Dad would have been 71 today.
It seems like he died a long, long time ago — but it’s only been 6 years. Since his death I moved to Toronto, bought a condo, began living with my girlfriend, sold the condo, bought a house, watched my mother and sister get evicted from their apartment, watched my mother get evicted from everywhere else she stays, took in my sister while she goes to college…
When my father was alive, I had a family home, even though it wasn’t the one I grew up in. Now I have no family home, but for the one I create for myself. When my father was alive, he handled the responsibility for my mother (who was in better shape then, too). Seems like so long ago…
Here are the words I said at his funeral:
My father has beautiful hands. They’re stong and powerful, well defined and distinctive. Muscular and calloused, yet gentle.
When I was little, these hands would tickle me, pick me up, play with me. They were the hands that gently combed out my hair after the bath. I remember watching his hands as he laced his boots in the morning – I remember the sounds the laces made. I thought it was wonderful. These hands brought me toast before dawn on a cold winter morning because I was awake and told him the toast he had made for himself smelled good.
These hands worked on old cars and motorcycles in the driveway as I’d sit beside him, handing him the tools he needed. These hands helped my mother when she was in college. They fashioned frames for her canvases, they cut dowels for her. During the day, these hands were in leather gloves, working construction. He would come home sometimes, with his hands damaged from work. A finger crushed between two pipes… a thumb burned by a co-workers torch. And each time, those hands healed beautifully. They were amazing. These hands held my sister in hospital when she was a baby. They held her hand as she learned how to skate. His hands were playful, just as he was. They would beat out a rhythm , fingers against fingers. They would peg 15-2, 15-4 on the cribbage board as I was trying to avoid the skunk line. They would tease the dog into wagging his tail, and the cat would stand on his hind legs to rub his head against my dad’s outstretched finger. These were the hands that held the phone as we’d talk about current affairs and catch each other up on our lives. These hands wrapped around me in a hug when I’d visit.
Less than a year ago, these hands finally reached out and shook my partner’s hand, even though she and I had broken up by that time. He was charming and gentle and funny that day, the best example of my father.
In the recent weeks, when I could barely recognize the man, I could recognize the hands. In the hospital, I saw him looking at his hand, flexing it. I wondered what he thought at that moment… seeing the spaces between the bones where there had always been muscle. But they were still the same hands. And when I held them, it was the same as holding his hand when I was a child. The strength wasn’t muscle, it was love.
