an ending

[calimac]

Well. The news is, my father died yesterday.

I went over to Wales to see him last November. He had just turned 88 and was very frail, but seemed to be puttering along adequately. But he'd had medical scares in the past, and over the last month went into a serious decline. So I was mentally prepared for this. When I spoke with my stepmother on the phone after she came back from the hospital, she seemed more weary from accumulated stress than anything else. But she has a good support network and will be OK.

I will of course return for the funeral. The date hasn't been set yet. Lightning trips overseas are not something I'll find easy. But it will manage.

My relationship with my father was a complicated one which will not easily fit in this space. When I was a boy, some facile guidance counselor once suggested that Dad and I bond by tossing a ball around in the back yard. Neither of us could think of anything we were less interested in doing. Our ability to communicate in other ways was often at about that level.

Nevertheless, my father did much for me for which I remain grateful. He provided his part of a solid and secure family home life throughout my childhood. He, also with my mother's help, kept books and music around the house which I drew on for self-education. The books were mostly history; I was reading then-new tomes like The Arms of Krupp and Alistair Horne on the Fall of France when I was 12 years old.

He drove us on long vacations which took us to 36 of the 50 states before I left home. He paid for my undergraduate education (which is something a successful upper-middle-class income could easily afford in those days), and never raised any objections over my career choice of librarian instead of a more "manly" occupation like his own of physician. (He was an ob-gyn, which in any case is hardly the most macho of medical specialties.)

And he taught me two obscure but useful skills which I celebrated on his last birthday anniversary.

Comments

[oursin]

Condolences on your loss.

[onyxlynx]

My condolences on your loss.

[athenais]

I'm very sorry for your loss. Complicated indeed.

[voidampersand]

My sympathies for your loss.

[cmcmck]

I'm sorry to hear this but glad he taught you obscure skills.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear this.

[pink-halen.livejournal.com]

It is a road we have all traveled (or will travel.) I lost my father in 2003. He was nearly 93 years old. My father was old enough to be my grandfather so he and I didn't see eye to eye because of generational difference.

Your Father has moved on and so will you. At the least It is a new chapter but it may even be a new volume.

My thoughts are with you.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Condolences. Sometimes, life is hard.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Condolences on your loss.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry for your loss.

[(Anonymous)]

Those long vacations sound fun; my father and stepmother were teachers, which meant that they were able to take us on a three-week driving holiday in many summers of my childhood, so that I've been camping in most of the best-known national parks. In the course of that, we visited 42 states (I've only added one more since), but we had the numerical advantage of starting closer to the closely-packed northeast.

My condolences, and best wishes for a smooth trip to Wales.

-MTD/neb

[negothick.livejournal.com]

May his memory be for a blessing. Losing parents is hard, no matter how old they--or we--have grown to be. I lost both of my parents in the same year, nearly 20 years ago. It never gets easier.

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

My condolences.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry for your loss. He raised a fine man. Hugs.

Karen

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Please accept my sympathies, to such extent as you feel they are needed. It sounds as if he had a full life and was not cut off too young, and his death didn't come to you as a sudden shock, all of which is good. But it's a strange feeling having the generation before one's own no longer there.

[sovay]

His memory for a blessing.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

More condolences. Mine own parents are still puttering along, but I know it's time to start preparing.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

My sympathies. The relationship with a parent is always complicated; the loss of a parent, also complicated.

[cawatnganypa.livejournal.com]

Well said, my dear brother. Another of his legacies that I think of fondly is the language Pigeon Latin (aka the ulfa-dulfa language). I don't know where he got it from, but its setup of replacing the ending sound of a syllable with an "L" sound and then repeating the syllable replacing the beginning sound with an "F" sound ("napkin," for example, becoming "nal-fap-kil-fin") was particularly fun when talking about dad's friend Chuck Tucker.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Oh, deepest sympathies. May his memory be for a blessing.