All The World I’d Give You
He left in the mornings before I woke up and came home soon before I fell asleep, most days. As an actuarial consultant, he traveled a bit as well, but mostly he woke up early to start his hour-and-a-half long commute to from the suburbs of New Jersey to NY, to One Penn Plaza, just across the street from Penn Station, and far enough away to ensure as I grew up I saw him little outside of weekends, holidays, and tired homework help sessions that ran into the weekday nights.
My dad seemed to enjoy his job as an actuary, but I really don’t know what he felt about all of the responsibility to provide for a family, especially after he left his dream of becoming a physicist behind and settled for a stable corporate job using his math talents. I remember going into his office and him proudly showing off the views of the Empire State building, and vaguely recall him introducing me as a child to his colleagues.
But my memories of my father throughout my childhood are slim. He was always a heavy man, so we spent time outside but never did any major outdoor bonding. Many memories consist of him disciplining me time and time again, especially prior to my turning 6, with hand or belt, with a terrifying anger that I knew all too well. These are the earliest and strongest visceral memories of my father. He couldn’t control his frustration at my not following rules and, as a young child, I couldn’t control my lack of respect for authority — it made for some explosive moments that shaped who I am today.
But there are also a number of fond memories, the memories I try my best to grasp at these past weeks and bring back to the forefront of my mind — our family dinners out on weekends, and long drives to family gatherings where he’d play his classical or 50s rock music loudly as I tried to sleep lying across the backseat, him barbecuing in the summers when we used to have people over our house, family vacations to Disney World an the Carribean and LA, and one memorable trip to a coworkers cabin in Albany, NY, where I was stung but a nest of yellowjackets and my father carried me inside without knowing those darn pests were still locked inside my pants and stinging my thighs the whole way.
He worried intensely and constantly about his children, almost to the point of paranoia at times, and his worry was how he loved us. In my 20s, he never called me unless a natural disaster occurred near my home, even a tiny earthquake, to confirm I was ok. If I measure his love for his children — myself and my sister — in how much he worried about us, I can attest there was no greater fatherly love in the world.
I really wish we connected more because I knew we were more alike than he would ever be willing to admit. When life became too challenging there was always tomorrow to deal with what needed to get done. An introvert, he spent most of his time at home in his room reading books, listening to music, watching baseball and, later in life, his DVD collection. In the last years, since his cancer diagnosis now over a decade ago, I did my best to visit and to spend time with him. We drove around to look at wedding venues from PA to Delaware, not just because I wanted to see the venues, but because I wanted more time to bond with him, to make up for lost time for childhood and maybe to develop an adult relationship of father-daughter built on respect. My memory is so awful, I don’t recall what we discussed on these trips, just a few years ago.
As I went on to college and until he could no longer drive very recently, he always was there to pick me up at the airport when I came home, all hours of the day and night. Even though he was hard on me and believed I could achieve great things, I knew he would never let me fall entirely. But I became too afraid to ask him for help as I learned from him that failure was not acceptable without very good reason. That if I failed it was because I didn’t try hard enough. So, for better or worse, I learned how to be strong and to stand up every time I fall, know I have only myself to blame, and move on and prove I can do it all better next time.
There are a million questions I have about my father that will never be answered. I’ll have to live with that. Maybe it’s for the best. He was a mysterious, private person who I think deep down was a really loving and emotional man. I know he was scared and too afraid to or didn’t know how to ask for help. I hope in his last days he was filled with fond memories of his life, and felt loved by those who were able to visit him. I’m grateful, despite the pain of knowing this, that I was able to be there in June due to a planned trip unrelated to his health, where after I found him in a delirious state early one morning and called 911 to get him help, I spent a week visiting him in the hospital, doing what I could to figure out what was wrong and to be there for him like he was for me when I was sick as a kid, and for all these years in his own way.
I didn’t get to say goodbye or most of the things I wanted to say. As with every time I got on the plane back to California in the last 12 years, I questioned if it would be the last time I’d see him alive. That time, it was. I wish I hugged him goodbye and told him I love him. But I think he knew — I hope he knew — by how often I came to the hospital and sat with him — how I asked a billion questions of the doctors much to his disapproval, and even though he didn’t know how to ask for help, I was there to help as best I could. I couldn’t do that in the end, when I was nine months pregnant, and then, with a newborn. I couldn’t get on a plane and make sure he was getting the best treatment, or that he wasn’t there to die alone. I can’t blame myself for that, even though it hurts and always will. I know he was overjoyed to know that he became a grandfather — I didn’t become a mother for him but it was still probably the best gift I could ever give him. He told me in our last conversation by phone, though I didn’t know it would be our last conversation, how good it felt to know his DNA was passed down.
I still don’t believe he’s gone. It doesn’t feel real. Yes, I saw his lifeless body and placed my son’s frog cap that he wore home from the hospital on my father’s still shoulder, below his colorless, resting face, before they closed the casket to bury him, but I keep thinking he was just asleep… that he’ll wake up… that next time I visit NJ he’ll be there, door closed, in his room, having fallen asleep again, waiting for me to knock on his door to say hello. Maybe it’s best I feel this way — living across the country makes it easier to imagine this. I can’t cope with death. I can only imagine he’s still there, growing into the curmudgeony old man he was meant to be for many more years to come.
In glancing at my sweet 26-days young Ethan’s head, poking out from swaddle and blankets, I fast forward through the years ahead, and wonder how to be there for him. I’m not my mother. I’m a career woman and love my job and think it’s important to raise a son (and any future kids) with a working mother. But I also don’t want to be my father — disappearing in the morning, coming back late at night, constantly exhausted and limiting parenting beyond providing to tired late nights of homework help and weekends.
I know there aren’t any right answers here, and it’s something I’ll have to figure out as I go. This is the time for me to focus on work, to save as much as I can, as he won’t remember much of these years and his memory is so short any time committed on weekends will be as valuable as holding him seven straight days a week. I’d like to spend the next five years really getting myself and my family to some sort of financial stability so there’s the option of a more flexible work life in my 40s. It really has been my goal since my early 20s, even though I wasn’t sure I’d ever have kids — all I knew was I needed to start saving and investing, just in case one day I became a mother.
But becoming a mother gives me renewed focus on this — on doing my best job at work not just for the intrinsic rewards that come with helping the team, but really to provide for my son. My mindset has shifted dramatically regarding what we need to be happy. For now, our one bedroom apartment works. We don’t need a ton of space. I invest in life experiences and stocks.
Turning 35 in a few months is also a reality check. I know this is only a few years away from 40, which is an age one never thinks they’ll be except when they get there still feeling like they just completed their 20s. So, I’m committed to doing the best I can these next five years… to work as hard as I can… to be as good of a mother as I possibly can… to be a good wife… to throw out things I don’t need and to simplify life. To spend as much time outside as possible. To hold my son, when he wants to be held, as much as possible. To sleep enough to be awake often. To get and be healthy not so I can “one day look good in a bikini” but instead to have the energy to keep up with my son and to live a long life to not leave this world too early as best as I can prevent it. To be patient and kind and try my best to be a good person. This story is no longer about me. It’s about us. It’s about how I’ve passed on the torch and now I live, now I wake up everyday for something very different — my family. That is everything I have. And it alone is enough.
