Looking back after five years.

When my dad started the rapid decline into the terminal stages of his cancer, his brother told me something that I haven’t forgotten. He said, “I hate to say this, but I think it is important. It is likely that you will remember these times with your dad more than any others. That’s what happens when you care for someone who is dying.” I didn’t accept it at the time, and still haven’t for five years. There is something about it that sounds too simple, too pulled-apart. But I ponder the notion often, and have even edited it to what I believe is more fitting and appropriate under such circumstances. I’d have given him some credit if he’d said, “When someone dies, we often remember the most sensational times we had with that person---good or bad.”

Truth is, I’d hate to give him any credit at all, but I’m not sure why. He came to town a week before my dad died (not because he hadn’t wanted to come earlier, but because my dad hadn’t wanted to see him) and herded us up like cattle---put my dad in a suit that hung off of him like a garbage bag---and made us go to church. He was concerned about my dad’s relationship with Christ, and I think that it allowed him some sense of relief to have done his part in facilitating my dad’s transition into the beyond. I remember walking behind my dad as we searched for a pew that could accommodate all six of us. He sort of hobbled along embarrassingly and I could tell that people were purposefully avoiding looking in our direction for fear that their curiosity would be misinterpreted.

When he did die, on March 30, 2003, I took a gigantic swig of his liquid morphine and sat next to him on the bed until the funeral home came to take his body. We knew it had been coming for some time, his breathing was so slow and shallow and his skin had become translucent and papery, and those final nights (and really days, too) were unbearable. He was 47, nine years older than B is this year. He was cremated, and I went to the funeral home to pick up his ashes (which, strangely enough, came in two boxes and were very heavy). Sometime later, we decided to spread his ashes in the creek behind my grandparents’ house in Savannah. Again, it was me (?). When I opened the bag, the wind blew bits of bone and ash back into my face. I still can’t decide whether that was comedic or traumatizing.

I remember a lot of things about my dad. When I had a major surgery during my teenage years, my head the size of a basketball and drool oozing out the corners of my mouth, he was transformed into this nurturing caregiver who sat with me for long hours in silence in front of our Christmas tree. Way, way back, he broke his arm while riding downhill on a skateboard through our neighborhood streets (in Jams). For a couple of years, he had this huge sky blue convertible Eldorado-ish thing that he used to entertain us and our friends. We would drive around and pick them up and then cruise through the streets and over big hills while we listened to and soaked up his favorite music.

He really loved to collect boats and a big chunk of my adolescence was spent in terror on an inner tube attached to one of his Chris Crafts. He’d tell us to give him a thumbs up/thumbs down to increase/decrease speed, but he never slowed down. Most times, we would fly recklessly off the inner tube, airborne, only to crash painfully onto the water. No matter the outcome, everyone in the boat thought it was hilarious. With him, there just weren’t the same limits.

He spent many years sailing competitively with friends he had known his entire life. In fact, he and my mom sailed together for their honeymoon (my mom says she was sick a lot and it was sort of awful). But I think about those times in my dad's life, before and just after I had arrived on the scene, as carefree and without limits---both in reality and in his memory. I've seen the pictures, in which he and his friends are tanned and drunk with cigarettes (or something herb-y) hanging from their mouths. And I guess some people get so bogged down by the day-to-day of life that those fantastic memories they have of the "good ol' days" take on a life of their own. I don't think my dad ever knew how to live in the present. He was almost youthful.

He was a pretty mellow guy, but there were times when he would blow up with anger. One summer, we were headed to the lake for a family vacation. He had put his boat in the water at the marina and had indicated that, at 15, I was old enough and wise enough to drive our new car alone the 30 minutes to the lake house. My friend, Katie, was with me when, about 10 minutes in, we got a flat tire on the gravel road. I was too scared to ask someone for help, so we tried to stuff the hole with Rice Krispie treats. When we arrived at the house over an hour later, the tire was in strips and we were driving on the wheel. I thought his purple head was going to explode. I was upset at the time, but still remember thinking, "What the hell? It was his fault!" 

My dad was also a multiple-times-over addict who had a very intense and, for me confusing, relationship with alcohol and prescription medications. I cannot remember an evening during my childhood when he wasn’t drinking. I think the painkillers came much later (Who was prescribing those? Did they know he was abusing them?). He also left our family, in many ways, when he started a business almost two hours away from home. He would stay weeknights on another boat he kept in the Tennessee River so that he wouldn’t need to make the commute back home.

Here’s the thing, though: I loved my dad. I admired him for so many reasons, even when my 18-yr-old insides were burning with rage and I was sure I hated him. I spent two years in therapy trying to figure out how I would talk to him about my anger before he died. In the end, my goal was to be direct and unapologetic---my therapist and I had come to the realization that I had been traumatized by my history (which had also made me stronger and more resilient). I can’t believe how much time and energy I put into “trying to confront” him. Good lord. We sat alone on our porch one night, after I had graduated from the University of Georgia and only a month before he died, and I got up the guts to just say it. I didn’t care anymore about the consequences. I wanted to see his reaction. When it came out, it was, “I don’t want you to die.” And he said, “Oh Ash, me neither. But it looks like its happening.” I was crushed. But that was it---I didn’t feel the need to go further. You know how sometimes people say that you need to say things to people because you never know when they are going to die? Well, now I have the feeling that I didn’t really want to confront him at all. Rather, I think I needed him to know that, despite everything, I still loved him tremendously.

There are so many things that I will never know about him. He’s gone and I don’t feel like his brother would know the answers to some of my questions (and his mother is starting to show significant signs of dementia). What was it like for him when his parents divorced? Did he know his mother’s parents? What were they like? Didn’t he miss us when he went away? Was he just bored with his life? How early did his addictive behaviors start? Did he have fears? Regrets? When was the happiest time of his life? What was his best subject in school? When he was young, what did he dream of doing? Why did we have such a strong bond? Why did he do that to mom?

And he never met B, because right when we started dating, he died. I remember one evening, very early on in mine and B’s relationship, I had wanted B to spend the night. He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) and so I threw a tantrum and made him leave (which he was doing anyway, doh!) with all of the books he had given me to read. First of all, I really wanted those books back. But second of all (or really first, but pride’s at stake here), I was totally mortified! B was so calm and I had just shown him the fury way too early on. I was sure it was over. The first (or maybe second) person I called was my dad.

"BUT I LOVE HIM," I sobbed, "And I know this is going to sound crazy, but I'm convinced we're getting married one day."

"Yeah," he said, "If you can get yourself together! He might think you have a touch of the crazies after THAT." He advised that I call him and “pull the cancer card.” “Just tell him you have been having a really difficult time dealing with my illness and ask for his forgiveness,” he advised. Huh? Disturbing on so many levels, right? But also my dad, through and through. I had cried for hours at that point out of utter humiliation, but when we hung up I was in hysterics (and I didn’t “pull the cancer card,” but did tell B, for the first time, how ill my dad was).

Just after he died, I remember thinking, “Shit. Everything that happens from here on out is something that he will not have experienced.” And now here I am, five years and two cities later, with hubs, baby, dog, social work degree, new friends, fun job, and new life. We’re all moving on. My mom is remarrying, Al B is clean and sober and content to be living and working in South Florida (temporarily, as he’s a cold weather guy), and Clark is in college and making the Dean’s List. I am devastated that toddler monster will never know my dad, but feel very fortunate that she has three grandparents who think she is the BEST THING EVER. And that’s a lot more than a lot of people have.