On My Father, and Dying Suddenly

The thing about dying suddenly is that it’s a great way to go. Rough on those you leave behind, though. There are all the could have beens, might have beens, should have beens, when someone dies too young. Of course, we’re thinking of the good stuff when we think of the coulds, mights, shoulds, forgetting that life isn’t always like that. 1

Long term suffering is not what we would wish on anyone. And some old people say it’s not fun being old. I guess what we all really want is the physical vigour of being young and the wisdom of being mature, all wrapped up together and then staying just so, enshrined. We want time to stop. 2

My dad died suddenly at age 62. Too young. Though he seemed ancient enough to me at the time. His heart apparently just blew out while he was asleep. My mom awoke in the night to find him cold. I got a call at 2:00 a.m. on a radio phone about 60 miles from anywhere.3

I pieced together the last few days of his life, after talking to his friends. I believe he had at least two warning heart attacks before the big one. A typical guy, he ignored or denied the signs.4

He had had some heart problems since he was in his forties. He had been a pilot working in air surveys and was grounded after an annual exam showed up some anomilies. He had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He smoked. He ate a lousy diet. He was overweight. His idea of exercise was a round of golf once a week when the weather was good. His life was a recipe for cardiac disease. He had been on a several-month holiday with my mom in Southern California and had gone off his blood pressure medication. When he got sick with the flu (or I was told) in Las Vegas, the doctors were alarmed at his blood pressure, wouldn’t let him leave with it so out of control. 5

My relationship with my father hadn’t been good since I was a little girl, when I was always “Daddy’s girl.” When womanhood started to show, he seemed to turn on me. Maybe he was just overprotective. Maybe we were too much alike, smart and stubborn. Maybe he had to face it finally that I really wasn’t the son he’d lost in a botched birth. I couldn’t stand him. He stank of sour liquor, Canadian Club when they drank less, and then the cheaper Five Star Canadian Whisky when they were going through a twenty-sixer every two days. He was a slurring, stupid drunk. He’d call my friends “who-who,” even to their face. He was a boor, rude. An embarrassment to a teenaged girl. He wanted to kill any boyfriend he thought might be laying a hand on me. Never considered that I could make my own decisions about such things. When my partner and I went to home for holidays, we weren’t welcome to stay in my parents’ house.6

So when he died, I didn’t mourn. It was a bit of a shock, I suppose, a reality adjustment. But I don’t remember ever crying. I never missed him. I had to take care of Mom a lot in the next few years. I found out a lot they had hidden from me, like her battle with alcoholism. She went through hell, and I did my best to be a good daughter.7

It was when my children were born that I missed him. I thought he would have been a really fun grandfather to my boys. He would have taken them fishing, maybe.... But then again, maybe not. The grandfather that I imagine is an invention, an idealization, wishful thinking. In reality, probably, he would have continued to be a drunk and a boor. I may not have wanted him around my babies. 8

Sometimes now I feel grief that I lost him, and that my children never knew him. I don’t think I grieve for the real guy. Rather, I grieve for the father I wished for, the father promised when I was “Daddy’s girl,” sitting on his lap. The grandfather that man could have been, might have been, should have been.9

All the coulds, mights, shoulds have little basis in reality. They’re just fantasy. Something I would have wanted. The lottery ticket that didn’t pan out. I can’t say I don’t feel love for my father. But it’s love mixed with a sense of being ripped off, or at least disappointed. I had thought it might get better. He died before it had a chance.10