My Father's Day

"My father died when he was 52."
"How did he die?"
"Heart attack. His father died of a heart attack, too, he was in his early-70's"

The above is verbatim dialogue from my doctor's appointment today. The death in question (my father's) was also today - nine years ago.

Given the health concerns that prematurely felled my father, I suppose a doctor's appointment was an appropriate tribute.

I'm doing fine, health-wise, thanks for asking. I've put on a bit more baby weight than I expected, but I'm hoping my recent cutback in reckless behavior will balance me out, at least until I stop eating double portions of dinner.

So, my dad has now missed out on nearly a third of my life (and more than a third of my brother's), and not just any third. He's missing out on the payoff.

It wasn't until I was faced with fatherhood that I began to realize the responsibilities that go beyond basic feeding and clothing. Being a father - a parent - is to take on the responsibility to help shape and develop a human being in your image (or not in your image, if that's the better way to go).

Being a father means taking the sum of your wisdom, experiences, and prejudices, and conveying them to another, highly malleable human. It means taking stock of life and man's role in the world and developing others to help share in your vision.

From political, philosophical, and theological beliefs down to the minutiae - your stance on the designated hitter, how you butter your bread - a father's beliefs and values are passed down to his children. All in the hope that your children - whether they ultimately share your belief system or use it as a base to discover their own - grow up to be productive within society, happy in their daily lives, and ultimately, make you proud of your efforts.

Done correctly, I imagine that it is an indescribable feeling. After years of nurturing, providing, crying, worrying, stressing, sweating, budgeting, cleaning, chauffeuring, and teaching, being witness to your child, all grown up, in a life of their own...that's the payoff.

And my father missed out.

The rites of passage he witnessed (bar mitzvah, high school graduation) pale in comparison to what he missed. He never saw me graduate from the college he tried so hard to pay for (let alone see their football team finish with more than three wins in a season), he never met the woman I married (he narrowly missed it, too), he never saw my first apartment or heard tales of my first non-hourly rate job. He missed one hell of a wedding. And he's missing the birth of his first grandchild.

I miss him and think about him everyday - but March 13 in particular (in case you were wondering, yes, he did die on Friday the 13). Though his death was personally tragic, I try to avoid the sappy, sentimental thoughts that gave us "Cat's in the Cradle" and "Field of Dreams." My father and I had a good relationship - certainly as good as a parent and child can, when that child was a teenager 35% of the time.

I'd love to conclude this post with something inspirational, like how I learned from my father's death that I need to live a better/healthier/more fulfilling life, but that simply isn't very true and it's not me. Honestly, I didn't learn much from my father's death other than learning how much it sucks when your father dies.

But I did learn from my father's life. I learned of the important balance between work and family. I learned that a parent should never stop finding ways take care of their family. I learned that you should never put your hand anywhere near the moving parts of a forklift. I learned you should probably upgrade your eyeglasses every decade or so and, that if you wait long enough, flannel will come back into style.

I will forever remain heartbroken that my father never had the chance to see either of his two sons grow up, met his daughter-in-law, or had the chance to impart his (grand)fatherly wisdom on his grandchild. But if my kid pops out and has blue eyes, is a southpaw or with a thick head of hair that's already turning gray - well, my father will have made his mark.

Modern Medicine Miracle

"So, I was thinking about you dying..."

Now, that is a conversation starter! And that is also how I greeted my wife this afternoon when she came home from a successful trip to the maternity clothing store.

Funny thing about bringing a new life into the world. You think more about how you will depart. Things that seemed to be far off worries become sudden necessities: wills, godparents, insurance.

Remember when you drunkenly joked to your college roommate, "Ok, if I die, you can have my stuff?" That was a long time ago.

But what got me thinking about my wife dying was that only a few decades ago, childbirth may have killed her.

Centuries ago, a woman dying during childbirth was commonplace. Centuries ago, an infant had a far worse chance of seeing age one than it does today.

Today, when I hear about a woman dying during childbirth (typically from "complications"), I can only think how antiquated that sounds. But for us - for my wife - it is a very real possibility. Or at least it would have been.

Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, my wife's childbirth will likely be death-free, though more pre-planned than we once thought. Her blood, usually the consistency of a fine marinara, is thinned twice daily. Potentially fatal blood clots never have the chance to form and my wife will not suffer a fate more suitable for a 17th Century European peasant.

So, with one calamity avoided, it's on to preparing for the next by making sure that should I meet a premature demise, that my family will be taken care of. Even in death, you can't stop being a responsible father.