I feel as though I am suspended in time, drifting; perhaps time will briefly stop, and then I will begin to move again. You see, I am waiting for my father to pass away – we don’t know when, only that he was very sick and now has no energy to wake again.

It’s strange because I live here and he lives there, and we couldn’t really speak. Having lost his hearing and relying on an implant, the phone was not an ideal instrument for conversation. Instead, I sent him and my mother weekly letters – “News of the Week” – and sometimes he would write back. But I suppose it was hard for him to make small talk over email, so our conversations had to wait until what became my periodic visits over the past few years.

Most of the time, he would try to follow conversations through his implant, and we even had a microphone just for that. Those conversations, though, were usually about things – the occasional New York Times article or an interesting Wall Street Journal piece. My father had three newspapers delivered daily to my childhood home, and he spent nearly three hours a day reading them. I never fully understood why, except that reading allowed him to stay connected to the business world from the time he was young until just last week, when he was quite old.  The rest was simply because the world fascinated him until his last wakeful day.

We all deal with grief differently. When he was being transported to hospice, my mother threw out his hearing device. Hearing our voices seemed to agitate him. He probably wanted so much to speak with us, but couldn’t find the energy to break through the veil of darkness that had settled over him.

I say that because there was always an hour or two when, like magic, he would sit down with you or simply ask how things were – and then the conversation would take place. The conversation that really mattered. The one that connected him to me, and me to him, and him to his other children or grandchildren when I could bring them along.

The last conversation was about our finances, what’s happening with my business, and his overall pessimism about the prospects for peace between the Jewish people and their Middle Eastern neighbors – many of whom, he felt, are consumed with hate at the expense of their own well-being.

But my dad was much more than that. He was the father who asked, “What do you need, and how can I help?” – and then he did. He was the father who, on our first adult bike trip, said, “Get out of the road, a car is coming.” He was the father who brought me a new bicycle for my first long trip, without being asked. He was the father who picked up the slack when my mother was working, who sat with us to teach high school math, and who even helped me make sense of Ulysses. He never answered a question quickly, but he always answered thoroughly.

He enjoyed eating—especially my mother’s apple pie. He and my mother were married for more than 65 years. He was always “Dick” to her, whether she was calling him to attention, reminding him of something, or simply going in for a hug.

He was my rock—my stone pillar. He was the man I hugged  when I wanted to be hugged.

He was my mother’s companion, partner, and friend – the one who greeted her with a kiss every day or simply dried her tears.

Our last goodbye was too short. He had fallen again just the day before, and I had to go to him. What could I say or do but give him a kiss, hoping I would see him again soon.

Oh, how I will miss him.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)