The Honor of Being Present

LoneStarStateDad -- my father -- died 14 years ago this month. The anniversary of his passing was September 12.

I thought about him on that day. And he came to mind again today, when DairyStateMom pointed me to this essay at the New York Times website, by Joan Marans Dim, on the long journey she and her husband took over the course of his dying.

My father had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He had been in and out of the hospital with pneumonia more than once over the previous year. Sometime around Labor Day of 1989 he was readmitted, treated, then released back home.

I was still married to my first wife, then. She and I had planned a week-long trip to Pennsylvania that September in connection with her work. She would be in Philadelphia for most of that week, and so we had already decided I would spend those days with my parents. After dropping her off at her bed and breakfast, I drove out to the southwestern corner of Chester County.

Exactly when that was, and what happened between when I left Philly and when I found myself at my parents on the evening of Monday, September 11, I no longer recall for sure. I do know that sometime in that Monday afternoon or early evening, I had a chance to speak with my father. He was in bed, sleeping somewhat erratically, too tired and uncomfortable to respond much, but still essentially coherent. And I was able to speak to him, tell him I loved him -- and tell him of the many things for which I could be grateful to him.

Then I remember sitting with my brother-in-law in the kitchen. His own parents had died not that long before, after lingering illnesses; he warned me that my father could, like his parents, linger for quite some time.

I sat up most of that night, often with my father. I read the John Mortimer play, A Voyage Round My Father, which had been sitting on the bookshelf. (Some time before, my father had read it and commended it to me.) I probably dozed some, in the chair in his room, or perhaps on the couch in the living room, or in an adjacent spare room.

At one point in the middle of the night, he spoke some incoherent words. They were the last that I heard from him. The next morning, we called his doctor and the hospice nurse. The doctor pronounced him dead. Within a few hours, an employee from Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, where my father had arranged for his body to be donated for research, arrived and took him away.

My mother called my father's sister, his closest sibling (they were the two youngest in their family, and so she was "Sissy," for Little Sister, and he was "LB," for Little Brother). My mother said to Sissy, "Your little brother Harold has gone on his next great adventure."

That's when I wept.

I have always been firmly convinced that my father, knowing he was near death in those last few days, nonetheless hung on to life until I could be there in person.

Joan Dim's essay in the Times begins with her sharing her angst at having to endure the slow death of her husband and envying Joan Didion, whose husband died swiftly and unexpectedly. But by the end, Dim comes to the opposite conclusion:

We were married 52 years. What reasonable person could ask for more? And yet, if I had one wish, I’d add just five more minutes. Even though the last decade was a misery, I feel luckier than Joan Didion.

In my bereavement group, a participant mourning the death of his partner talked about the “honor of being present on the last journey.” I understand what he meant.

So do I.

In Memoriam: R.D. Munro, 1914-2012

DairyStateMom's father died last night. We miss him already.

It was certainly his time, as much as any passing can ever be. In the last few years, his health had been seriously in decline, exacerbated by steadily progressing dementia, presumably Alzheimer's. Yet an ironic benefit of his decline was a family decision to move him from Indianapolis, his lifelong hometown, up to assisted living facilities very near to us, where we got to see him much more frequently in his last few years than we otherwise would have.

When I met him, a few months after I began courting his youngest daughter, he was already a bit stooped and frail looking. But he still completed the Daily Jumble in the paper and listened with interest as I described my work.

I called him "Mr. Munro" in those days, when we would see him in visits every three or four months in which we would drive down to Indianapolis. At some point, he took me aside and kindly told me, "Just call me R.D."

And when his daughter and I drove down on a weekend in the middle of the summer of 2004 to announce the happy news of our engagement, he beamed quietly.

The DairyStateKids got to know him a little bit as a new step-grandfather, and when the time came that his cat had to be taken to the vet to be euthanized, my younger son drew him a picture of the beloved pet. We gathered that up last night from my father-in-law's room at the assisted living facility where he died, surrounded by family and under the immensely kind care of wonderful hospice nurses.

Had life been different in so many ways, perhaps my sons could have known him as the strong and steadfast gentleman he was for most of his life. But I'm glad they got to at least meet him -- and he them -- in any case.

We also took home his copy of one of our wedding pictures. And from that same day, I will always treasure one memory especially: the man who, at the age of 91, slowly, but with great patience, dignity and pride, walked his youngest daughter down the aisle to marry me nearly seven years ago.

Rest in Peace, R.D. You were a good man, and I am so grateful that I got to know you.

A Song for Today

I've been ruminating about what, if anything, to write about today, and about this day 10 years ago. I have many thoughts, but they're not especially coherent right now. And I've been, and continue to be, preoccupied with work demands that have sucked out all of my time.

But taking a break just now, I saw this over at Will's blog.

It's a simple summation of the feelings I hold most tenderly as I think back on that day.

In Memoriam: Daniel I. Pevar, 1976-2010

Grief hits us again.

My nephew Dan was a gentle, creative and caring man who died suddenly Monday, a victim of bipolar disorder.

I have no words for this. I am grateful that, after it looked like I would not be able to travel back east for his funeral, circumstances now make that possible.

Dan is the middle son of my sister Susan and her husband Marc. In honor of their Jewish faith, in memory of my beloved nephew, in shared sorrow with his parents and his brothers, I link to this prayer in that tradition, written by a college friend of mine.

It is called "For the Bereaved."

Last night, Dan's father told me: "Cherish your sons."

And so I say that to whoever stops by this place: Cherish your children.

Amen, and Blessed Be.

In Memoriam: Edward N. Broadfield, 1947-2010

I have two sisters. The younger, 7 years older than me, is now with her husband an observant Orthodox Jew. The elder, 9 years my senior, is a Quaker.

And now, a widow.

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day, after four weeks or so of his not feeling very well and (if I have my facts right, and I might not) an inconclusive visit to a doctor a while back, my brother-in-law woke up feeling very ill. My sister rushed him to an emergency room. And there, After an overnight stay at the hospital, unexpectedly and of an as-yet-uncertain cause, he died.

Ed was a big teddy bear of a man, a soft-spoken African American who has lived most of his life with disability, having lost one eye to previously undetected glaucoma in basic training after he was drafted in the late 1960s. (He received a medical discharge and lifetime Veterans Administration medical care soon thereafter.) His work was primarily in a volunteer capacity, engaged in the operation of the Friends Meeting that my sister and he have been longtime members of, and as a community mediator.

He was as spiritually centered as any person I've ever known.

In my family, he was the person who took the greatest interest in, and most seriously, my love of trains and model railroading. He'd been a train buff himself as a teenager.

I remember him fondly as well for two other gifts he gave me in my youth. He explained American football to me (my father had little to no interest then in professional sports, although he watched the amateur Olympics with enthusiasm). And when my father was away on overseas study for a year and I began asking my mother and my sister about sex, Ed was drafted to explain it to me. He did so with grace, compassion, tenderness and deep respect that was worthy of the best OWL facilitator anywhere.

When my oldest son was born, it was no question who should be his godfather at his dedication, and Ed fulfilled the task in his own quiet way.

In a note to family and friends about this news, DairyStateMom said this:

Ed was at our wedding; those of you who celebrated with us that day might remember a big, soft-spoken African-American guy with an enveloping hug.  I think a regular hug from Ed for all would go a long way toward solving the most intractable problems of human relations.

I couldn't put it any better.

Rest in Peace, Ed.

R.I.P. Jerry Bracey

In one of my freelancing hats I provide editing services to a network of education policy scholars writing on various aspects of education reform. One of them was Jerry Bracey, who, I've just been informed, passed away the night before last.

I met Jerry once and had the pleasure -- and it was a pleasure -- of working with his copy many times. Few could see through the cant and disingenuousness of so much of what passes for scholarship on education matters as he did, or write about it with such vigor and clarity. If I were to summarize the bulk of his work that I got to see, it would come down to this: Jerry standing on street corner, megaphone in hand, calmly pointing out to anyone who was willing to listen, "The Emperor has no clothes!" -- and providing the evidence to prove it.

The person who informed me of Jerry's passing writes about him far more eloquently than I could, and I print his thoughts with his permission:

The thought I keep having about Jerry is how his integrity and brilliance so often shown through, even overshadowing his irascibility -- or maybe it was that integrity and brilliance that created the irascibility. His contributions to those of us who worked with him -- including the two-dozen items he authored for us (he was finishing one up this week) -- were great. But his larger body of work was even greater -- consistently dedicated to statements of unvarnished truths and a dominant feature on the educational landscape for decades.

A couple days ago, John Thompson, on the "This Week In Education" blog speculated about paying pundits for their performance: "Pay them only for what they get right, or for judgments based on strong evidence."

His first thought was this:

"But if we evaluate on cold hard accuracy, the top bonuses would go to Gerald Bracey, and think of how blunt Bracey would be after receiving the full recognition he deserves."
(http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2009/10/thompson-to-each-his-own-evidence.html)

We're going to tremendously miss that person and that voice.

I can think of no more fitting epitaph.

Update
Via the above link (John Thompson on Alexander Russo), a sampling of Bracey's recent work at HuffPost.

R.I.P. Forrest Church

In Memoriam: Rev. Dr. Forrest Church: Theologian, Author.

"A Chosen Faith" (co-written w/ The Rev. John Buehrens) is an eloquent and concise explication of Unitarian Universalism. "The American Creed" is an equally eloquent explication of the Declaration of Independence and how our understanding of it has evolved and grown. I haven't yet read "Love and Death," but want to. And I look forward to the release in November of Church's final book, "The Cathedral of the World."

Sometime back I heard him interviewed on a podcast of the Diane Rehm show. Search it out. One comment of his I recall is his reply to someone who declares himself an atheist:

"Tell me about the God you don't believe in. Chances are, I don't believe in that God either".

Forrest Church may not have been the first person to say that, but he's the first person from whom I heard that.

Take a look as well at Jess's Journal.