When the largest tree in your forest falls, the echoes don't fade--they only get louder...
My Father has always been a constant source of friction in my life. That isn’t as negative as it sounds. I’ve always needed friction. I realized this when as a kid I saw an episode of Wild Kingdom in which young caribou rubbed their budding antlers against whatever trees they could find, stripping them of the velvety felt in which they were coated, a vital step in their development.
Pop was my tree of choice.
Ironically, the friction between us only intensified when I moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. The phone became the chain we used to yank each other to attention. During one seemingly unremarkable chat, I confessed to my Father a loneliness that ran so deep it made me cry. Dad never mentioned that talk.
That is, until a couple of years ago when I was home to help him when my Mom became ill. Unable to drive, my mission was to ferry Dad to the hospital everyday.
One day while driving, Dad lit on a topic whose familiarity was outstripped only by its volatility—our past. He touched on his disappointment when I quit being a lawyer to pursue artistic aspirations, a decision that he had no understanding of or enthusiasm for. And then, out of nowhere, he recounted the telephone conversation where I was so lonely that I wept. Doing so moved Pop to disgorge all the disappointment he’d been holding onto by telling me that for all sacrifices he’d made to guarantee my success, I was an abject failure--I was, in his words, a fuck-up.
Over the next year, though we spoke, we never really talked. Then one night a little over a year ago I called because I needed a little benign friction. As we spoke, I leaned in, expecting some token resistance. Instead, there was a flatness that chilled me—my Father was dying.
A red-eye flight got me home just in time to see the morning sun drench the sky red. Blood, that which binds one man to another, was in the air. All I prayed for was to embody love in whatever form it could take because I’d been bled dry and it was all I had left.
When I finally saw my Father, the only thing left in his eyes was resignation. I wanted to cry, but his words of a couple of years ago dammed the water that rushed my eyes.
I breathed deeply--all I wanted was to be love--and love showed up dressed as faith.
I knelt down in front of him, extending my arms. He rested his head on my shoulder.
We began a dance that lasted for a week. He let me clean and feed him. At night, he rang a bell when he needed something. Love showed up as the strength to go without sleep, while performing tasks of previously unthinkable intimacy.
Then love showed itself in its grandest expression: surrender.
As I stooped to get him up, Dad’s hands probed me. I’d kept in shape, something he respected. Then he told me I was a beautiful man. I batted his words down, saying that whatever I was, I owed to him. He repeated them, the words lodging in my flesh, searing me. This time, my eyes reflexively locked on his and I declared that whatever I was I wasn’t the man he accused me of being a couple of years ago--I wasn't a fuck-up. He admitted he was wrong, that I was a beautiful man. Our tears salved our wounds, creating an opportunity to do something unprecedented—love each other unconditionally.
Then, out of nowhere, Dad confessed he had no fight left, but he didn’t know how to let go. I heard myself speak words that I had no cognitive awareness of: I told him that that’s why I was there. To let him know that it was all right to let go. That he was loved, and that we would all be okay.
He paused. The man who’d spent his life holding on to life didn’t know how to release it. He asked me if I could prolong my visit for a few days before returning to Los Angeles. When I arranged to stay longer, he was grateful. Then he said, "When you leave, I’m going too."
Dad died sixteen days after I left. What allowed me to leave him was that I’d gained the strength to live my life knowing he’d endorsed me in a way he couldn’t before. And that Pop had gained the strength to ultimately let go of this life.
Dad was the preeminent tree in the forest of my life. Like every tree when it falls, it feeds the ground where it lands, enriching the soil for future generations.
Living in his absence this last year, I’ve revisited the immutable lessons of a tree: I know the value of roots, the benefit of extending myself out to others, and the bliss of merely taking a moment to feel the wind blow through my branches.
Lastly, I’ve learned that we’re all trees, capable of giving off loving shade or casting dark shadows. The choice is ours.
When a tree falls, it doesn’t matter if there is no one there to hear the sound. What matters is that we acknowledge the loss, going forward with what it has taught us, even when all we can see and feel is the unavoidable fact that a tree has fallen.
George Michael Raysses August 15, 1927 -- June 6, 2008
A Tree and his Sapling