My dad died last month. After a year long battle with invasive metastatic bladder cancer. He was 88.
I called him "Bud," an endearing reference back to the nickname his mother bestowed on him as a young child; he was her "Buddy."
It was my "Bud" who first called me "boatsie."
June 15 marked the last time I sat down at a table with dad . My mother, my little brother (who drove), my dad and I celebrated his last birthday at an Italian restaurant some five miles away. He was so uncomfortable in his skin. They had nicked a nerve in his leg during the major October surgery and the leg had never healed. He would never find comfort again.
That meal, his birthday dinner, was the last time he sat down at a table. The last time he went out in his car. After that, for the doctor's visits, we had to call a car service, drive in an old Lincoln Town Car. Just sitting in any car had become hell, any bump in the road an act of torture.
Dad never again ate breakfast at the kitchen table. Never sat down again on a chair. Other than during doctor's visits (and a handful of rides in a wheelchair) his only seat was in the recliner we had purchased for him on Father's Day three years before.
The memory of that Father's Day will be with me forever. I believe it may have been the very first time my dad saw himself in any of his children. And he saw himself in me.
The story: After a surgery for a thoracic injury made sleeping in bed near impossible, we drove over to the local Lazy Boy to sample recliners. No small feat, given how particular my parents had become about their house. We found one he could live with, but when we were told there were no delivery options until the next day, I wasn't having it. That chair was going to fit into the trunk of my dad’s car and nobody, not even the store manager, not even the manufacturer, was going to stand in my way. Let me tell you, those salesmen thought it was impossible. They were huffed up, indignant. But damned if they didn't follow my instructions until we succeeded in maneuvering and manipulating that chair deep enough in the trunk to make transporting it a reality. We drove 10mph on the back roads, eyes out for the police, laughing like jubilant kids jazzed up on a joyride.
My little brother was there when we pulled in the driveway. His smile made the birds sing and he turned his head quickly lest he cry.
During the last years of my dad's life, probably the last ten or so, he left New York City and worked out of a small office a few miles away from home. To be close to my mom. He would set the kitchen table for breakfast each night. Two place mats across from each other, at each setting a small China plate and bowl, a crystal juice glass and a mug. He rose earlier than she, ate his blueberries and Concentrate cereal, drank his coffee and OJ and left her a small love note before leaving. Tender, adoring, personal, heart melting notes. I have seen a few.
I have such rich and exquisite memories of growing up, kibitzing around the kitchen table: the night my dad shared the heart-breaking news that summer was NOT a year long but lasted a mere few months; the morning my older brother slipped while cavorting around in the attic and his leg punched through the ceiling, casting puddles of plaster onto our Aunt Jemima pancakes; how we all had assigned seats, and that mine was to the right of my dad; the night my Uncle Neal came sans famille to dinner and smothered Heinz ketchup over Mom's tuna noodle casserole; how they all laughed, lovingly, at my inability to comprehend the intricacies of their jokes.
"I don't get it." I must have said that 300 times, sitting at that table.
Our kitchen table has a magnificent story of its own. It is still in use today, the centerpiece of the kitchen. A wooden square table, polished and refinished so many times it has lost its soul.
But the story goes like this. My parents used the money from their wedding to buy a kitchen table and when they had it delivered, my grandmother and her sister Josephine took one look at it and said, "That's going back. It's a piece of junk." Of course, it being the 1940s, it went back. My grandmother and Josephine went out shopping and bought the table, so I suppose there is something to be said for listening to one's elders.
I loved kibitzing around the kitchen table with my dad. He would sit, when we were much older, with my younger brother and I, and tell stories about the old days in the concrete business in New York City. Uproarious, gut bustingly funny tales, like the time they illegally moved a crane under the cover of darkness through the bitter cold streets of Manhattan, only to have its tall latticed boom catch onto and carry along strand after strand of Christmas lights. Of course, the cops came.
He shared stories of his many trips to Iraq, where his company worked on the huge housing project Ekbatan; how he knew the Shah was in trouble when, while sitting over coffee in a small cafe, he read in the heavily censored newspaper a short blurb about the activities of a small group of extremists; how he and his business partner, during a trial in the Hague, packed up their briefcases and walked out when a witness lied; his partner, almost totally deaf, just followed dad's cue and once outside asked, "What are we angry about?"
Dad had always said he had known all his life he would die on August 1st. It was a running joke each year when that day rolled around. My little brother and I would call him throughout the day to check in, see what his plans were, what he was eating, if he'd arrived home safe from work. He loved it. My mother? Well, another story, another day.
One year, on August 1st, my dad caught a plane to Duke University to be with my brother whose wife was having a bone marrow transplant. That was a rough one. Another year, he himself was in surgery. Whew!
But this year, on his last 1st of August, I was sitting outside his wide open bedroom door, listening to his breathing until midnight. Then I texted my little brother, "He's still here. Maybe a miracle?" He died three days later. Close dad, but no cigar.
In the end, it fell to me to hasten his passing. I was the person who got the okay from Hospice to max the morphine and administer 24/7, to introduce Ativan into the cocktail - whatever I could legally do to ease his agitation. I was there round the clock. And when I left for just 15 minutes, he died, his head dropping into the warm white washcloth I had asked the nurse to wipe across his brow.
The next day, my daughter and I sat at that kitchen table from 8 until 2, team-writing my dad's obituary. I was obsessed with getting it done long before deadline (uncharacteristic for me, a deadline junky, but oh so much my dad!). Every detail had to be right. I was driven, wildly impatient, miles ahead in my vision, dictating paragraph after paragraph, writing in my head, as my daughter manned the keys and my dad's accountant, just down the road apiece, tore through old files and piles of papers for all the necessary details of my dad's wondrous life. From that table, late on the night dad died, I had sent out an email to his business partners, their families and his friends. The tributes began pouring in as we worked on his obit. One man wrote, "He was a gentle, gentle gentleman."
God, he was.
We added that to the obit, which we finished writing two hours before deadline.
Some day in the near future, I want to write the story of my dad and me, of the gifts he gave me, the wisdom. Of how I never for one single moment forgot what he told me when I was three and he helped me buckle my black patent leather shoes. "Don't you know there's nothing daddy's can't do?"
It was true then. It was true my whole life. And in his death, yes even now, he dazzles me. He shines in my life. He has empowered me with his strength and courage and foresight. He keeps my eye on the bigger picture. He freed me to step into myself.
In the last few months of dad's life, he finally got it. Understood my passion. He finally admitted that climate change is real. And that we "probably" had something to do with it. He sanctioned my work. He was proud.
In the end, he trusted me, no one else, with his life.
Together dad, you and I gave birth to 'boatsie.'
My father knew I was working on and marching in The People's Climate March this September. I was working from New York with the organizers during the last month of his life.
So when I march, I march for Frank Phelan. For the gifts he has given me. For the magnificent life he lived. For the man who truly mastered the fine art of fastening black patent leather Mary Janes.
I march with you, dad. I march for you. For your grandchildren and your great grandchildren.
For all the children.
Everywhere.
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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New York City, Sunday, September 21
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