Sexuality Happens

I published this last year, and having tweaked it slightly, I’m publishing it again.  All of the feelings and sentiment remain the same.

I’m on the right :)

Today, April 23, 2009, is the 10th anniversary of the death of my father. He was one of the most amusing, inspiring, intelligent, wonderful people to ever grace the face of this earth, and that’s not just my biased view. You didn’t see the number of people at his funeral, the number of people who came out of the wood work to tell him goodbye and to tell us how much he had meant to them, the kind words written about him online by people all over the world, and so on. He was a great man.

When I was younger, I remember visiting him in the hospital in my Care Bear outfit (yes, I’ve been a nerd since a very young age). He had cancer (non-hodgkin’s lymphoma) and was occasionally hospitalized for pneumonia, or other infections. He went into remission in the early 90’s. Then, summer 1998, when we were in Europe, he started feeling off again. He was re-diagnosed at the end of the summer. My family didn’t tell me until Feb 1999, because they didn’t want to throw off my skating competition (WHAT THE FUCK) or worry my sister and I. But now I know why he cried at that competition when I put my first place medals around his neck and told him it was all his fault that I’d won. It’s a good thing they told us when they did – my dad ended up in the hospital the next week. It was a hard time – by dad was constantly in chemo, and was in and out of the hospital. I stopped doing my math homework; who carea about algebra when your father was sick? I spent every night after school either at rehearsal for my play, or with my dad at St. Joe’s, getting him ice chips, and joking around about the disgusting food.

At the end of March was my last show at Logan (my middle school). I had a starring role in “The Madwoman of Chillot,” but didn’t think my father in his weak state could go – 3 flights of stairs, and sitting in a folding chair for 3 hours just wasn’t going to happen. My school loved my dad though, and banded together. They were able to help him up the stairs, and put him in the tech directors special high backed rolling arm chair so that he could keep his neck upright (carried up those 3 flights). At the end of the show, they unrolled a banner signed by every single member of the cast and crew that said “We love you Sol!” and dedicated the show to him. By this point, he was bald (I called him Daddy Warbucks), and had lost more than 50 pounds. He was sunken in his chair, but had tears streaming down his face at this show of love. It was an amazing night, and the best performance of my life.

He started getting better, and was put on a list for a stem cell transplant. Every night before he went to bed, I told him how much I loved him…that’s just how we were. Until the morning of Friday, April 23, 1999, when I was woken up by my mother at 10am, which was odd, since it was a school day. She took me into my sister’s room, and told us that he had died in the night. She had woken up when he made a noise, and called 911, and tried to give him CPR, but it hadn’t worked. She was terrified that we would wake up with the ambulance’s sirens, and paramedics running through the house. We didn’t.

That day, I missed school, but they held an all school assembly in memory of my dad. I stayed home, cleaning up the house for the after funeral party. It snowed that day, a lot, given that it was April. I answered the door for the people coming by, took the flowers and arranged them. That night, I went to rehearsal for the ice show, because that’s what my father would have wanted, and I didn’t see any reason to not go.

Saturday, I went to the funeral home with my mother (Jews don’t believe in embalming, so funerals happen fast), and she was a wreck. I helped to plan my father’s funeral, to pick out his casket, to figure out how many police on motorcycles we needed.

We asked for the small, 75 person chapel at my temple. When we arrived on Sunday morning, they had already had to move it, because too many people had already shown up (which was unexpected – we didn’t even publish an obituary with a funeral time). By the time the service started, it was standing room only. I wore a black dress with one of my father’s Hawaii shirts over it. He wore a Hawaiian shirt every day – to work, to skating, to school, etc. So I wore one. I read a poem, and after the service, my mother, sister and I opened the casket, alone. He was wrapped in a traditional Jewish Shroud, but underneath, he was in his $6 goodwill tuxedo he had bought for the father daughter skate, a Hawaiian shirt, and his rainbow suspenders. I left a pig in there with him.

We underestimated how many cops we would need to get to the cemetery. It was ridiculous – we figured just a few friends would come along. Everyone did. It snowed a little as he was buried.

A few weeks later, his doctor called, and told us that his last tests had shown the cancer had spread all over his body – nothing could have stopped it, and nothing could have prevented him dying. Funny you know, because non-hodgkin’s lymphoma is considered a generally non-fatal type of cancer. A week or two after that, we got a message from the hospital – my dad was now at the top of the list for a stem cell transplant, and could he come in the following day? That was hard. As were all the calls from solicitors…especially the one when I said “No, I’m sorry, he’s deceased” and he said “when would be a good time to call back?” I asked him if he believed in reincarnation. What can you do.

My dad was a wonderful man. He was born in Sweden, moved to the US at age 1, and learned to speak Yiddish. English was his second language. He was kicked out of several schools for making mischief after he finished his school work before everyone else. He was in the air force for 3 years, stationed in Germany. He came back and got his bachelor’s in 2.5 years by working the hell out of the system. Then he got a Master’s in geology. After years with the government (BLM) as a geologist, he went back and got another degree as a computer scientist and stayed with the BLM. And did a lot of fancy computer programming stuff that I really don’t get, but he’s been called a pioneer in the field of meta-data analysis, and there is an award out there in his name.

He was a field trip parent for my classes – he had a giant suburban with a CB radio, and would show up for almost every trip. He came in to read stories to my class. Every year, we made latkes for everyone. At our roller skating parties, he’d be out there teaching every kid how to skate. Around Channukah, he’d dress up completely like an Eastern European Jew, and re-enact (with my help of course) “Herschel and the Channukah Goblins.” Everyone knew and loved my dad.

When I took up figure skating, he did too, so that he could stay a little ahead of me, and help me learn things. After a while, I by-passed him in skills, but he kept skating. He even got a few jumps (he took this up at 44 or 45!), and quite a few bruises to prove it (never skate with a pocket knife in your pocket). One year, my sister and I skated to “the Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in an ice show – she was Mickey, and I was the Sorceress. Well, my dad put all on brown, tied some grass skirts around his knees, grabbed some buckets, and he became the brooms. I’m so not kidding. It was hilarious. In the father daughter skates in the ice shows, he had found a $6 tuxedo at goodwill, and wore it with a giant sequin bow tied and matching cummerbund, every year. And every year he’d try to throw some of his cool moves in (a little bunny hop here, some backwards skating there), and every year he’d get yelled at by the ice show director.

We used to see the circus every year, and one time, it was like our personal family at the circus day. My sister and I got picked from the audience to fly in a toy plane from the top of the coliseum, and then my father was picked for a clown skit. It involved “lay-people” tossing plates at each other, that broke when caught, and the audience people were supposed to just look confused and upset. Well, my dad started juggling them, throwing them under his leg, clapping them together, etc. He even followed the main clown around, mocking him (to the amusement of the crowd)…he told us later the clown told him in a heavy Russian accent to “cut it out! This is my show!” Later on, everyone was asking him if he was a plant, because he was that funny.

In 4th grade, I was farther ahead than everyone in my Hebrew class except for one girl. He volunteered to teach, and came in every weekend to teach special lessons to the two of us. Didn’t get paid, and got a lot of crap from me, but he did it, Sunday after Sunday.

When my girl scout troop was without a leader, he stepped up, becoming the only male leader in the Denver area. We learned knot tying, macramé, fire starting, archery, etc. I used to go to the “parent-daughter” girl scout camp weekends, and he’d go with me – usually one of only 4 or 5 dads (so we’d get the nice cabins with plumbing!).

On our own, he taught me to use a bow and arrow, how to play catch, how to carve words into sticks and trees. He made his own fireworks with steel wool. He took me with him to work all the time, not just on the official day. We had matching beanie propeller hats, except his had a little pig, and mine had a frog. He drove me religiously to dance and horseback riding lessons, and we’d listen to NPR on the way. We used to go thrift store and garage sale-ing every weekend spring-fall, and in the winter, we’d go to the lumber store sometimes. He built a two story play house for my sister and I in our back yard…that never got finished because of his death. It’s still there.

When I wanted my hair French braided, he went to a hair styling for kids class with me at Kazoo and Co. He was the only male there, but volunteered to practice for the demos, etc. We used to build hyped up remote control cars together for the critter crunch – trying to demolish our opponent’s cars. When I ever wanted a “new” computer, we’d build it together from spare parts, just the way I wanted it, even if that meant 3 floppy drives (totally pointless by the way). He got me games for DOS from all over the world. In NM, he used to take me shooting with my uncle, and was so proud of me when I turned out to be good at it. Once, we made our own wine…from a jury-rigged distillery we made in our kitchen. He taught me how car engines run, how to use a power drill, and how to waltz and summersault. Even our cats liked him best – always following him around, sleeping with him in his arm chair, leaving mice under his chair.

My father was my everything. He taught me so much, even when I didn’t want to learn (like the one summer he made me fill in a blank multiplication table every day, or the next, when I had a daily long division problem). His crazy shirts, bolo ties, and tucan hats (as well as the rest of his antics) made me realize how important it is to live life to the fullest every day, because you never know what might happen. I even wrote my college essay on him.

He never got to see me do my bat mitzvah, even though I wore his toucan hat during it (which miraculously survived the house fire we had a month after his death). He didn’t get to see me go to high school, to see me win any awards, to see me graduate high school, college or grad school. He never got to see me direct my first play, or sing in a musical. He would have been astonished that I was the President of the Jewish group at CC. He never got to threaten my partners with his .22 like he always promised. He would have LOVED Kinsey and Athena and Kali, and would have played with them more than I do.

That day, not only did I lose a wonderful father, a great friend, a teacher, but the world lost a great man. It’s only now that I realize not only how much he influenced me, and how much he brightened my life, but that he did the same for hundreds of other people. It’s hard now – none of my current close friends ever met my dad, so they don’t know what exactly I’m missing, what piece of me is gone…I reacted differently to his death than most people react when they lose a loved one. We had never left anything unsaid, and I had nothing to feel guilty about. But the farther away I get from him, the more sad I am. I don’t remember anymore exactly what his voice sounds like. I don’t always remember his wry smile. I don’t believe in heaven or hell – I believe that when you die, your body is done, and your spirit goes into those whom you loved. I feel that as life trucks on and on, there is less and less of him in me, and that’s so hard.

Here we are making potato latkes in my middle school

If you feel so inclined, wear a Hawaiian or brightly colored shirt today, in honor of him and his vibrant life. Or please donate to the American Cancer Society.

Thanks…

Essin’ Em