Living in the COVID-19 World ...and Beyond #6: Remembering My Dad

My dad died on May 16th, 2020.   He was 98 years old and had been on hospice since December 23, 2019.   He died at home and at night seemingly in his sleep.   There had been no indications the day before that the end was near, my mom had checked on him twice during the night, and the aide who arrived at 8am woke up my mom to tell her that my dad had passed away.

I had wanted to be with my dad when he died, to hold his hand and help the transition go as smoothly for him as possible.   When I had been with my parents in December, and again in January and then the end of February, I had spent a few nights in a chair next to my dad’s bed providing some reassurance for him and helping him to sleep.  In those final months, he went back and forth between being lucid and as sharp as ever and hallucinating and telling fantastic stories which he fervently believed to be true.  I was good at helping my dad to re-connect with the present moment and remembering the good things – trips, family, work stories, his parents – throughout his life.   I had expected to be able to be there for my dad in his final hours.

Unfortunately, I was not to be there with my dad.   I had last seem my parents on March 2nd and then COVID-19 and all the required safety precautions took over our lives.

We had a virtual funeral service for my dad which I performed.   It was just our close family – my mom, my sister and I and our spouses, my sister’s two sons and their partners, and my dad’s two great grandchildren.   It was thoughtful and touching and helpful for all of us to remember my dad together.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism and referred to as the Day of Atonement.   It is also the Day of Remembrance, the day of remembering loved ones and all who have lost their lives during the previous year during part of the Yom Kippur service entitled Yizkor.   

I do not think of myself as a religious Jew.   I consider myself a secular Jew, meaning that I fully and completely identify as a Jew and I claim my heritage and my people’s history, but I find little to no meaning in religious observance or prayer.

And yesterday was Yom Kippur and I decided to attend services.   Yes, it was streamed into my laptop from my local synagogue as we are still observing social distancing and limitations on in-person gatherings.   And I listened to our rabbi, and I sang a few of the familiar prayers.   And I thought of my dad.  And I remembered what I had said in the eulogy that I delivered at our family funeral service.  

My relationship with my dad was not without difficulties.  My dad and I disagreed about many things (politics was a frequent one, and it was about much more than politics) and we fought, and we hurt each other at different times with our words.  

 To use an analogy – dad was my kryptonite.  I would lose my sense of self and my sense of my own power when confronted by my dad’s dominating personality.  His kryptonite made me weak.  I experienced this for many years – through my teens and twenties especially, it made me want to avoid him and minimize my interactions with him.   

Over the years, as a result of doing my own work exploring my relationship with my dad, I developed a superpower.  This superpower allowed me to tame the kryptonite.   I called this superpower my secret decoder ring.  A decoder ring, for those of you not familiar with it, was an invention I think in the 1930’s that allowed one to read secret messages that had been written in code.  I developed a decoder ring for myself in my own brain.   The decoder ring enabled me to translate what my dad said and see the hidden meaning that was behind it.    Before, my dad would bark out something and I took it at face value and it upset me, once I had my decoder ring operating, I could consistently look past the words my dad spoke and see his true intent which was invariably based in caring.  The benefits of my decoder ring have been immense.   Things that my dad said that used to upset me, now did not … as I could interpret a different meaning behind his words.

During the final years of my dad’s life, I think I loved him more than I ever had, and I think we were closer and more connected with each other than we had ever been.  I’m thankful that time allowed me to build such a warm, close and thoughtful relationship with my dad.

My dad always did the best that he could, I know that.  Sometimes his best was not so great and sometimes it actually felt hurtful.  And he was doing to his best all the time.   I loved him.  He was a good man with a good heart.  

 May his memory be a blessing.