Dec 2010 // Michael Kelley
Tearing at his oxygen mask and cursing, he had the wild-eyed look of a soldier battling an unknown enemy in the dark. He was my father, and he was dying. Watching someone you love suffocate to death in the front room of your family home isn't anything like it plays in the movies; it's ugly and unforgiving. It's unwatchable, yet you can't turn it off, hit fast forward, or cover it with your hands until a lighter scene arrives.
I witnessed my brother James — a practicing ER physician — bravely sit and take the brunt of my father's pain and abusive rants. My mom would later say that no son should have to pronounce his father dead, but my brother did. He was a hero that day, but battles bear scars, and James never again returned to that home on West Lamar Road.
My father has been gone for more than 10 years now, and all of us have been irrevocably changed since he passed. We miss him, particularly at this time of year when we gather, laugh, and reminisce about days gone by. While young nieces and nephews enjoy the novelty of the holiday cheer, we revisit the past and the experiences that shaped our time together as a family. The times we knew our love for each other was real despite the pain we brought to one another over the years.
My father was not a perfect man. He hurt people — people whom he loved who loved him in return. For years, I struggled to understand how it was affecting me, and how I carried it forward and brought it onto others close to me in my life.
Growing up, my relationship with my father was tense and volatile. He was a critical man, and it undermined my belief in myself. He was a man gifted at finding the flaw, and he focused on that. I fought to prove my worth all of my life; first to him, then to myself. So when he died, it left a void. Now where would I go to find my approval?
For others in my family, it was different. My mother spent years catering to a man who couldn't give her what she wanted. My father, a successful neurosurgeon, wasn't emotionally available to express love in a way that built intimacy both in the heart and in the head. I think she often felt isolated and alone in her 38-year marriage.
For my brother James, it was always the academic struggle and the inherent competition of having comparative careers. He decided early that he wasn't going to be who my father was, both within his profession and out, and chose emergency medicine for the freedom it provides. He's a dedicated family man, who puts his wife and kids above all else. He told me often that he didn't want to be like our dad, a father who just wasn't there.
Yet for all the pain and suffering, all the disappointment and despair, I miss him.
I miss my father's blinding intellect, his wit and humor, and the curiosity of a mind never at rest. I miss the click-clack of his Florsheim boots and the rhythm they made on the hospital floors when he took me on rounds as a child. I miss the way he laughed when I would imitate him, which I often did. I miss the runs we took on rocky Oceanside beaches, where every summer of my childhood he would remind me of my missteps and threaten my enrollment in military school. I miss the time I purposely slowed a fastball at the all-star father/son little league game so he could get a hit. I miss his friendship now that that I'm old enough to truly be his friend.
For all of the things I miss, there is one night that stands above the rest. Ask anyone in our family what the best night we ever had together was and it would be unanimous: Christmas Eve dinner at Trattoria Dell'Arte in New York City. It was a special night, and my father was in rare form.
Trattoria Dell'Arte was unlike any restaurant I'd ever seen: it had minimalist decor, peachy orange walls, with high ceilings and relaxed art house lighting. But its most distinctive features were just that — features. Huge plaster casts of human ears, eyes, noses, and lips adorned the walls and made this trendy midtown eatery seem like a kind of culinary funhouse. The fact that my father had made the reservation was a first, the fact that we had a V.I.P. table in the center of the room bordered on bizarre.
Mostly silent on social occasions, my dad seemed to be a different man. He was alive, gregarious, and downright giddy. He shared stories, told jokes and stood to make toasts. He was the emcee and we were his guests. He offered a generous pour to those of us lucky enough to attend. Bottle after bottle of the finest wines came and went, and without reserve he ordered more — the six brightly lit faces at our table did not object. Dessert was no different. When our waiter kindly asked what we would have, my father's response was, "We'll have one of each," and we did. Chocolate mousse, éclairs, créme brulée, sorbet — it was endless.
And so, it was a night to remember when my father, filled with the holiday spirit in the prime of his life, made us all feel special. To be with him, to bask in his glow, and to know that on this one Christmas Eve, in the heart of Manhattan, he had magically become the man we always wanted him to be.
I choose to remember the best. Not just of my father, but of all the people I am blessed to know in my life who, like me, carry the baggage of a broken past. The road to redemption is paved with people like us, struggling to do our very best, often in spite of ourselves. It is here that my father and I walk quietly hand in hand in recognition and remembrance.