Remembering Dad

 Advent Calendar December 9, 2022: Remembering Dad.

A few days before Thanksgiving in 1991, my dad had fell ill and was taken to the hospital. I got the call from my sister, who told me that he had a slight stroke and that he was awake but partially paralyzed. When I spoke to him on the phone he was very hard to understand and I felt that he was much worse off than she suspected. At the time I was attending the University at Albany and was busy writing papers and preparing for exams. I had planned on going home for Thanksgiving anyway, so I packed up and headed north to Watertown in order to be with the family. Seeing him at the hospital was hard. He struggled to move much of the left side of his body and his speech was very slurred, but I could understand him. It wasn't easy to see him that way. The worse moment for me was when he started sobbing when I brought up my brother John's name. He told me he really wished John was there. I had seen my dad shed a tear now and then...mostly a emotional reaction to something sentimental. (I am the same way...I cry at sappiest shit now Ha ha.) But this was much more painful. To this day, I still have memories of how helpless he looked and how helpless I felt at observing the physical and emotional pain he was experiencing. The following week I returned to Albany, hoping that dad would recover, but also knowing that things would never be the same for him, regardless. Sadly, on December 11, 1991 dad had a second, more severe stroke and died. So I again headed north in order to work with my mother and family on the arrangements. Our family has 7 children...6 boys and one girl, my twin sister. And for the first time in 20 years, all of my siblings had gathered together on this very sad occasion. We had many cousins too. My mom's sister (who was a twin as well) had 10 children. But unlike my mom, my Aunt Joan had 10 children and no husband. One of my cousins and I were having a conversation about dad and he told me how much he loved him. To my cousins, my dad wasn't just an uncle. One cousin told me "We thought you were rich....but really we thought that because you had a father." My cousins shared with me how my dad had taken it upon himself to do his best to provide for them. We sometimes wondered why we didn't get more at Christmas, but I learned during those conversations with my cousins that the reason we didn't get more was because dad was buying gifts for all of Aunt Joan's kids in addition to us. One cousin said "If it wasn't for your dad and mom, there would have been absolutely nothing for them on many Christmas mornings over the years. " I am so glad that they shared that information with me. Because honestly, my dad and I didn't always get along very well and we never had a very tight bond. My appreciation of him grew and I had a different, more positive opinion of him as a result. Christmas 1991 was sad, because we lost our dad. But the best present for me that year was given to me by my cousins. They let me know how much my dad meant to them and how lucky we were to have him as our dad. Great present for Christmas.