And That's Why You're Single

Posted: 14 Jun 2014 08:32 AM PDT

We finally got my father’s name put on his headstone a couple of weeks ago, just in time for the second anniversary of his death. dadme Today marks two years since he was taken off the machines.

Last week I learned yet another example of my father’s graciousness and generosity. My father was often called upon by his uncles and aunts to help them set up their wills. I know. I KNOW.

Any way, while helping one particular uncle about 8 years ago, he learned that uncle wanted to leave him his condo. The condo was in a prime location and was part of a group of luxury condos just outside of Boston. It was valued at about $300, 000. My father told my uncle not to leave it to him. Instead, he suggested, leave a third of it to him, and a third of it to my uncle’s ailing brother, and a third of it to the only surviving niece of my uncle’s late wife. (My uncle and aunt had no children.) Upon my uncle’s death a few years later, my father turned around and bought out my uncle’s brother and niece, paying them each for their share of the condo. And then some.

The reason my father was always chosen to assist in drawing up the will’s of his relatives and was often assigned the position of executor was because if my father was one thing, it was fair. And generous. And wise. He was able to see the big picture and anticipate any possible complications or fall out. He could have taken that condo and owned it free and clear. Many people in that position would have. But not my father. He knew that decision would create tension. He also felt that leaving each of the three people a share was the morally right thing to do. And since he was the executor of my uncle’s will, and knew he’d have to facilitate the proceedings concerning the will, he opted to do what he felt was best by everyone involved rather than just take what he could get.

Unlike certain other people.

I wasn’t with my father when he died. I didn’t want to see that. I had heard stories of the “death rattle” that dying people take just as they expire. I had already watched my mother wither away in front of me as a child. What few memories of her i have revolve around her mumbling incoherently because she was so heavily dosed with morphine because of the cancer.

I called my step-mother every day when my father was in the hospital. I went home to see him before the surgery (see photo above.) He struggled after the initial surgery, but was supposedly on the mend. He was unable to talk and couldn’t eat because his chest was in so much pain. She never let me speak to him, probably because it just caused him too much pain to move and talk. One day I called my Dad’s cell phone and my sister answered. Finally, I was able to talk to him.

“Hi Dad!” I said.

“Hi Chris” he murmured softly, his words garbled.

“I’ve called every day” I said, not wanting him to think I didn’t care.

He chuckled a bit. Then he said something strange.

“Hello, Louie” he said.

This was an inside joke between my Dad and my sisters. He used to tell us a joke about a nephew of a very wealthy man who always asked his uncle to remember him in his will. At the reading of the will, the lawyer read what each member of the family was to inherit. Finally he got to the nephew. “And to my nephew, Louie, who always asked that he be remembered in my will” the lawyer read. “Hello, Louie.”

My immediate reaction to my father uttering this phrase caused me panic. “Dad, don’t say that!” I said. I knew what the story was about. It was about a man who dies and leaves his vast fortune to his family.

I play that back in my head from time to time and wonder if my father was trying to tell me something. I had asked him before he went into the surgery if all of his affairs were in order. He had said yes. Of course, my father always, always shut my sisters and me down when we would inquire about such matters. So he could have just been doing that. Was my father acknowledging that he was going to die? Was he just trying to make me laugh? Or maybe he was trying to tell me something else, but didn’t have the ability to speak more than one or two words at a time. I’ll never know.

This wasn’t the first time my father, while sedated, said something that left a long lasting impression. After one of his many heart surgeries about 15 years ago, he whispered to me while heavily medicated, “You’re my chip off the old block.” When he’d jokingly try to deny saying it over the years, I refused to let him. “You’re not taking that away from me” I’d say with a laugh. ”

I happen to think I was his chip off the old block and that he saw something in me he didn’t see in my sisters. But then, I think everybody wants to believe they have a unique and special connection with one of their parents. But that comment has stayed with me. Haunted me even, sometimes, as I always felt like such a disappointment to him.

My father died two years ago, right around this time. Sometimes it feels like it just happened. I suppose because it’s taken forever to deal with the probate issues. My sister and I talk about him regularly, repeating stories over and over about the kind of man my father was. I hate the way he died. But more than that, I despise the way his memory was trounced upon. If there has been anything that motivated more over the past two years to achieve certain goals, it has been that.

Attract Girls Now

Saturday, June 14, 2014

And That's Why You're Single

And That's Why You're Single

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