I Had A Dad - Addendum

So..... Father's Day. This was always a somewhat awkward day for me. I was only ten or eleven when my parents separated, so the stuff expressed in most Father's Day cards was foreign to me. Growing up, I never got my allowance from my dad. I never borrowed his car. I never asked him for dating advice, never cried on his shoulder when my heart got broken, never went to a father-daughter dinner or dance... you know, all that typical cheesy schmaltzy crap that is the earmark of Hallmark. Most cards reflect a close father-child relationship, and given the space between us, those types of greetings didn't really seem appropriate. And yet we DID have a friendly and familial relationship during most of my adulthood. There wasn't much of a selection of cards that seemed to fit our unique relationship, so choosing the right Father's Day card to send my dad was always something of a challenge.

I wasn't faced with that challenge this year, and I felt that void acutely. I knew that Father's Day this year would be a little difficult, but I didn't expect it to hit me as hard as it has. Despite the geographic and emotional miles that had been between us, I am missing my dad today.

Maybe it's the finality of it settling in... that he's really gone now, not just far away. Maybe I'm feeling all the evaporated hopes of finally visiting him and having him show me the Hawaii that he knew and loved. Maybe I'm feeling all the lost opportunities we may have had to eventually build a closer relationship. I know I'm missing the back-and-forth e-mail banter we enjoyed. And I think I'm especially sad that there's one less person in the world that I knew I could count on to root for me, to be proud of me, to help celebrate my accomplishments and encourage me when I failed. Our relationship had its scars, but I still had a father who loved me, and called me his "Dotter". I'm feeling the loss of his presence in my life.

Mr. Remarkable Monkey went up to his folks' today to celebrate Father's Day with his dad. I like my in-laws well enough and my father-in-law is a gem, but I just didn't feel up to spending Father's Day with someone else's dad this year.

Dad c.2000

Instead, I chose to stay home and honor my dad's memory in a way that I think would make him happy. And so I'm sitting on the patio, writing. My dad was something of a writer... he was even published a time or two. And I'm sipping a glass of Glenfiddich, his favorite Scotch. I don't know if he took it neat, or with water or on the rocks... I may never know now. I opted for neat. And while I'm not a fan of whiskey, I gotta say... the Glenfiddich is not too bad. I guess Dad is still teaching me things after all.

Cheers, Dad.
I miss you.

I Had a Dad...

Dad c. 1987, at the last occasion
I saw him in person.

The monkey cage hasn't been a fun place lately. Last month, it was my Grandma. Last week, my father lost his battle with lung cancer. I am deeply saddened.

If you've read last year's Father's Day post, you know that we didn't have the "typical" father/daughter relationship. My dad battled some pretty vicious demons during his early adulthood. Mix those demons with alcohol and you've got a pretty combustive combination. As a child, I was mostly afraid of him. We never knew what might set him off, and it wasn't pretty when he exploded. I was only eleven when my parents split. A few months later he left the east coast and moved to Hawaii.

So there was a lot of distance between us, both geographically and emotionally. At one point, we had pretty much disowned each other. We reconnected when I was a young adult myself. The distance between us, and some pretty thick emotional scar tissue, made it difficult for us to forge a really close relationship. I don't know if things would have been different had we been closer geographically... maybe, maybe not... there was a lot of water under the bridge. But we managed to leave the past in the past, and built something of a new relationship that allowed us to at least get to know each other, as people, a little better. And for that I'm truly thankful.

As a person, my dad was an amazing man. He was one of the most intelligent people you could ever hope to meet. As I mentioned in that Father's Day post, he had photographic memory and genius-level IQ. He was also funny, and tough, and loyal to his friends. He was a leader, and accomplished many wonderful things for his community. I think as he got older, he mellowed. Maybe because he finally got his demons under control? I'd like to think so. The warmer, softer side of him was much more apparent. Living in a beautiful tropical paradise like Hawaii may have helped too. And I really think that his wife, the sweet Miss C, was a positive and calming influence on him.

When he was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 2010, we all held our breaths. Rounds of chemo and radiation followed. He did remarkably well! (There's that Scottish stubborn tenacity!) The tumors had shrunk and appeared to be stable, and the prognosis was good. Just this past November, all the docs seemed to think treatment was successful. And then my dad started having problems, particularly losing strength in his legs. At first, he thought it was lingering effects of the chemo and radiation. Unfortunately, in March, an MRI showed a couple brain lesions. The type of lung cancer he had is apparently notorious for spreading to the brain. So just when we thought he'd beaten it and would soon be back to normal, that fucking cancer sneaked back in through another entrance. (And there's this blog's first F-bomb... cancer deserves it.)

Dad and Miss C on a happy day in 2003.

He had a gamma-knife procedure on March 14th. The day after, he couldn't even stand. He was admitted to an inpatient rehab facility on March 20th in the hopes that he could regain some of his strength. From what Miss C tells me, Dad got more and more discouraged, and eventually it seemed like he gave up. He was in a lot of pain and not making much progress.

He was admitted to a hospice facility on April 20th. I was able to speak with him briefly that weekend. It was the first time in quite a while that we'd talked on the phone. We had e-mailed each other several times a week for years and enjoyed a friendly rapport, but phone conversations were rare... The time difference made calls difficult, but also for me (and maybe for him as well), they just seemed a little awkward and stiff. For some reason, it seemed harder to overcome the distance between us verbally. We didn't seem to have that problem when communicating via e-mail.

During our conversation, I wondered to myself if that would be the last time I'd get to speak to him. I didn't think it would be... I thought he had at least a little more time left. I'm so thankful that I had that opportunity to talk to him one last time. It meant even more to me than I thought it would.

I asked him if there was anything I could send him to enjoy while he was there in hospice.
 He said, "Yeah, Glenfiddich."
"Are you allowed to have that there?" I asked.
"I'm the king here... I can have anything I want!" was his reply.
I laughed and told him I'd see what I could do.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Dad?" I asked.
He said, "Just make me proud."

I know he was proud of me. After we reconnected twenty-some-odd years ago, he often told me he was. And I know we loved each other in our own dysfunctional way, even if it WAS at somewhat of a distance. I'm glad he was proud of me, and I'm very proud to be his daughter.

Miss C tells me that she's thinking of having just a very small memorial service with close friends and family at the Buddhist temple her mother belonged to. She says Dad really liked that temple, and that he had come to appreciate many of the aspects of Buddhism, though not necessarily as a religion (just as I have... go figure!).  So I think he'd really like that.

Sadly, I won't be able to attend. While the geographic distance between us may have made things a little more comfortable in the past, right now I wish I was close enough to be there. When he seemed to have beaten the cancer back in November, I thought I'd try and save up and maybe plan to finally get out there in the next couple years for a visit with him, and spend a few days getting to know him a little better in person. I'm truly sorry that I won't get that opportunity. Some day, though, I'll make it out there. I'd like to finally meet Miss C in person, and see the place that Dad called home for over 30 years.

For now, I think I'll go and get myself a bottle of Glenfiddich. When his memorial service is happening in Hawaii, I'll pause whatever I'm doing here and toast his memory. I really don't like Scotch (or any whiskey for that matter), but I'll drink it anyway in honor of my dad. I have a feeling that with Scotch... just as in our relationship... once you get past the bitterness, there's a pleasant warmth to enjoy.

Mahalo, Dad.
A hui kaua.