Dad was a reluctant vet. He joined the Navy in what turned out to be the last year of World War II after years of deferments because of his engineering background. He served part of his tour of duty in the radar room of a ship during its last trip across the Pacific and back.He returned home to his old job, met a nice young woman and got married. After the birth of his second child, my sister, he bought a lot in a newly-developing part of New Orleans called Lakeview. He built a small but sturdy house himself where he lived until a month before he died.
I wouldn’t call ours a particularly good father-son relationship. I rejected many of his beliefs and ignored much of his advice. I didn’t take his often rigid, judgmental, black-and-white views on life seriously. He was concerned about my somewhat flaky life and career choices. Our relationship began to change when I bought my first house. He seems to have finally accepted that I was going to do what I was going to do, whether he approved or not. I finally accepted that he was often right after all.
Parkinson’s disease robbed Dad of his body first, then his mind and eventually his life. Had his mind stayed sharp, we might have eventually learned how to truly communicate with each other. I remember one conversation a year or two before he died in which I tried to tell him how much I appreciated him. I’m not sure he knew it was me he was talking to.
Five weeks after moving into a nursing home, he seemed to decide that time was up. He stopped eating. Based on his wishes that he not be put on machines, the staff made him comfortable. We knew it was the end, and I flew home to see him one more time.
That Sunday evening, November 11, 2001, Mom, my sister and I were together at his bedside. We watched him take his last breath.
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