It's been one year today. Thought I'd revisit:
For those of you who knew my dad, you'll understand how difficult it is to capture the true essence of him with only the written word. He was one of a kind, a good, kind - a kind that comes along every once in a while to make a certain mark on the world. Though my dad's special mark has surely painted itself far beyond the world in which I knew him, it is to those closest to him, his family and friends, that his colors shown most brightly. He was caring, kind, funny, and far to smart for the rest of us.
There wasn't anything he didn't know. No question he couldn't answer - and as a kid, I had a lot of questions. Sometimes he would provide the answer, and only the answer. "Daddy, airplanes are so big. How can they stay up in the sky with all those people in them?" My dad talked about lift as a force that works in opposition to the weight of the plane, the role the shape of the wings play, etc. I went away satisfied.
To most questions, however, he provided the answer, with a little dose of his true self: "Daddy, my science teacher wants us to find out why the sky is blue. Why is it blue?" I had to write my answer on an index card and hand it in for extra credit the next day. Immediately, his familiar 'pleased with himself' grin came across his face. "Heh heh heh...Daddy thinks you should write, 'You're the science teacher. You should know this, you dummy.' "
He did go on to answer, explaining how molecules scatter blue light differently than red light, and why we see blue when the sun in high, but red when the sun is low. I got my extra credit and then some, because not only did I know why the sky was blue, I knew why sunsets were red as well.
Homework help with a man like my dad wasn't always that simple. He would continually show me "better and "more logical" ways to arrive at the answers to my math problems. This usually involved skipping every other step, adding in new steps, him assuming I was following his thought process, me crying, and my mom stepping in to finish the job. Sometimes, though, I actually understood his shortcuts and the logic behind them. From this I also came to understand that teachers don't respond well to "My dad said this way is smarter and more logical."
My very first job as a teenager was working in a nursing home kitchen with my sister Jen. The morning shift required that we be at work by 6 AM to begin the preparing breakfast. In winter, it was especially difficult to get up and out the door on time. My dad would wake me up, and after I got myself dressed, I would find that he had put my coat and shoes by the heater to warm, scraped off and started my car, and left two breakfast sandwiches on the counter, one for me, and one for "the girl who works in the laundry."
We never had family pets as kids, but we did bring home many hurt or abandoned forest creatures. The was Augie Bird (my dad had named him), a cedar waxwing chick I'd found hopping in the road. My dad made a home for him with a cardboard box and a dowel and sent us outside to gather grass for a nest. I remember feeding him with an eyedropper and watching him bathe in the little apple shaped dish my sister Jen contributed. Augie lived with us for a few weeks until he was ready to fly off and join his family.
A couple years later, I found a baby bird lying lifeless in the grass. I brought him to my dad and asked him to help me give him a proper burial. My dad looked at the bird, raised and eyebrow, and said, "Let's try something kid. Come sit here next to Daddy." He then cupped the bird in his hands. I sat next to him and waited, not sure what it was we were trying to do. Eventually, I saw my dad smile. He opened his hands, and there was our little bird, wriggling around and looking up at us.
My dad taught us about science, nature, the beauty of numbers, and so much more. But mostly, I think I learned from him that we should always be who we are. My dad was. You could either take it, or leave it. It made no difference to him. He wasn't going to change, or dilute any part of himself in response to, or for fear of judgment. He wasn't going to lower his standards in relation to what he called "the dummy spread" and he certainly wasn't going to start watching those reality television shows that he said destroyed the brain cells of America one empty episode at a time.
I learned from him how to look at things - to really look - to see things for what they are, and not through the various perceptions we create to make things appear the way we want them to. My dad taught me a certain quality of looking, and I see more, understand more, and know more because of him.
It is my dad who taught me how to laugh at the world, and at myself. It is from my dad that I learned how to learn every day. "Learn all you can, kids," he would say, "because each thing that you learn is one more thing that you know."
Thank you, Dad, for helping to make me who I am today. There are so many things I'll miss about you, but mostly, I'll just miss you.
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