Lou
My father died today.
It was one of those accidents. He was eighty-one. He fell outside and struck his head, there was a concussion and internal bleeding; his lungs, deteriorated by years of exposure to asbestos, could not take in enough oxygen. The doctors could do nothing.
Dad hated his condition. He had been a strong man, stocky and solid, heavy-faced and serious. He terrified Bianca when she first met him. He had been a gunner's mate on a destroyer in World War II and run a plumbing company for over thirty years. His employees were hard-bitten men, with tattoos and hard lives and prison time, and all of them respected him, to a man. They called him Lou. One of them told me that my dad in a fight once hit someone else so hard the man had flown backward ten feet and didn't get up for five minutes.
I agonized to see his strength leave him over the last few years. His hearing had gone, and he often had to sit just to breathe. It embittered him, and sometimes his moods would grow dark, but that's not what I will remember.
I've striven all my life to be something approaching the man my father was; patient, wise, with an understanding of people and an abundance of common sense. I usually lack that last, being too distracted most of the time, but I am lucky to have had such a role model. That's the part that I will remember, that makes up part of me. I will remember his deep and rocky voice; the way he would conspiratorially beckon me over before telling a blue joke; the way he would curse under his breath when trying to aim a stick-shift truck backwards with a boat trailer attached; his heavy, calloused hands; the gap in his front teeth when he would burst into an unexpected smile.
I sit now, struggling to decide what to do. I should fly out to Missouri, right now, and cannot; my mother would not have it. She has things she must do, the kinds of things you do when you have to sort through half your life, and it will make it harder for her for her son to see her in a state of less than full-control. That is the way of our family, although it confuses Bianca. There will be no massive gathering, with chicken and casseroles and brisket being prepared and cousins coming out of the woodwork. There will be a service here in California. We will be quiet, efficient, and carry on; that is what Elsensohns do.
And that is what I am. I was adopted, and we have no blood in common, but he was my father, and I will always carry some of that with me.
It was one of those accidents. He was eighty-one. He fell outside and struck his head, there was a concussion and internal bleeding; his lungs, deteriorated by years of exposure to asbestos, could not take in enough oxygen. The doctors could do nothing.
Dad hated his condition. He had been a strong man, stocky and solid, heavy-faced and serious. He terrified Bianca when she first met him. He had been a gunner's mate on a destroyer in World War II and run a plumbing company for over thirty years. His employees were hard-bitten men, with tattoos and hard lives and prison time, and all of them respected him, to a man. They called him Lou. One of them told me that my dad in a fight once hit someone else so hard the man had flown backward ten feet and didn't get up for five minutes.
I agonized to see his strength leave him over the last few years. His hearing had gone, and he often had to sit just to breathe. It embittered him, and sometimes his moods would grow dark, but that's not what I will remember.
I've striven all my life to be something approaching the man my father was; patient, wise, with an understanding of people and an abundance of common sense. I usually lack that last, being too distracted most of the time, but I am lucky to have had such a role model. That's the part that I will remember, that makes up part of me. I will remember his deep and rocky voice; the way he would conspiratorially beckon me over before telling a blue joke; the way he would curse under his breath when trying to aim a stick-shift truck backwards with a boat trailer attached; his heavy, calloused hands; the gap in his front teeth when he would burst into an unexpected smile.
I sit now, struggling to decide what to do. I should fly out to Missouri, right now, and cannot; my mother would not have it. She has things she must do, the kinds of things you do when you have to sort through half your life, and it will make it harder for her for her son to see her in a state of less than full-control. That is the way of our family, although it confuses Bianca. There will be no massive gathering, with chicken and casseroles and brisket being prepared and cousins coming out of the woodwork. There will be a service here in California. We will be quiet, efficient, and carry on; that is what Elsensohns do.
And that is what I am. I was adopted, and we have no blood in common, but he was my father, and I will always carry some of that with me.