My Dad, Death and Grief's Weirdness

I've been postponing writing about this. It's long, and I don't apologize.

I'm not a big fan of grief, or big emotions in general. My dad used to joke that I must have inherited the stoicism held by the women in his German lineage; he's right about that, to a degree: I tend to hold the big emotions close unless I'm with people I trust.

He left us on 05/15/25, which he would have loved, had he realized what the date was. An accountant by trade and proud record-keeping geek, the man had a five-year-long spreadsheet of everything he ate, every med he took, every crap even took, what his mood was on each day. He even included the weather. I suspect if I go into the sheet and look a little, he probably formatted it for some unknown future adventure.

He certainly wasn't stoic. A workaholic and alcoholic for a big chunk of his life, he got sober in 2012 after nearly dying in my then-husband's arms. Apparently Dad thought the warnings about suddenly stopping drinking (for our visit that fall) were "bullshit", as he later put it. Turns out it wasn't an idle warning: he seized, had a stroke, and was tripping balls on some very strong medicines in ICU when we left to drive four states home because we couldn't postpone work and cover childcare any more. After that, my youngest sister was the recipient of more drastic Dad events, all of which were scary, and all of which he survived. The odd thing is that once he had that near-death-experience, he did get himself together, stayed off the booze, embraced eating better and was determined to not die before age 70. He did indeed make it by a long shot, sticking around until he was 78.

Some stories are better left untold, so I'm just going go ahead and tell them. Why not, right? 
The Boat
He once towed his buddy's boat from the ocean back to the Intracoastal Waterway in South Florida after its motor died. All six or seven men on the boat were very very drunk coworkers. The way Dad told the story, he was the least drunk, probably the least strong, and was nominated because his likelihood of drowning was the lowest. Ropes were somehow fastened around his chest and swam he did, until an angry dockman saw and helped their drunk asses home, probably (rightfully) cussing at them the entire way. Wives were called, arguments were had, and cars were left to be picked up the next day. 

I was well over 40 when he first told me that story; I'm not sure if shame prompted it or if he figured I'd hear it from someone else. 

Drag Nights
When I was a kid, he, as an auditor and then operations manager for a large retailer, would host important business dinners which really needed to "get done" at drag shows instead of at strip clubs, because he was guaranteed better behavior by the coworkers and clients if they were "truly entertained", in his words. I once asked him if anyone had bigotry issues with the clubs, and he replied "Not one. They all loved it!" Later Dad reminded me that being straight guys at a drag show in the 70's and early 80's was not the norm, and he knew he was introducing these men to a culture he wanted them to appreciate.

Dad on Men
When I came out as bi in the early 90's, I called him not necessarily to come out, but to gripe about the boyfriend I had who expected me to entertain him via my sexuality? Dad's quick response was "Fuck that guy--no...STOP fucking him and dump him. He's a shithead." (And he was.) 

Complex Grief is Weird
As he aged, and because I was raising three kids, one of whom was multiply-disabled, our "time together" was long-distance. I'd send pictures and videos of the kids, he'd call and talk to them, and in return he would send me his ever-growing YouTube playlist, or random incredible recipes. He cooked better than my mom, from whom he had been divorced for decades. I still have those recipes and will work my way through making each one this fall.

I spent a long time being angry with him for "getting" to raise a whole new family, thinking that they got "the involved dad" I didn't. At one point before he quit drinking, I stopped talking to him for a few years, because I wanted sober him to call. After his NDE, Sober Dad did begin calling. After my son died, I began to visit every two years or so, taking him to a few doctor's appointments and discovering that the man truly did not like them. That's rough if you're a disabled and immuno-compromised person, but it was his choice.

This spring, when I left for the visit, my gut told me it would be the last one. Just that feeling. Since I was also sober, I now trusted my gut, and was devastated to find I was right. He had been dealing with weight loss, side pain and nausea/emesis since last fall, yet also postponing regular doctor visits and follow-ups, including following up an ER visit last fall which some suspect findings. Sixteen days after I arrived in March, and after more than one imaging scan I excused myself from until its end (because I could see what he didn't), he received the official diagnosis: cancer. Metastatic, in his liver, likely originating in his gallbladder. The man had a rare cancer not associated with a lifetime of drinking. What were the odds? (Rare, that's what the odds really were.)

He lived six weeks after that day. I was his in-house caregiver and faced my PTSD daily. I had undergone another round of my own intense counseling a year prior, and without that I would have "noped out", for sure. (I had been the one to find my son dead, and it did an absolute Hellish number on my brain pathways.)

I watched Dad wither; I watched him be angry that his body betrayed him and had a mutiny. I also watched as he came to accept that he had dodged Death numerous times before, and that now, at 78, it was simply inescapable. He welcomed hospice care, joked with his team until his brain became inundated with ammonia, and let me just be his kid and crawl into bed with him for comfort. I needed my daddy, and he needed his kids. Was I angry that this was thrust onto me? Yes. Was that a reason for him to not die at home, but instead at a long term care facility? An emphatic "NO".

His brothers regularly visited, as did my sisters. I was grateful as a caregiver to get a break and simply be, to get a night away without the onus of "what if it's now" hanging over my head. He got the privacy needed for important conversations with them, as he had had with me. His apologies to me for not being the dad I needed were heartfelt, and I assume his talks with others were just as sincere. He grew up, grew old and did what he could to rectify his ways.

At 5:35 a.m. on a Thursday morning, his "old country" playlist cycled onto the song "Country Roads", and he took his last breath. Death is quiet, except when John Denver and three crying daughters were around. I recognized that the meme had come full-circle for us, and that Dad would have laughed his ass off at that.

Wherever he is now, I hope that he gets all the pistachio ice cream he wants, a garden full of amazing blooms, and the best dirty jokes around. I catch myself wanting to call him and tell him about new funny things I've watched, or bitching about the state of our country with him, or asking him random accounting questions. It's those little things that matter. Life really does feel like someone is missing, because someone is missing.

Will I see him in 20 years or so when I get my own taste of the afterlife? I don't know, but I hope there are drag queens there so we can go out to dinner and talk shop.

Fuck Cancer.