Today September 21st is Alzheimers Action Day. My dad died June 5th of Alzheimers disease.
I think of him every damn day, and I remember the pain of watching him slip away from us and from himself. I still find myself turning the fact that he is gone over and over in my head, just trying to make sense of how he was here, but now he’s not. All that intelligence and kindness and humor and all those hugs, just gone. I occasionally wake up in the middle of the night and realize, all at once like it is the very first time, that I will never hug my dad again. I am unable to sleep the rest of the night, the magnitude of that thought is just too large and looming to live with.
This is what I wrote for his memorial. It’s so weak a representation of who he was, but I can’t imagine anything I could write that would capture him.
First of all, I want to thank you all for coming. I know this is all a bit unconventional, but you all know my father so that can hardly be surprising. This is the sort of gathering he relished – people he loved in a place he loved, sitting back and enjoying each other, listening to some music, and having a laugh.
I see people here from every phase of my fathers life, and it really defines who he was as a person. That there are people here that he has known since grade school tells me that he was a good and loyal friend, his coworkers show me that he was a hard worker and well respected, and the special people who supported my mother and cared for him at the end of his life show me that even as the facets of his personality rounded and faded, there was something special about my father, some spark of humor and wit and honor and character that no one could fail to recognize or be drawn to. Alzheimers had a particularly specific kind of cruelty for my father, one of the most cerebral people I know, but even that juggernaut could not blunt his charm entirely.
I am here to celebrate my father, but I have to say that my heart is good and truly broken. I wanted to tell you a few stories about dad, but the reality is that I could never narrow it down to just a few. We took stained glass classes together and went on road trips. We learned to make arrowheads and he came to my kids pediatrician appointments. We went to Graceland and he took me to his office so I could see his work. We went to concerts and ball games and sewage treatment plants and Laguna Gloria. Quite simply, my father was always there, always a presence in my life.
When my first son was born I called my dad from the hospital, suddenly terrified of the responsibility looming over me, confident I was going to screw it all up and my dad told me “Julie, the only thing you need to give that baby is peanut butter, some dirt, and love.” Growing up, we all had ample supplies of each, and even when I was furious at my dad for whatever the perceived parental injustice of the day was, I never, ever doubted his love for me. Like most kids, I thoughtlessly took my dad for granted as a child, but as an adult I realize how lucky I am to not only have had a father that I loved and who loved me in return, but a father that I truly liked and who liked me right back.
When I was very young, I was a really horrible sleeper. Late in the night one winter, my dad came to my room and without a word bundled me into my jacket and put me in the car. He drove and drove to the outskirts of Austin, put me on the hood of the car, and told me to look up. There was an amazing meteor shower that night, and we watched the shooting stars together for a good long while, and then he took me home and tucked me back into bed. That was the sort of thing my dad did well – the unexpected, special moments, the random postcard or short story that showed up in the mail, handing you the most perfect gift you never knew you had always wanted.
I will long for my father when I read a great book I want to talk about, hear a Van Morrison song, get frustrated by a math problem of any kind, eat a Theta burger at Huts, or see any of the million places we went to together in Austin. So pretty much always. But especially when I see a shooting star.
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