Yizkor ~ Remembering my Father

My אבא and me way too long ago.

I sat alone in the quiet of the early morning, the rest of the house asleep or off to yoga. I thought about the responsibility I have to all these people; the tremendous amount of love that I feel for them, the innumerable blessings that they represent. There is no counting. There will never be enough words, prayers, or deeds to account for the goodness that graces my life. Despite it all, I was overcome with a sense of melancholy. Something...no, someone, was missing.

Yair is now a year old. It's hard to believe. I missed his birth because I had been in a hospital in Haifa when Dana called to tell me her labor had started. We had known this was imminent when I had gotten on the plane to Israel some ten days sooner in an effort to get my father transferred from Carmel Hospital to one in the States. I flew there, Tehillim (Book of Psalms) in hand, uncertain what state I would find him in.

My Dad was my hero. Strong as an ox, even at 82 he lifted weights and did more pushup in a minute than I could muster in 10. Never one to ask for or accept help, his phone calls included very little detail about his failing health. Instead, there was a quick note, “I fell,” then he would ask about Mom, and my siblings. What was I doing to help them? What he could he do, despite being so far away. He had his ideas, his plans and schemes. He would take care of everything just as soon as he was feeling better and could come home.

When the phone calls started coming, I was taken by surprise. “You've got to come, now!” Not from one cousin, but from several. I could hear the exasperation in their voices, the fear and anxiety. Now, the truth of his condition was being laid bare. I wondered aloud why they hadn't told me sooner. Why no one had done anything more, but they dismissed all my questions outright. It didn't matter. And they were right. No matter what or where, he was my father and it was my job to care for him, not theirs.

To be certain, life is grand; full of beauty, grace, and wonder, but there are times when being a grown-up reeks. There is nothing like the sensory overwhelm of walking down the hall of an intensive care unit; breathing the air, thick with the stale smell sickness, medications and decay so that it seems to coat your nose and mouth and eyes. Your hearing is dulled by the steady and endless hums and beeps of machines, the moans of the sick, the sobs of the disconsolate. I made my way through the corridor with such trepidation; peering cautiously into each room, hoping to steal a glance of my father so that I could steady myself and put on a strong face before going fully into the room.

As luck would have it, and probably owing to the fact that I don't believe in it, my dad saw me just as I saw him. I think we were both shocked. No one had told him I was coming, let alone that I had arrived, and so he had no time to compose himself. I felt guilty. There he lay, so damned vulnerable. He had always prided himself on his appearance; on his strength and independence, and now he was unkempt, mostly immobile, and tired. Inadvertently, I had violated the mitzvah of Kavod et Avicha v'et Imecha, honor your mother and father. By entering in this way, despite all of my best intentions, I had robbed him of a bit of his dignity. I left the room, ostensibly to give him a few moments to clean up, but really, I was the one who needed to the time – to come to terms with his frailty, his pallor, and most jarringly - the tenuous nature of his health.

True to form, he played off his condition. We laughed a bit, as he chided me for wasting my money on an unnecessary trip to see him, especially since the baby was due any day now. He introduced me to his roommates; guys from the old neighborhood it turned out. He flirted with the nurses, harangued the doctors, and fooled with the orderlies. Spills were laughed about, the long and arduous journey to the bathroom played off as an excuse to cuddle up with nurse, the exhaustion dismissed as pure boredom. It was a day full of all the same games and illusions. Yet, as I slipped out of the room that night, my Dad asleep – his breathing labored and exhausted, for the first time in my life I felt that both he and I were playing on the same side of the board.

Over the course of the days that followed, my father – it appears, and I hope – grew to trust me. That sounds funny. So many people rely on me, and as a family, we are involved in so many different activities. I like to think that we walk well in this world, measuring up, if not to our own and G-d expectations, but at least to those of most of the people around us. But as the son of one Shaul Wiseman, I had not, in forty two years, earned my stripes yet. The details matter not. Suffice it to say that it boiled down to a clash of cultures, generations and expectations. Together we joked and made plans for his escape from the hospital. We plotted rescues, redemptions and marriages while he moved from one health issue to the next. All the while I fought with doctors to get a clear diagnosis; to develop an exit strategy; to find a way to do succeed at the ultimate objective, which was to bring him back home so that he could heal.

Each time I thought we had found a solution; each time there seemed to a light in the darkness, something happened. When the call came that labor had begun, I was in the hospital lobby. I hadn't made it upstairs yet. We talked, and I cried, a feeling of helplessness beginning to overwhelm me. I knew I should be in the States, but what about my Dad? But when I went up, the light of hope was not just a spark. Instead, it shone like a beacon. The chief resident gave him clearance to travel. I rushed to the phone and the airline had seats for us. The hospital at home was waiting for him. The pieces were all in place. And then, they weren't.

On the way to the restroom before packing up, he fell – not hard, but enough to scare himself. He would wait. If he was strong enough today, he would be stronger tomorrow or the next day. What should I do, I asked. Taking my hand in his, he gave me his answer. Go home.

We spent the last hours together quietly. He sent me on an errand for toiletries, to recharge his cell phone, and to get a decent cup of coffee and a danish. We ate lunch together, and he asked about how Dana was feeling. We made plans for my sister to come to Israel and eventually escort him home. He hoped out loud that he would be with us for a brit milah, should the baby be a boy. At the last moments he allowed me one last great honor. Using the fresh toiletries, I washed and cut his hair, trimmed his nails, and most importantly, he allowed me to shaved his stubble. He wanted to be handsome and trimmed for his imminent discharge from the hospital.

I have never in my life felt as alone and helpless as when I drove away from the hospital. I had said my goodbyes to family and friends earlier that day. So many people had done so much, there were no words to express enough gratitude and indebtedness, but that time had come and gone. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I headed down the highway towards Tel Aviv. The Tehillim which had served me well on the flight over and while on the ground now became my anchor, as I searched it for words of strength. Like my father, I saw myself as the caregiver, the redeemer, the hero. Yet I found myself in no-man's land, unable to attend either of the people whom I loved so dearly, and who I felt needed me so much at this exact moment.

Yair was born while I was in the airspace above Philadelphia. Our dear friends had swooped in and cared for my wife, and loved my kids. I called my Dad as soon as I got back home from the hospital. He's beautiful. He's healthy. He looks just like EliNoam. Thank G-d. All is well.

And it was. For the next eight days our baby grew stronger and Dana healed. In Israel, my Dad grew stronger and was feeling better. The day of the brit milah, we found ourselves buring under feet of snow. The crowd that had gathered at the synagogue to celebrate including many of those dear to us, but unfortunately, no family. When I called later that day to tell my Dad the baby's name, he gave me his blessing, and told me that he had made such progress that he was being moved to a rehabilitation hospital. Within a week, he would be discharged and ready to come back to the U.S. G-d willing I said.

Four days later, when the phone rang in the middle of the night, I knew that it was over. With a resigned reluctance I answered the phone. My heart broke when I heard the pause that comes with an international call. I don't know what my cousin Sasson actually told me. It was too hard to separate my sobs from his. In truth, it didn't matter. My father wasn't coming home to us. He was staying at home in Israel.

I ended the call, and started the job that my father had been training me for my whole life – to be the head of the family. I made phone calls to airlines, arranged flights for all who wanted to fly, plotted courses for passports, changed what I could change, and accepted what I could not. Within thirty six hours, I watched as we lay my father, my hero, my teacher, my mentor, into the ground. Over the course of the next seven days, I was blessed to learn more about him from the horde of family and friends that descended upon us than I had know in all my years up to then.

I am my father's son – sort of. I do not have his physical strength, his quick smile and cynicism, nor do I command the deep loyalty and passion from friends and family that he did. Those gifts he bequeathed to my brother.

Instead, I see him when I look sideways in the mirror. I feel him when I stand in the doorway, a hot cup of tea in hand, as I watch thoughtfully over the brood that G-d has blessed me with. I am the father that he taught me to be: loving and caring, hard on the outside, soft on the inside. I am the Jew that he taught me to be: generous and stubborn, Sephardic and proud. If I am a man of character, of honesty, of integrity, then I am the man that he taught me to be.

I am sorry that my eyes were not more astute, my ears no more attuned, my heart not more open while he was with me in this world. I miss his physical presence in my life, each day. I pray that as I grow, spiritually and emotionally, that I may grow more aware and find him more and more in my life. There is an interpretation of the commandment to be fruitful and multiply that says you have not fulfilled your obligation until you have grandchildren who walk in your way. I pray that, through my actions, I may touch my children deeply, that they may bear the fruit of the seeds which he planted in me.