June 28, 2011

I don't know how to write about my father's death. It will be three weeks tomorrow, and when I try to collect my thoughts and feelings, all I have are snapshots: his half-open eyes in the final day, when he had slipped into a coma; the pathetic thinness of his arms; holding his growing-colder head as my mother washed him prior to the arrival of the funeral home staff. The dried blood stuck in the stubble of his beard.

He fought so hard and so long. At the funeral, I wanted to say something about his determination to keep on, to stay focused on the things that mattered to him, and not to get derailed by his health trouble. I wanted to say, what an incredible gift to his children, that determination. I see it in myself and in my brothers, in different ways, but profoundly. We may none of us have become physicists, but in this way, at least, we follow in his footsteps.

He died at home, for which I'm grateful. He died by degrees, which was excruciating. I expected that by the time came I'd be prepared, having lost him in stages for months and months. I was wrong. There is no way to prepare.