignant items, old photos, a box I'd made him one Father's Day; and a lot of his dementia booty: a huge box of baseball cards he'd bought to qualify for a sweepstakes, in fact, everything was something he'd bought to qualify for a sweepstakes. Every drawer I looked in had a hammer. I selected a stack of CD's; he'd had no CD player. I took a few ties with bison on them. And a set: a tie bar with a thermometer on it (°C), a cufflink with another thermometer on it (°F), and the other cufflink bearing a compass. And a Western rawhide string tie with a "Day of the Dead" man in silver and turquoise.

Then we went out to dinner at the Hourglass restaurant. Mom cried a bit when the owner embraced her; she cried a bit when a waitress embraced her; and when another waitress came over to comfort her, although she didn't remember the second waitress. We ate a magnificent meal, took Mom home and returned to the venerable Lord Amherst.

Saturday morning, I suited up in green and we headed for Mom's. Kent came over, and we chatted. Then we drove to the funeral home for calling hours at 11 a.m. My niece brought in my grandniece, Violet, who I'd yet to see in her new life, and I held her and the tears streamed down my cheeks. She has beautiful eyelashes, a sublimely beautiful child, and she didn't fuss. I wouldn't have put her down for an hour, except for the other people coming in.

I saw my high school gym teacher; he asked how I was, and I said, "In great shape." "Good." "I'm walking two miles every morning." "Walk three," he said, turned and walked away. I chatted with my childhood dentist, a great guy. My Aunt Rhea came in, dressed in red, with my cousin Daryl. My Uncle Elliott, Uncle Lee, Aunt Eva, all my father's siblings, dry-eyed.

Dad had been arguing with my Uncle Elliott for a lifetime. He'd been ignoring my Aunt Eva for years, unless he needed something. The day his death notice appeared in the newspaper, half the congregation ­ at the church they'd both attended since the 1940's ­ was surprised to discover they were brother and sister.

The room filled with people. Old people from the church were sad, seeing another person gone, but the family was barely able to contain its mutually held feeling of relief.

And therein lies the sadness. What a legacy. No one said, "He would have loved this." No family member said, "I wish he were here." No family member said, "I'm going to miss him."

The one person who did feel that way was his other wife in Canada, with whom he shared the better part of 29 years. She had come to visit him in the hospital. My brother walked in and there she was on one side of the bed and Mom on the other. She is very nice I'm told, a young 69, pretty, casual in dress and warm in manner. She loved him deeply. We did find out that he had lied to her about his age, saying he was four years younger than he was. In the end, it all caved in. He could no longer be mobile, or young, or loved by two women.

What started out as an ill-advised hip replacement turned into a descent into dementia and death as my father's lifetime of wanting things his own way turned on him. He had things his own way. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't exercise. He wouldn't lie still. He did it all his own way, and it killed him. And all the secrets he'd thought he'd kept were out in the open. He lost control of the situation, and then of his own body, and died.

I felt sorry for his Canadian companion. She couldn't grieve. She couldn't come to the service, where we were all saying, "He's better off where he is now." True, and an acceptable thing to say so as not to offend. People from church, who saw him on his best behavior on Sundays, were genuinely sad. My mother was sad; she'd stuck by him for 63 years.

Laurie was having her eyes opened. My Uncle Lee put his arm around her and said, "We all knew what was going on." My cousin Daryl said, "I wanted to visit him in the hospital, but didn't want to. And I tried to figure out why, and then I realized I was afraid of him." Of course, she was wise to fear him at this point. In his last weeks, he was punching the nurses, orderlies and any family member who tried to move him or touch him or restrain him. He hit my sister-in-law who said to me, "He hit me! I can't believe it!" and I responded, "Hey, this is the guy I grew up with. He's just returning to form."

Laurie, who never believed me fully, was becoming a believer.

The service was very nice, and I wept again during the reading from Ecclesiastes. A time to every purpose. The pastor, new to my parents' church, gave a perfect homily. And after everyone had filed out, Kent said to me and Laurie, "We're burying him on Monday. Why pay overtime to bury him today?" This, for Laurie, was the defining moment. For me it came a few hours later, after a nice afternoon at my brother's house, when we took Mom home, and she said, "Well, that was a nice day." And she was right.

Sunday, the pastor wore a tie my mom and sister-in-law had bought him. It had a big flower, the Bible and the Cross on it. He's a good sport. I saw some old friends and received some more condolences. We took Mom out to lunch, back to her apartment, and drove home, back to work, back to the worldly concerns. It had been a lovely weekend. It was good to have Abbie back again, too, although she was tired and grumpy.

And life marches on.