Dad

I started this blog to chronicle our family's journey through the trials of an ALS diagnosis. And secondly, it was to have a record of this period of time for myself. As with all things, ALS encompasses a portion of our lives, but the world continues and joys and sorrows take place as they always do. With that I'm compelled to create this blog to remember and celebrate my father, who passed away this past week and has left a void in my life and the lives of family and friends. 

Dad and I

Yes, I am wallowing a little in self-pity, feeling I've been handed more than my share of sadness these past few years. But honestly, the truth is, part of being human is loss and sadness – it’s a shared experience for all of us.  We all experience loss, love, triumph, pain and great happiness, it is a connection we have to each other as human beings. There is a wonderful line in the Bob Segar, song "No More", that says "no one gets to walk between the rain," so I know I'm not the only one who has experienced sadness- we all have our moments in the rain.

For Dad...

The last couple years have been difficult for Dad; he's struggled with some health issues and mild dementia. However, it didn't seem to reduce the sadness or shock when you hear your father has passed away. With his passing we, my sister Denise, her husband Mike, Patrick and I headed home to help my Mom with arrangements. We traveled over Donner Pass through Reno, past the shoe tree to our hometown, Susanville, CA.


At my parent's 50th: Chris, Me, Mom, Dad and Denise

We met my mother and brother immediately at the funeral home to discuss arrangements. It's a surreal experience to make these decisions for your dad and the pain on my mother's face was difficult to witness. We made funeral plans with the mortician and hopefully these decisions would have been what my father wanted, he never said. 

My sister and I split duties with her putting the funeral program together and I writing the obituary. To gather information for the obituary and program, the family sat down and chronicled his life, hobbies and activities. My mother brought out many personal items, some I’d never seen that were interesting and nostalgic. My father was a rich man, not financially, but in a life well lived. He was intelligent earning his bachelors and masters degrees at UC Berkeley, loved the outdoors and spent hours bird watching, hiking, and walking. He was a walker and loved just getting out to view the day. As a young man he climbed and hiked often and took us kids on a number of outdoor outings.

My father wrote Haiku poetry, collected stamps and was fascinated by Alexander the Great, whom he wrote his thesis. His poetry was published in a variety of publications throughout the years. During my parents early years, my father would write poems for my mother. These two poems my dad wrote to my mom while he was away at boot camp and now seem fitting for the moment. My dad's Haiku's often reflected on a specific moment in time...

The last of the day
Is glowing far away
beyond the clouds

How far I am from
home when daylight
ends beyond the clouds

I spent some hours with all the collected information for Dad's obituary. Although I think the obituary chronicles his life, it still feels not quite representative of the father I knew. But no amount of tweaking will make it better, so “it is what it is.”

Heading home, my sister and I stopped at the shoe tree and added a pair of Dad's shoes to the lower branches. It's a fitting tribute to a man that so loved the outdoors. Here is my attempt at Haiku...

The Shoe Tree - with my father's shoe...

Ownerless shoes in a tree
dangling from a branch
a father missed

Lately, I've reflected on my days with Dad and here is a list of the things he taught me, the things I remember and the gifts I am grateful for...

He taught me..

to play the Chinese game of Go
the importance of appreciating nature and the outdoors
that a formal education is important
that one should never stop learning
that time is the greatest gift you can give someone.... and
to stand up for your beliefs however unpopular

I remember spending time...

hearing bedtime stories including Arabian Nights and Aesop's Fables
collecting stamps
going bird watching.... and
playing chess

I am grateful to a father that always had the time to spend. In today's hurried world, I realize it was such a generous gift.

I have a lovely note my dad wrote me 20+ years ago - that thanks me for a gift I made him, in the note he states, "thank you for the horse... and for the countless things I've neglected to thank you for over the years." - So to that Dad, I say "DITTO" and until we meet again.

"There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go" – Author Unknown.