(2007)
I did not think about it too much until I was watching my Dad dying,
but I bet my fascination with newspapers came from him. Or, as I once
put it in a column I wrote, "I have ink in my veins due to my father."
Why is this a big deal to me?
I
entered the writing field, became a liberal (a pacifist even), and
protested against societal norms in my own way because I wanted to rebel
against my conservative, engineer father. He wanted me to be a computer
scientist. He wanted me to see why President Reagan was right and I was
wrong. I wouldn't give in to his rhetorical pushes. It wasn't
stubbornness; I just felt sure I was right and he was wrong. And he
disagreed.
This scenario repeated itself for years. He would bring
home the libertarian Orange County Register, the conservative Wall
Street Journal, and the more liberal Los Angeles Times. He'd get home
from work about seven and be asleep by nine. But during that time, we'd
both pore through the newspapers. If he saw an article or column that
reflected some point he wanted to make, or reinforced his argument, he'd
rip it out and hand it to me. And I'd do the same to him. Many was the
day when I would wake to find a stack of dog-eared newspapers on the
kitchen counter waiting to be read by me so I could learn the error of
my ways - about Reagan, the Star Wars initiative, etc. At night we would
debate the issues over whatever food he picked up on the way home. God,
I miss those conversations. Now when I pick up a newspaper each day or
see a stack of unread newspapers, I think of him.
Maybe I didn't
become a Republican or enter the sciences. I worked in a profession he
may not have shown respect for (many was the time he rallied against
reporters for oversimplifying issues), but one he appreciated.
The
first day I saw him in the hospital after he got cancer, I brought a
newspaper with me. I think it was the Los Angeles Times. I wasn't sure
how easy it would be to talk to him and figured we could always discuss
the articles. I quickly set the newspaper aside when I saw how dire the
situation was. The cancer had advanced, and an experimental procedure
had backfired. He tried hard that morning to talk. Maybe too hard. I
worry he pushed himself too much to talk to me and to others when he
should have been resting. He asked about the newspaper and I read a
little bit to him, but he would fall asleep mid-sentence and wake with a
jerk 15 minutes later. He was polite about it: "What was that you were
saying? Please repeat." But we gave up eventually.
The next
morning, a new edition of the L.A. Times was lying on a table by his
bed. At one point I asked if he wanted to read it and he said he
couldn't focus on it enough. I offered to read it to him but he said
that wouldn't do because he couldn't concentrate. The papers piled up
for the next two days, like so many unaddressed issues and emotions. I
just stopped setting them by his bed.
I joined him for dinner in
his hospital room. During the meal he suggested we watch the local
television news, something totally unheard of in our past relationship.
He hated local television news, even more than I do. But again, because
of his health and the drugs, he kept falling asleep. Finally I turned it
off. And it was the last time we watched television together.
I
flashed back to the times we would watch television programs together.
He would hold the L.A. Times in front of him as if he was reading it,
but if there was something entertaining to him on the TV, he wouldn't
let on he was viewing it. After about five minutes, one could conclude
that the Peanuts cartoon in front of him was either pretty damn
fascinating or else he was indeed watching the wacky show.
Who
knows what he was thinking and feeling during his last few days when he
couldn't speak because he was intubated and medicated, but I made a
point of reading the newspapers just like old times, as if somehow that
would help. Like him, though, I had trouble concentrating. He asked for
the newspapers to be left by his side whenever I would go away for a
break but they were untouched when I'd return. The last time I left a
newspaper was the last time we discussed the articles.
Within a
week he was dead and I flew from California back to Maryland/Washington
D.C. area, where I returned to work. At some point I realized I could no
longer rebel against him since he was no longer there, and I found
myself emulating the parts of his personality that I admired. In the
months after his death, I would find myself interviewing someone and
hear a reference to engineers and I'd think of him. I'll read an article
or an editorial and think, "Dad would get a kick out of this." And then
I remember he's gone and feel like someone kicked me in the stomach.
And for a minute, my world seems to slow down and I get mad at others
for moving at a regular pace as if things haven't changed so much for
me. Then I resume working, knowing that he's up there looking down on
his reporter son, cranking out more stories that, one day, we can
discuss and debate. I owe him that, I think.
So here, Dad, is one more to set aside for future discussion.
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