My Dad, one year on

I caught the 7:30 pm flight from Toronto to Edmonton, on business. I had a pounding headache that not even a Tim Horton's french vanilla cappuccino, consumed quickly at the airport terminal, could fully quench. The plane was only about 1/3 full and I had the whole row of three seats to myself. I sat in the middle seat and set up shop. I unpacked my duffel bag and marked up (corrected) about 120 vendor drawings, most with the same tedious corrections. I felt good that I was able to carve into the mountain of work I had been swamped with in early 2004.

We landed in Edmonton at about 9:30 local time, and I buzzed through the Wendy's drivethru for a hamburger in Nisku and was on my way to Fort Saskatchewan by 10:00 pm. It was just before 11:00 by the time I got to the hotel.

I checked in and the night clerk handed me a slip of paper. "You have a message to phone home." I figured Alexa wanted to know I had landed safely and maybe had a story about Rocky to tell me. I nodded and smiled. She kept her gaze fixed at me and said, "It's important." And I nodded and smiled again. I figured Alexa wanted to make sure I didn't ignore the request or just send her an e-mail once I got unpacked in the room.

So I took my time unpacking my clothes, unpacking the vendor drawings, getting the laptop plugged in, and dialed home. Alexa answered and asked how I was doing. I said I was fine and asked how she was.

Then she said, "Rob, I'm sorry. I have some very sad news for you...your father passed away today."

I think those were her words.

We talked for another 10 or 15 minutes, though I don't really recall what was said, and I don't really believe anything else needed to be said.

Well, I do recall saying, "this is the saddest day of my life", and Alexa agreeing.

It was more emptiness than sadness. It was one of those moments when your heart really gets ripped out of you, and you feel empty and incomplete.

I called my parents place, but my Mom didn't answer the phone. The answering tape came on -- it was my Dad's voice on the recording. "I'm sorry we can't answer your call right now...". I laughed quietly at both the irony and the truth, and cried a little more.

I was able to get in touch with my sister, who lives nearby my parents, and shortly after that, finally, my Mom. Then my sister in Edmonton, and we kicked off the first formative discussions about arrangements for the funeral and flying to Vancouver.

Ever the engineer, I calculated that he would have passed away around 5:00 pm PST or so, while I was up in the air, doing my excruciatingly important work of correcting instrumentation drawings for a filter press I might never actually see operate.

I was up in the air, and he was down on the earth, at home. When he needed me, I couldn't help him.

I suppose I can't explain the bond between my Dad and me. There is a percentage of you out there who are fortunate to have a similar bond with one or maybe even both of your parents. But we were very close. We didn't even have to say many words. Just knowing he was there, 3000 miles away, made me feel good.

He had done so many things for the family...for Mom, my sisters, and for me. Compared against common measuring sticks, I am sure there are many fathers who spend/spent more total hours, more total money, did more favours, than my Dad. But there was a just a quiet, understated, humble, pure and honest love in the way he treated me. He treated me differently. He behaved differently toward me. It was a different gear. There were different rules. Favouritism (as an only son) really isn't the word. He just acted out a father's love for his son like it was an art. And not in any overt way...it was very natural, but very gripping too.

I don't think you stumble on that. I knew he drew that from his father. But his father, my Dziadziu, had five sons. Dziadziu passed away in 1965 (on my Dad's birthday) and I only knew him through a child's eyes. How special HE must have been to have been able to distribute that love to all his boys. And how lucky I was to have my father's love-for-a-son all to myself!

But back to the point. All his life, he had done things for me, and I never had a chance to pay him back. I was a university student for way too many years, which meant I was usually low on cash and somewhat dependent on the generosity of my parents to keep me going. (The money I did have was accumulated from five summers working. He got me the job, where he worked, it was union wages...hard and dirty work, but in the summer of 1979 I made $7,900.)

Then I was off to make my way in the real world, saving up money to buy a car, buy a house. Never really had a chance to repay him, or my mother, for their sacrifices and their love.

So all these years it was him nurturing me, teaching me, helping me, supporting me, encouraging me. It was all one way.

And all I could think of, here was the one time where he, who I always considered to be a rock, was helpless, and I couldn't help. I was in an airplane still two time zones away.

Of course, in the logical sense, it is exceedingly foolish to even entertain the notion that I could have helped in any practical way, and proud, and vain, and selfish. And I knew that. But that was the raw emotion.

If that was the case, if he was lying there, breathing his last, beyond the help of even the paramedics, helpless, I still wanted to be there, to hold his hand, to give him a hug, to walk with him that last step, to thank him, to tell him I love him, to just BE THERE to let him know I was loyal to the end, that I would never forget him.

From time to time I reflect on March 23, 2004, on being on the airplane, and I feel that pain and frustration all over again.

I am sorry I was not there, Dad, for your last step. But I am still loyal, I still love you, and I will never forget you.

A grandfather's love for a grandson, too