Dad: hero, legendary, ogre, inspirational, challenging, heart breaking and brilliant.

We can all be all of this.

This essay took me much longer than I imagined to write. It’s still Father’s Day where I am, so I suppose this still counts. I write this mostly for myself, to soothe my heart today.

I’ve spoken of memories surrounding my Dad in other essays. Part of his childhood story was written in The Women of my Bloodline. Here’s more of the story, a tribute to a man who was a leader in his generation. (born 1924)

Our relationship was always complex, challenging, full of resistance., similarities and glaring differences. Respect and disrespect were tangled together as I was a child until it grew to create a safety net of love that was my ultimate reassurance.
My favorite picture of him is one my youngest brother took. I can still hear his voice, and his chuckle when I see his eyes. I don’t remember Dad laughing out loud, in the hard unguarded way we all can do. He would chuckle, and his face would shine as something “tickled his funny bone”

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Where shall I begin with his effect on me? Many of the memories I still have about my childhood revolve around him. Today I am most moved to tell the last part first. Days before he died, at age 90, he lay in hospice, heavily drugged on morphine. He would rouse and talk for a few minutes here and there. Dad enjoyed singing, and I believe that the four of us kids developed our enjoyment of music because of him. (a story brews within this tangential thought.  I will follow that thread another time.)

One of his most favorite songs was “This is all I ask.” I played this version for him two days before he crossed. He smiled softly, eyes still closed, while seemingly unaware, and he made the movement for a pretend gun as the song played “...children everywhere, when you shoot at badmen, shoot at me...”  and he appeared to be conducting the song as he lay resting. He wanted to remain younger than spring. Have a listen while you read along and perhaps he’ll be standing a little closer here with me.

The day before, he had apologized to me for a long ago hurt. In the fog of his pain, telling me he had been wrong to judge me for divorcing my husband (back in 1991, the dad of my two daughters) and that he now understood. I sensed the depth of his sincerity and one of the cracks deep in my heart became filled in with gold. To my recalling, that was the only apology he ever spoke aloud to me. There had been many times that one could have been given but then never came. Here’s me and Dad back around 1985

It was late Dec 2007 that I called him. I needed to hear his voice. It had snowed heavily in Olympia that day. I inched my way down the hill in my purple PT Cruiser, to check the mail at my office downtown. We had been snowed in for a few days, and my checking account looked bleak. The rent would soon be due, I needed gas and groceries, and I had no backup stash of funds. My emotions hovered like storm clouds threatening. I prayed there would be checks arriving in my po box. His voice, a rich bass, greeted me with “hello sweetie!” and my tears began to fall. “I’m scared Dad” I spoke true words that choked my throat. “The snow has cancelled so many clients, and my funds are looking bleak. I hope that the mail can be delivered.” His voice grew soft, yet resonantly sure as he told me “I believe in you. It will all be okay. Just wait. You’re an excellent counselor, who has run a successful business 14+ years. This year will be no different.”
I had moved my office from the next town over, and for some inane reason, there were many clients who were unwilling to drive the added 18 miles thru the countryside to see me now. I was quiet as I took in his words. This was the same man who back in 1991 had also angrily told me that I was a fool for getting my Masters in Clinical Psychology.  That I should go into a “real” medical field. (that conversation left me in a tearful puddle on the floor). His lengthy career was in medicine. He held two Board Certifications in differing fields of medicine (Family Practice and Anesthesia). I know in his thoughts, he meant well, yet it only made me sad.
As I review this memory, I understand that this call transformed our history. It felt like the very first time he told me out loud how proud he was of me. Tho there must’ve been so many others.
His words sustained me then, and when the mail came, he was right. The money I needed arrived. And I was able to slip slide my way back home after the bank. My daughter and her boyfriend and I had a snowball fight that afternoon. My heart less heavy because of his holding me up. I don’t know if he ever knew how his words wove a safety net for me that afternoon.

My Dad had many hard days when we were kids. Perhaps he tapped into those memories to find the path to reassure me. He had a private practice, treating all ages of patients from birth to crossing. There were fewer specialists in the 1960’s. We had moved from Upstate NY to a town outside Boston, and like me, his coffers were bare. He hung out his shingle, as they say in the medical field, and was slowly growing his practice. I might have been age 10-12.

Mom shared  her memory of those days with me much later in life. Dad had gone  into a deep depression, and went for a talk with our Episcopal Priest, Phil Krug. Phil Krug wisely knew what was eating at Dad’s heart, the pain and cruelty from the town we had recently left behind. It colored all Dad’s thoughts. He was a proud man. Phil Krug held a complete burial service with him and Dad attending, for that unsettled  era in Dad’s career.  They “buried” that old town, and all those hurtful memories. We kids never knew how sad Dad had been, him being so stoic and all. It was the custom in the early ‘60s to not tell the kids. (This picture would have been the year before, in 1962. Gosh we had bizarre curtains back then)

 
Dad was a hero to some, and hated by others. He “didn’t suffer fools” and would publicly (and loudly) correct people when he knew they were in the wrong. We did not realize at the time what a large path of scorched earth he left in his wake right beside those who called him hero.
He was an angry young man, whose temper was legendary. For as many happy memories I have of him patiently teaching an entire neighborhood of kids how to waterski, I also recall him throwing my oldest brother across the kitchen into a wall. (I suspect my brother caused this event, but it was still far beyond the way Dad would respond later in his life).

I know that I found my courage to go back to school at age 40 because Dad had done it in his life as well.  He seemingly made the impossible possible, and modeled for me that I could achieve anything I wanted. (thank you for that Dad.) He did everything he set his intention to; from private practice (family medicine) and moonlighting at Mass General in anesthesia, to becoming the Chief of Anesthesia at the Naval Academy. He was not yet Board certified in that field, but was well respected, and earned his title. When the hospital at the Naval Academy closed, he decided to formalize his training in this new field. He and Mom moved across country to Oakland CA knowing no one. He courageously entered the residency program at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital with all the 20-30’s group of residents. Dad was 55.
I suppose it might be common for kids to not comprehend how courageous their parents were until we find ourselves at similar crossroads in our lives.

We were all so very proud of him, his humility and wisdom in what he was learning. He went on fulfill his residency, and pass those Boards. He continued from then on as a specialist in Anesthesia. Throughout his career, Dad always challenged himself to be a part of the newest medical treatments he could find. He taught us to be life long learners. I share some of the following things he also done. (in no particular order.)

* He delivered more babies than he ever could keep count of.
* He performed the anesthesia for some of the country’s first heart surgeries (at Mass General). They required a full day of surgery. It was and is dangerous to hold patients under anesthesia for so long.
* He worked part time in the late 1970’s with the Pain Clinic established at UW (Washington) as they researched newer techniques.
* He was part of studies on having women self-administer pain meds after surgery (while still in the hospital). Patients were allowed to give themselves a dose of pain meds by pushing a button. There was a control in place so that the equipment would only deliver medicine when it was due yet also tracked the time the button was pressed. The patient was given complete autonomy in their pain management and knew that they could not overdose themselves. I remember him sharing with us how astounded the team’s medical findings were that women (post delivery) administered LESS pain medication to themselves than what would have been automatically given per the MD’s orders. Dad was not always known for being respectful of women’s abilities until much later in his life. (and even then his depression era stereo types could color his words). I learned over the years to simply not respond when he launched into a soliloquy about women in management (and their supposed limitations.) Dad was a man of contradictions.
* Dad taught anesthesia at Tulane University in the 1980’s.
* He flew Corsairs in WWII, was instrument rated flight instructor. He owned a Piper Comanche Six private plane.

I still can recite those call letters without hesitation: “Enn Eight Nine Two Romeo Charlie” (N892RC) as I did so many times on approach to a landing field. I obtained my pilot’s license at age 16, (encouraged by my Dad) and we flew many times thru the years. For a while, Dad also owned a Citabria aerobatic plane. I doubt my graduating class in high school will ever forget him performing a show of low level aerobatics above our heads as we sat on the football field, all lined up during graduation week.  The school principle, Dad and I planned it as a surprise. His plane would become lost in the clouds and sunshine, only to suddenly appear so seemingly close. It added to our graduation week in the way only my Dad could do. Hammer head stalls and loop-de-loop, nose dive spins are pretty astonishing when observed directly overhead at 200 feet. His was similar to this one (thank you Wikipedia)

* After Dad passed the Anesthesia Boards, he and a friend started a business to teach MD’s how to prepare and pass the Board Certification test in Anesthesia. Prep courses such as this were a new concept back then. They held the course across the country. Who knows how many anesthesiologists were helped by his teaching.
* Dad really loved to fly planes. (Am I repeating myself?) I recall how difficult it was for him to give it up after he had lung cancer. They lived in Florida, where he worked full time at Women’s Hospital (Tampa). Dad proudly flew for the Florida Chapter of Angel Flight. They voluntarily flew all over the south. Angel Flight is a strong organization of private pilots who donate their time, talent, their private planes and the costs of fuel etc. to fly people who are injured to obtain care, and to transport organs from hospital to hospital within their region. These wonderful pilots were on call to help at any time.  
* Dad worked in Locum Tenens after “retiring” from full time work at the hospital. Working Locum Tenens was one of his favorite jobs, he would say. It is a job that allows medical professionals to cover for other MD’s while the doctor is on vacation. Dad flew all over the country, staying for a week or two, to fill in for anesthesiologists who were out of town. He jokingly told us that it was the perfect amount of time to spend in any given location: Short enough to avoid all the politics and personnel issues, yet long enough to be interesting and visit new parts of the country. This part of Dad’s career required him to be licensed in every state he worked in. For many people, obtaining all those licenses would be a daunting task, but not for Dad. He just “got ‘er done.”
* Dad was a perfectionist. It was not until I was over 35 that I learned how to speak up and interrupt his “words of wisdom” (ahem, lectures). One goofy memory appears here. I was painting the trim on our old cottage. My daughter and I had bought the paint and begun a week before Mom and Dad arrived just to surprise them. My then 5 year old kiddo and I had a blast.
One afternoon, Dad approached me with “corrections”  I needed to make. In his view, I was painting it wrong (going in both directions) and that to have it come out smoothly, I needed to paint slowly in just one direction. I finally had learned to use a soft humor when replying, and gently said “oh Dad, don’t worry. This is latex paint we bought. It’ll smooth out as it dries.” I don’t think he believed me as he huffed away silently. He didn’t like to be corrected.
* Dad stopped working formally when he was in his early 80’s. Not because he wanted to quit, but as he joked, he was “too old” for the insurance companies to be happy about insuring him. He kept his medical license active through the remainder of his life.
* One of Dad’s many gifts was that of diagnosing patients. He solved many a mystery through all his years. One that stands out to me was for his neighbor’s wife. Dad and his neighbor (in Florida) used to go walking every morning. She was so very ill, no one could solve the puzzle. After gathering data, researching everything he could find, Dad discovered she had a rare form of cancer. That particular type of cancer was only being treated up in Boston at that time. She and her husband flew up there for her treatment, and she was still alive 15 years later. Cured.

So many more stories I could share, but I will end here.
I wept beside his bed so forcefully in hospice that Dad attempted to rouse himself and comfort me. The nurse came in to comfort us both.

For all our complex history, I loved my Dad.

Mom had crossed 2 years before him, and I was not yet ready to be an orphan.
Death has its way of taking us all.

I still speak to him often, and I know he hears me. Imperfect as we all are, he is still my Dad

High Flight

BY JOHN GILLESPIE MAGEE JR.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air ....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God