Every May is a walk through a library in cinders.
I didn’t make that up, about the library burning, Laurie Anderson did. She gets it, man. It’s exactly how I continue to feel.
My dad, Earl, was a library: of knowledge, trivia, thought, statistics, repairs, non sequiturs, stories, love.
This May marks four years since his death.
Every May, the very air — the scented with mulberries and honeysuckle, the brash birdsong of recently fledged chicks, the late-spring sun that shines in a certain angle on swelling magnolia buds — reminds me of my dad.
Well, of losing Dad.
If a girl is very very lucky, she knows what it is to be beloved, cherished, by a good father.
I was the apple of my father’s eye.
No one will ever look at me the way he did, ever again.
And it was the way he looked at me all the time. How is that possible? Even when I was being a brat. A look of love so profound that sometimes it felt unbearable, burdensome.
There’s a line from a William Blake poem:
“And we are put on earth a little space,
“That we may learn to bear the beams of love….”
I hate that about myself: that I found the beams of my Dad’s love embarrassing or unbearable so much of the time. Sometimes I couldn’t even meet his gaze.
And yet those beams of love, the way his eyes carried his love for me, are something that sometimes I almost can’t bear to live without.
Anyway. Here’s the post from July 17, 2023. I’ve spaced it out a little and put in some headings (though still the original text) for better readability.
—
His name was Earl and he was brilliant (Ph.D. in biostatistics) and he led the team that developed Buprenorphine, which is what Suboxone is (mixed with another drug), which is what has been life-saving for so many folks with opioid addiction.
He was the best dad.
He used to read to me when I was little, and then for a long time, like until middle school, we read out loud to each other.
Books from the library.
Beverly Clearly, Daniel Pinkwater.
He taught me how to ride a bike and a motorcycle.
How to fix things. Lefty loosey, righty tighty.
He threw a lot of pop flies so I could practice catching. (I was terrible.)
He was the King of Dizzying Non-Sequiturs. Like, I’m talking real head-scratchers here, folks.
I wrote [what follows] shortly after he died from Lewey Body Dementia in May 2021.
—
My dad died and to be honest, I’m equal parts sad and relieved.
Except not at the same time.
I’m either 1000% sad or 1000% relieved.
There’s no middle ground.
Nothing happens the way I think it will, and nothing happens the way I worry it will.
Right after he died, standing in the Hospice room with his body, a booming voice rang in my head: You should never worry about anything ever again.
Because his decline was so stressful and I’d worried about how he would die —where? when? if he lingered, could we afford it?— for so long, and yet it all worked out exactly perfectly.
It’s probably weird to read about a death working out exactly perfectly, but it did.
And it’s probably weird to hear me say that I am so incredibly relieved, but I really am.
If nothing else, I promise to be honest.
His brain had been failing him for years, but I’m relieved Dad died so quickly after his body really started failing him.
I’m relieved he knew who we were, right up to the end.
I’m relieved he was a genial demented person - some people get so mean and bitter; he wasn’t.
I’m relieved he got the “good stuff” — the strong pain medicines he wanted.
I’m relieved my brother got here from Oregon in time to be with him.
I’m relieved Dad died in May of 2021 and not May of 2020 when the Hospice center didn’t allow visitors.
I’m relieved Mom can have her life back instead of taking care of Dad 24/7.
Those, and a lot of other reasons.
And now the sadness.
The sadness is a little less weird to talk about and maybe it will reassure you that I really loved my dad.
I really loved my dad.
After he died, I curled up in a grief cave for weeks and did not talk to anyone except my husband, my son, and my mom. I get that it was privilege that let me do that: no job to to go to (I skipped that month’s round of editing and my volunteer duties gave me a pass), I had an older kid who understood, a husband who did the shopping. And the cooking. And the coaxing me to eat when my stomach was roiling from sadness such that I did not think I could take a bite. I also felt super supported, even during this self-imposed isolation: friends texted, dropped off homegrown bouquets and cookies, wrote cards, sent flowers.
I just didn’t want to talk to anyone. I would text. But no talking, thanks.
I had pre-grieved so much, “ambiguous grief” it’s called, when someone is sick or demented and you let yourself be sad about it. I’d been losing Dad a little, or a lot, at a time, for a few years. And it was devastating. So I thought I might not be that sad when he died.
Wrong.
I was so sad.
Like, from the depths of my soul, from my toes, from the deepest well of longing and lament, sad.
My sister-in-law had died the month before, and [my] husband had gone to be with her. He called when she died.
He had sad, “No matter how prepared you are for someone to die, it’s still a shock when it happens.”
That was helpful.
Because even though I was expecting it, it was a shock.
Dad died at 4:20 (I’m not kidding) in the morning and I really did not think he would die that night, so I had turned the ringer off my phone and taken a Xanax to catch up on much-needed sleep.
My brother called five times from Hospice before I picked up.
“Dad passed.”
I sat up. “I’ll be right there.”
“Wear warm clothes. They put the room on chill.”
Mom was waiting in the driveway. She lives next door. We drove to the Hospice residence together.
We were quiet in the car I think, but I don’t remember. It was dark.
The room was cold.
My brother had been weeping. He looked like he was falling apart.
Dad looked … Dad’s body was …. Dad’s body. Not Dad. But Dad.
His mouth was slack and he was papery pale.
His eyes were closed.
I hugged him.
His chest was still warm. His head, feet, and hands were already going cold.
Mom had brought a blessing to read along with Psalm 23.
My brother couldn’t read it, he was crying too hard.
Mom couldn’t see it, either because of her cataracts or tears.
So I took a deep breath and read it.
We blessed his body: his head with his brilliant brain and sparkling, mischievous blue eyes;
his chest with his expansive, loving heart;
his arms and liver-spotted hands with fingernails too long because it distressed him to cut them;
his legs that had become increasingly weak and unsteady;
his feet that had carried him so far and no further.
Hospice rings a bell three times when the undertaker comes. Nurses line the hall to pay their respects.
Mom and I hung onto each other, following Dad’s body as they wheeled him down the hall. My brother couldn’t bear to follow.
The undertaker took Dad to Duke [University Teaching Hospital].
Dad donated his body to the anatomy lab.
It was a huge mark of his generosity, but I don’t like to think about it.
I don’t like to think what Duke medical students do to the bodies of their “silent partners.”
Anthony, the undertaker, bowed to us after he loaded Dad’s body into the hearse.
“I’ll take good care of him,” he said.
He made the sign of the cross to me. I think he thought I was Catholic because I’d told him Anthony was a good saint when he’d introduced himself.
“Be blessed,” he said. “You have my condolences.”
Mom and I went back to the room.
I stood at the foot of Dad’s empty bed.
I closed my eyes, lifted my hands.
I prayed.
I asked Divinity to bless the room.
I thanked it for holding Dad so gently during his transition.
I asked God to clear out any energy that needed clearing, to be a welcome and meaningful space for the next patient. And their family.
I don’t have a snappy ending.
Grief is weird and hard and rips you open and you just aren’t the same ever again.
I’m relieved Dad’s suffering is over.
But I miss him.
I miss him such that my heart breaks and my throat aches.
I grieve.
XOXO
I am reeling a little over here right now. Somewhere along the line, I heard a quote about when "dad died a whole library burned down" I googled and found your substack .. unfortunately, you and I have similar story, at least synchronious enough that I feel compelled to reach you this morning. I just lost my dad to FTD in February. We are different in that my dad didn't raise me and I didn't always feel those beams of love, but he and I shared a strange communication through our eyes that expressed all the years, lost hugs and regret. Unfortunately, not enough actual words were expressed before he completely lost his voice to aphasia, but my dad was able to tell me why he wasn't in my life as a child and how much he loved me. My dad was made of words. And while my pop wasn't a scientist or PhD. He was what many men in his world called the "smartest man they'd ever known"... his family doctor, his high school teacher and several of his peers and obviously all of his family knew this to be true.... The heady conversations immediately ended when his voice stopped...
I just came to learn since his passing that he had turned down college because I was on the way and he was only 16... he opted to marry and stay home instead of pursuing an education (something the family kept quiet). Later in a new marriage he worked as a machinist and raised a nice family, spending quiet time in his basement where the family thought he was "tooling on something" but I found that he been writing all those years ... alone in the basement with his turntable... all those words, dreams and world's locked up in his head and then with no voice just gone... "Library burned to the ground".
Many more commonalities in your story to mine, but, I realize I already sound like a weirdo texting you out of the blue.
Anyway, my heart to you and to your Pop. Thank you for moving me this morning with your story.
This got to me, My Dad has Parkinson's and I think about how one day she will be lying in a bed just like your Dad. What will I say to him? What will I read? All I know is that I cherish the time I have while he still is in early stages, as difficult as those are.