Today is my dad’s 104th birthday. He died on November 13th, 2004. When he was diagnosed in January 2004 with another faulty heart valve, he opted not to have surgery. He had had a heart valve replacement done when he was 80 years old. The heart surgeon told him that in having another heart valve replacement at 89 years would not guarantee more years, nor would his life be made all that easier. Dad, being a mechanical engineer, knew well how parts wear out. He told the surgeon, “What the hell! I am 89 years old. I won’t live for ever.” Rather than suffer the discomfort of another long recovery from heart valve replacement surgery, he rather more quality of life instead. He died of congestive heart failure 11 months later.
Of all the men I could admire, my father was the one I admire the most. He is my greatest hero. He was a man of great integrity and compassion, something demonstrated when he was very young, when he would go and help his mother scrub the floors of the bars in Turtle Creek, Pa so that she could get home earlier. He was a man of great wisdom upon whom the greater family and friends sought counsel. I remember sitting by his bedside right after he died while mom was calling the funeral director and thinking, “Oh my God! The wisdom figure of the family has died. Now, I am the wisdom figure of the family. Boy! everyone is so SOL.”
Because in the Church calendar, August 21 is the feast of Pius X, a man who was really quite the asshole (a lot of money had to pass hands to make him a saint), I generally never celebrate that feast. I instead celebrate the life of someone I consider a true saint, my father who is twice the saint Pius X ever was. Here is a poem I wrote for my dad on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
FOR MY DAD ON HIS ONE HUNDRETH BIRTHDAY
I feel you hovering around me,
your presence, your spirit,
a feeling, like fingertips
lightly grazing the skin.
Ten years have passed
since you shook off
the coils of this world.
Your presence is not
some ethereal spirit
condemned to haunt a
place of past transgression,
but more that of a father,
connected forever to the
ones that he loves.
I feel you the strongest
when complexities clutter
my life, my mind seeking
communion with yours,
calling out to you as a
frightened child cries out
for comfort in the predawn
hours following a nightmare.
Staring into the bathroom
mirror I search for your
face, in the creases on
my forehead the crows feet
around my eyes, longing
to hear your voice
praying a blessing over me
as you did for me
for so many years
before I would go to bed.
Formed and shaped by
your DNA, yet, as each
snowflake is created
distinctly different and beautiful
by our loving Creator
I realize that I am like you
and so unlike you,
similar yet never quite the same.
Gratitude born long before my birth,
I rejoice in having walked
alongside you for fifty-two years,
a man of great faith, dressed
to the “T’s in integrity and dignity.
Many look upon your image
and call you “iron man”,
one who has been tested
and proven worthy,
one able to bear life’s
great and heavy burdens.
For me, you will always be
“my dad”, devoted to God
and to his family.
One who loved
me into existence.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
© 2015. The Book Of Ruth, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
One of the very first songs I composed was for my dad. Here is that song (very Chopinesque).
Happy birthday Dad!
