Friday, April 10, 2015

A Glimpse of my Father's Life

My father was born in 1948.  His father was an American soldier who was part of the Omaha Beach invasion (though not the first wave), badly wounded at St Lo, recuperated in Britain and was sent back to fight as part of Patton&#039;s army in the Battle of the Bulge.  He ended up being part of the Army of Occupation and was stationed in Heidelberg.  There he met and married a German national, my grandmother.  They had to married twice: the first time was by a German official and the US government refused to acknowledge it and they were once again several years later by an American official.Here in the picture, circa 1949/1950, are my grandfather and grandmother, plus my aunt and my father.  My father would grow into the teen I posted the picture of before: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://imgur.com/gallery/DTfnwlc">http://imgur.com/gallery/DTfnwlc</a> The improbability of my grandparents meeting is something I reflect on.  My grandfather&#039;s family lived in the same area of Tennessee for over 100 years (although they wandered off and brought home brides).  My grandmother&#039;s family lived in Heidelberg, Germany from time immemorial.  That they would ever meet...its astounding.And yet, digging through the family records, my lineage is begat by the improbable.  Any yet, here we are.  And as proud and amazed as I am by our uniqueness, our specialness, a humbling little voice keeps whispering,  &quot;Everyone else is probably just as unlikely, just special, just as improbable.  Keep that in mind before you get too proud.&quot;


My father&#039;s family is huge.  There are 8 kids and a plethora of grandkids.  My father&#039;s family is also like a bunch of cats.  They fuzz or hiss at one another pretty big time when they are around one another, but when they are not, well, out of sight and all that.On this occasion, in 1978, maybe 1979, I met my uncle Bob for the first time (the dark haired one).  Until I was an adult, I met him a handful of times.  My uncle Bruce, the one with the goatee and light hair, I&#039;d seen pretty regularly until we left California.  My father, on the right, is there with my sister and I&#039;m up top.  My Dad is about 30 and suffering through the 1970s fashion apocalypse much like my uncles.  On this day and in this picture, we&#039;d all gone to the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum.  It&#039;s somewhere we used to go a lot to until I was 7.  We called the wall behind the Orc Wall because of the &#039;teeth&#039; sticking up and my father was really into the Lord of the Rings.  The whole Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been bed time stories, one chapter per night, until I was 8.  Sadly, when the LOTR movies came out, my father and I had fallen victim to the family curse: we were both cats, off living separate lives and only getting in touch via email.  The number of times I saw my father from 2001 until his death from cancer in 2013 could be counted on one hand.We never did get a chance to compare notes on what we thought of the LOTR movies.Related: My father as a chubby toddler: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://imgur.com/gallery/KMBGyvT/new">http://imgur.com/gallery/KMBGyvT/new</a> and when he was 16: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://imgur.com/gallery/DTfnwlc">http://imgur.com/gallery/DTfnwlc</a>

I moved out to California again from New Mexico when I was in my late 20s.  I would later meet and marry my kids&#039; mother while I was living out in the land of fruits, nuts and flakes.  In 2005, I took her back to New Mexico to meet my father and some of my family.  We already had our daughter and she came with.  While her mother went with my sister and her kids to go skiing, I stayed with my Dad and my Stepmother, Iren, to get caught up.  They took us on a small hike in their &#039;neighborhood&#039; in Abiquiu.  It was a fun little hike and we stopped to snap some pictures.  You can see the mountains in the background and how parched everything was in 2005 in NM.  One of the observations my father made about my nearly one year old daughter was she was pretty fearless.  I gave him a hard time saying she was obviously his granddaughter then.  My daughter would become more thoughtful and cautious as she got older, but then...whoah.  it was pretty scary.  Getting back on the proverbial horse was immediate but she would try in a different way.My father on the other hand was very fearless and stubborn.  I got the latter part, but I am more cautious than he ever was.  Here in the picture, he is almost 57, yet he was out climbing rock faces and skydiving.  The home he shared with Iren he was building with her.  Bit by bit.  He was strong as an ox and very much the manly man.And in the end, that is what killed him.  Because he was so strong and healthy and active and tough and (pick your adjective) he didn&#039;t get checked out by doctors regularly.  No annual checkups and whatnot.  A couple years later, he would realize something was wrong and go see the dox finally.  They diagnosed him with cancer.  It was colon cancer and something which ought to be easily taken care of.  But!  Because he waited so long and didn&#039;t have regular checkups, it had already metastasized.  He would fight the good fight for SEVEN years.  Surgeries, chemo, radiation, what have you.  He was stubborn and would not surrender.  Even in his last months with his liver failing, he wanted to fight on.  And he did.  In the end though, he lost.  On September 1st, 2013, my father died.  Because he was a tough, strong man and didn&#039;t need the dox.Dad as a Toddler: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://imgur.com/gallery/KMBGyvT/new">http://imgur.com/gallery/KMBGyvT/new</a>Dad as a 16 yo: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://imgur.com/gallery/DTfnwlc">http://imgur.com/gallery/DTfnwlc</a>Dad at age 30 (back right): <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://imgur.com/gallery/16rxOlv/new">http://imgur.com/gallery/16rxOlv/new</a>
The men in my family or at least the eldest sons always seem to have an issue with their father.  My father never met his grandfather because my great grandfather and my grandfather did not get along. Likewise, my grandfather and father did not get along and I never met my grandfather.  You can obviously guess I had my issues with my father, too.  However, when my son was born, I made a point to try to keep in touch with my father even if we didn&#039;t see each other: I had already started mulling the idea I did NOT want to keep the family pattern going.  When my father told me his cancer was terminal, I packed up my family and we went to see him.  I explicitly wanted to make sure my son met my father.My son was thrilled with meeting his grandfather.  My father was impressed and liked his grandson.  This picture, with me looking like a bum, is the sole proof of 3 generations of the first born boys being in the same place and same time for the family since 1922.My father and I had a terrible time connecting even then.  However, he and my son did, so mission accomplished.
Today is my father&#039;s birthday.  It would have been his 67th.  However, he&#039;s dead.  Cancer killed him a year and a half ago.  In his last days, his children - myself, my two sisters and my brother - gathered to be there for when he passed.  My father, brother and I had this photo taken.  In so many ways, it sums us up.  My father was an engineer and a soldier.  I, on the left, went into the sciences and engineering and ultimately business.  My brother, on the right, became a career soldier and is still in the army.48 hours after this photo was taken, my father died.My brother and I are our own men, and, yet, in the smoky mirror, we are reflections of him.


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