Simon Says -- "From One Father to Another"

(This is a long entry. If you aren't likely to read the whole thing, please skip directly to the last section--that's the important part.)

Six years ago last week, my dad died.

My life, at the time, was moving along in the direction that it was supposed to. There had been no unexpected changes in course, no turns off the road more travelled, no heartache, no difficulties. Age 0 to age 28 was smooth sailing.

Right around Thanksgiving, my dad was diagnosed with a wicked case of bone cancer--Multiple Myeloma. He knew he was sick before the results came back, and he was very scared. I know this because I remember a few days before he told me he was sick, he was sitting on my couch, very distracted and concerned. He was watching TV but obviously not absorbing anything. My mom asked him a question, and he looked up, startled. I saw a look in his face that I will never forget--sort of like a small child caught doing something wrong, trying to come up with a quick excuse. I realized later that is was just fear. Mind-numbing, life-altering fear. He knew he was in for a lot of pain, and that it was coming soon, and would last a long time.

We had a few months, and then the next thing I knew I was getting the phone call saying, "Get on a plane and come home." He died while I was somewhere over California. Or maybe while I was still in the airport, waiting to board. I'm not really sure, and I didn't think about it at the time. I kind of wish I knew.

I got to my folks' house after midnight, and everyone was there instead of at the hospital. I was confused for a moment--figured visiting hours were over. Blind to the obvious, I asked why everyone was home. My sister told me--I remember the words exactly--"We just wanted to tell you that dad died." I sat down on the stairs and grabbed at my hair with my right hand and said, "Jesus. Oh Jesus." That's where memories get hazy.

Soon after my dad died, my life sorta went to shit, please pardon the language. His death was followed by a rapid succession of deaths in my family, my wife's family (I was married at the time), and in my group of friends. Six deaths in 18 months, not counting my mom's cat. To put it bluntly, I fell apart that year. I drank a lot. I swore out loud and for no reason. I nearly lost my job. I left my wife. I did a few other things that I am not proud of at all--things that I wish I could wipe out of my past so that I could sleep better at night. My dad's death was the first event that put my life into a spin that was difficult to stop, and I didn't really come up for air for a long time.

My dad was my best friend for most of my life. Corny? Yes. Also true. Up until the age of 17 or so, I'd rather hang out with my dad than with any of my peers. We had fun together. We went to concerts. We played basketball. We looked at girls. There was very little that I would do with a friend that I wouldn't rather do with my dad. We would loiter at the corner store, eating our frozen yogurt near the dumpsters.

We had the same posture, many of the same features. I know it's a cliche, but it freaks me out a little when I look at these things at the end of my wrists--are they mine or his? (As an aside, I have to admit that it's pretty easy to tell that they are actually mine; unlike my dad, I didn't accidentally cut off the end of my pointer finger with the lawn mower.) I once saw a photo of myself in my grandparents' living room and couldn't figure out when that picture had been taken. Turns out that it was a picture of my dad, taken when he was dating my mom. Sometimes in the mirror I get a spooky flash of my dad's features, and it always makes me take another look.

My dad and I had a lot of jokes between us that no one else understood (or would want to understand, for that matter). There was the one about always being able to see your opponent's belt buckle. There was the one about the ice cream. There was the one about driving to beat the clock, whether too fast or too slow. Small steps vs. big steps. Up and up and up and under. The list goes on. The thing that made these funny to us was mostly just the fact that they were only between us, and it was a way for us to have our little club, where we were inside and everyone else was outside. This sphere of my life died with him. A joke's not a joke when you're the only one who gets it.

Although I learned after his death that he was a very flawed man, my dad taught me how to be a good person. He taught me about personal responsibility, about being kind to people, about being helpful. My dad taught me to be confidant in who I was, and in who I wanted to be. He helped me learn about what makes a good man, and a good person. My dad would tell me about the mistakes he made in his life and would urge me to make better choices than he did. Best of all, my dad was never shy about telling me that he loved me, and was proud of me, and that he admired me, and in some ways looked up to me. That love and reassurance, that admiration that I got from my own personal hero was some of the most valuable...what do I call it... stuff that ever came my way. A huge portion of my personality comes from him, from his genes, from observation, and from his teaching. He was not a perfect man, but he was as good a father as there could be.

Yes, my dad was my best friend, and he died at age 59 of Multiple Myeloma. It was two days after my 28th birthday.

***

When I was about 23, my dad asked what I wanted for Christmas. I told him that I wanted to see his upper lip. My dad had a mustache, and he'd had it since before I was born. It was weird to me to think that I had known him all this time but had never seen his entire face. He laughed and told me no way. The next Christmas, I asked for the same thing. Shave it off. Again, no go. This went on for about three years, until one day he surprised me. We were at my apartment in Oakland and we had an afternoon to kill. He told me that he had something to show me. It was a razor. So we went into the bathroom, and in a moment when life comes full circle, I taught him how to shave his upper lip.

We laughed while I trimmed the mustache off with clippers, we laughed while he lathered up, we laughed while he shaved, we laughed while he rinsed his face, and we laughed when we looked at the result. His lip looked like it was about a foot tall! He looked like a different person. I realized at that point that he kind of looked like his mom. Again, a reminder of where I came from, and who I was. I can't even tell you how surprised my mom was when he showed up with a clean-shaven face. She was shocked, and not at all pleased. After thirty years with someone, it's probably weird when that person shows up looking like somebody else.

My dad kept his mustache off for about a year or so and then grew it back. It was one of the nicest presents he gave me, or at least one of the most memorable. I appreciate it still.

***

I am now a father. That seems like it should freak me out, but it doesn't. Sometimes it seems huge, sometimes it seems nonsensical, sometimes it seems unreal, and sometimes it seems so funny it makes me laugh. But it does not freak me out. It feels natural, easy, normal, right. I am having a great time so far. As you can probably guess, the closest I get to being freaked out is when I wonder if I can do as well for my son as my father did for me. I usually get hung up on the small things, like "Do I remember enough about basketball to coach his team?" or "Will I have to learn what the different positions are in football, in case he asks me?" And, of course, I fear, like every parent does, that he will get into drugs or spend time in jail, or he will be depressed and inconsolable, or that he will never find true love, or that he will drive carelessly as a teenager and die on the side of the road.

But I don't worry much about my primary role, and that is to play with him, and to have fun with him, and to teach him what is right and wrong, and to let him know that I am proud of him and I love him. That was what was most important from my dad, and that is what I can do for my son.

***

Why did I tell you about the mustache?

I said above that my dad died of Multiple Myeloma. It is a horrible disease; it is painful, and incurable, and the treatment of the symptoms can be close to intolerable. The fear I saw in my father's eyes that Thanksgiving weekend is one of my most painful and unforgettable memories, and it speaks volumes to me. He knew he was in for a hard road, and he was right. The pain was unbearable, his loss of functionality was humiliating, and he died an emotionally and physically broken man. Cancer kicked his ass.

I have decided to raise money for the International Myeloma Foundation in remembrance of my father. No one should have to die like he did--no good person, no bad person, no person at all should have endure what he endured. The International Myeloma Foundation is dedicated to raising awareness of MM, funding research, and providing services to MM patients and their families. I am having, in my father's memory, a Mustache-a-thon. Over the last few weeks, I grew out a goatee, and then, when it got to the right point, I shaved off all of it except the mustache. This is no Fu-Manchu, no Errol Flynn, no handlebar. It’s a plain, old, unflattering, standard Magnum P.I. mustache.

The full mustache will live on my face for four weeks. I will keep the rest of my face clean shaven--no goatee, no flavor saver, no sideburns. JUST the mustache.

Please pledge your support of my Mustache-a-thon by making your donation to the International Myeloma Foundation. Please visit my page at their website: http://mustache.myeloma.org.

As far as I will be aware, the donations are anonymous. I will know the total amount raised, but I don't know how much comes from whom. Please make a donation of any size, even just a few dollars. Thanks from me, and from my dad.

wrote at 8:17 PM | Comments (28)