Dad

My Dad passed away late Friday night.  He had Alhzeimer's but it was his weak heart that did him in.  This was not a surprise. I knew this was coming. I have spent the last four years grieving my Dad in stages as more of the person I knew faded away. He went into hospice a few weeks ago and I thought he might pass when I was on my trip to NYC and I kept thinking "No, wait. But if you must go, I am around good friends and I feel supported. It's ok." He waited. Then I came back to KC and thought it might be this week and I was gearing up for shows but one part of my brain was on high alert like “Any minute I’ll get the call.” And the other part of my brain was so thankful to have creative things to focus on. Because that’s what it is. Messy. Conflicted. Okay and Not Okay at the same time. Oh god I am a cliché. I almost quoted Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic”. Or Everything everywhere all at once. Well they have a point. Except maybe I don’t understand Irony.

 My Dad was the parent who gave me nurturance. And who saw me a little bit, or maybe the self I wanted to be and was growing into- especially in my pursuit of creative things. Music, acting, dance, writing. He always told me to keep going and do things that inspired me.

 He really was the lifeline for me emotionally as a parent....even though I couldn't live with him I could visit him and talk to him a lot. He made me feel loved. He was great at letter writing and phone calls. I used to brag to my friends when I was 10 years old that he "taught philosophy" which he did after seminary when he was married to my mother, and after he was a Presbyterian Minister (kind of shocking as I think he liked teaching more than being a Minister and he didn’t seem particularly "religious"...it was more academic for him I think).  In college, I took an Existentialism class and I called him and shouted gleefully into the phone "God is Dead! Challenge me on this!"
He loved that, and we had many conversations that year about Carl Jaspers and Nietzsche and purpose and life and art and Waiting for Godot. I actually went to Drew University because my Dad told me about it and he had gotten a Ph.D. there in Philosophy of Religion. I was of course a Theatre Major.  

He would always ask me what creative things I was working on. Even at age 17 when I was writing bad poetry. He didn't minimize me. He saw I could grow. He encouraged. He was really good at that.

He was also SILLY. And FUN. 
He would make simple things like going to the grocery store an event, turning up Prince's “When Doves Cry” and Madonna’s “Borderline” on the car radio so we could sing along. He would do very weird walks in public. I'm talking legs up high and weird isolated shoulder moves. (You wonder where I get my dance ideas? My absolute love of silly?) My siblings would get embarrassed but I would laugh till my sides hurt I loved it so much.

He wasn’t perfect. I wanted to live with him when I was in junior high, to escape my unsafe-feeling home with my mother and stepdad (alcoholism, abuse and more- but that's another story)- and my Dad said he couldn't take me. That was devastating. I would’ve taken me in. But people are complicated. He had baggage too and I knew it from a young age. I think I accepted that about him. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t angry and disappointed- but there was a lot of stuff there… the heavy was always infused with specks of light.

AND. I also saw in my Dad's relationship with Gloria -he was able to confront his issues a little bit and I saw their relationship thrive. They made each other laugh a lot. Actually the memory I have of them most is how they would crack each other up over NOTHING. Right up to the end.

This morning I remembered when he was helping me write a philosophy paper in college (yes I asked him for help- wouldn't you?) he was so taken with a play called J.B. by Archibald MacLeish that he just kept reading this quote with a bit of wonder in his voice…..

(in the play)
J.B. and his wife, Sarah, are struggling to understand how to interpret the devastation they’ve suffered—and how to go on living.
Sarah says to J.B.:

Blow on the coal of the heart.
The candles in churches are out.
The stars have gone out in the sky.
Blow on the coal of the heart
And we’ll see by and by.

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Dad, I love you. Rest easy.