Blog 11 Short essay

One Sunday Afternoon

When I came home from golf early one Sunday afternoon, the numeral two was flashing on my answering machine. Odd that I would receive even one message since anyone who might call would know I wouldn't be home. I pressed the button on the machine.

The first message was from my dad in Florida, “Lewis, this is your father. If you want to speak with me, call me as soon as you can.” I hated how he exaggerated the word father, as if I might have forgotten the sound of his voice. The second message was from my brother Henry, also in Florida. “Lew, call me as soon as you get this.”

I sat on the edge of my bed and dialed Henry.

“Dad died at eleven.”

“Shit! He left a message on my machine at nine. He said if I wanted to speak with him, I should call right away. I thought he was angry with me.”

“Nah, I got the same call. He told me that his bags were packed and he was ready to go—that if I wanted to see him one last time, I should come right over.”

“Did you get to see him? Did you speak to him?”

“Yeah, I got there in time.”

“Did you call Ruth?”

“No, I called you. You call her.” My brother and sister Ruth do not talk to each other.

“Was it suicide?” I asked Henry.

“No,” he replied, “I don’t think so; not really. He had just made up his mind.”

“What happened?”

“Friday night he went on the bus with the rest of the geezers to a local Chinese restaurant. You know how Dad loved going out for Chinks. He got his favorite last meal. Anyway, the sodium must have screwed him up—he had an episode of congestive heart failure. The doctors wanted to amputate his legs to improve his circulation. He told me he wasn't going for it.”

As I listened to my brother, I had mixed emotions: the man was, after all, my father, but he was no longer a factor in my life, and I needed the insurance money. But I wasn't thinking about any of that—what was fascinating to me was that the man knew he was about to die: What had his attitude been as he faced the unanswered questions of eternal nothingness. Contemplating my own death has always frightened me. I wanted to know how my old man had held up.

 “Did he seem nervous? Scared?”

“Not at all; more like ready. We talked for a few minutes, and then he closed his eyes and stopped breathing. I called for the attendant, who called the nurse. He was dead. He had had enough and he just wented.”

An old family joke: a perversion of the past tense. Henry knew I would not be offended. We are not sentimental people.

*  *  *  *

My father’s funeral was small—perhaps thirty people. No one but me flew in. Ruth didn't make it. So I was surprised when, during the short service, an honor guard of six octogenarians from the Jewish Veterans of Foreign Wars, barely able to close the buttons on their uniforms, entered in military formation, saluted my father’s coffin, and stood at attention in the rear of the room. Neither my brother nor I knew the men or how they learned of the death of our father. But they reminded us that attention must be paid to the death of a man.