Here are some of my thoughts throughout this past year.
My dad’s health had been deteriorating for a while. He was doing dialysis for sometime and it was literally sucking the life out of him. I felt his pain every time I would pick him up from dialysis. It was an exhausting process but he kept at it, holding on for as long as his body would let him. Even though he was in pain, I would try and make him smile while I wheeled him to the car or drove him home. Some days it worked and some days it didn’t. When my brother told us that he took my dad to the hospital I knew that he most probably would not be coming out.
Shiva- 7 days. Sitting Shiva. We held Shiva over zoom because we wanted to make sure everyone stayed healthy. I learned a lot about my dad during this time. It was neat to hear my brothers talk about their time with my dad. My dad never brought me to work at the store with him to do actual work like he did with my brothers. Instead, I went to his classroom and set up bulletin boards or organized his materials. This probably contributes to the reason why I am a teacher today. I never realized that my dad joined the air force directly after high school. He had a very low draft number and would have been sent to Vietnam had he not joined the air force. I read a letter that his mom sent him while he was at basic training where she told him that his draft card came in the mail. It was interesting to hear some of the stories about my dad when he was younger. I also enjoyed looking at some of the pictures from when my dad was younger. Sitting Shiva was a tough experience but I definitely learned about my dad’s life.
30 Days- Shloshim During these 30 days I studied Mishnah in my dad’s memory. During these 30 days I really only read Mishnah. Whenever I was not sleeping, eating, working, packing my mom’s house, I was studying and learning Mishnah.
February- After Shloshim, I tried to get back into my normal routine. I still found it very hard to watch any tv or movies. I remember talking with Ruthie about this and she said “in time, don’t rush it, when you are ready, you will know.” It was interesting that my teenager helped me through the process. Truthfully my entire family helped me. They were there to help out in any way I asked.
I brought my dad’s jacket to my house. It was the coat he wore whenever he left the house. It is gray and super soft and fluffy. It is a 3XL size but towards the end of his life this coat that once fit him was swimming on him. I guess the coat has meaning to me. I would see it when I would go to pick up my dad from dialysis. It would be hanging on the lowest bar. I would always smile because I knew my mom would have hung it there because it would be easy for her to reach. I would take the coat and sit and wait for my dad to finish. I would help put the coat on him and then put the hood up to keep him warm. Growing up my dad always wore short sleeves and was always hot. I rarely remember him with long sleeves or wearing a heavy jacket. The past few years he would get really cold after dialysis. I would be sitting in my seat in a t-shirt sweating and he would be in his warm fluffy coat with the heat up to 75 blasting in his direction. Just as my dad would do anything for me growing up, I would do anything for my dad. If he needed the car to be 80 degrees- then the car would be 80 degrees. If he needed me to avoid the manholes as I drove him home, then I would change lanes as much as I needed to so that the ride was a smooth ride home.
March: I spent a lot of time this month helping my mom finish packing up her house. It seems that my free time was spent doing something for the house. It was exhausting but it kept me and my mind busy. We found some great treasures and some fun memories while we packed the house.
April: I don’t know if Pesach was my dad’s favorite holiday but I do know that it was an important holiday to him. He always made sure that he had his family over to participate in the seders. He always went above and beyond to make sure everyone had a great Pesach and that all of the kids got a chance to find the Afikomen. During covid it was hard to do the seders without my parents. This year was doubly hard because my dad was no longer here. Anyone that has ever been to my house for a seder knows that there is one paragraph that my dad would read every year and get almost all of the names wrong. I would look forward to this part of the seder. It always brought a smile to my face. This year I dreaded this paragraph.
One day on my way home from work, I was listening to a podcast. They mentioned that the NBA logo with the man and the basketball was modeled after Jerry West. They went on to talk about how Jerry West played for the Lakers and lost six times to the Celtics. I wanted so badly to call my dad and talk with him about what I had learned. I am sure he already knew this information but I wanted to have the conversation with him. It is times and days like this that I feel so lost and miss him the most.
May- May was filled with lots of track meets and soccer games. My dad would have been so proud to watch his granddaughters run a relay together. He would have been so proud to see his grandson play in a level up in soccer and hold his own. I have to believe that he was there watching these events. The days are long but the years are short- that phrase keeps coming back to me. In the month of May two different events happened to me that made me know that my dad is always with me. One day I was getting myself a drink at starbucks- and the guy at the register said that the register was down and the drink was for free. I was so confused and looked around and said “what is the catch? Things like this don’t happen to me.” Sure enough the drink was for free. He wouldn’t take cash so instead I gave him a nice tip. I watched as the people behind me followed suit and gave nice tips as well. My dad would have been excited for the free drink but he would have also been the first person to give back to those making the drink. The second event was finding a person’s debit card in the cvs. My dad was always finding money wherever he went. I am not sure, but when I saw the card on the floor, it made me think of my dad. Don’t worry, I brought the card to the right place.
June- This was a tough month. The first birthday without my dad. The first father’s day without my dad. I spent father’s day with my mom at the house. We did a final walk through taking down the mezuzahs and emptying whatever else was left. The mezuzah removal was not an easy task. The last one I took down was the mezuzah that was on my bedroom door for most of my childhood. It took me a while to get it off the wall. As I struggled my mom said “your dad sure wanted you to be thinking of him today.” Of course that led to me tearing up.
July- Harder than June for sure. My dad’s birthday is in July. It was hard not going to Carvel and getting a specially made all vanilla cake for his birthday. It had become a tradition for many years. My mother and brother and I did eat some vanilla ice cream and share some memories about my dad on his birthday. He was definitely with me in July. I found several coins on the ground. Anyone that knows my dad knows that he was always finding coins and then donated them to charity. He always tried to find more money than the year before.
August- It seems that it gets easier but harder at the same time. This month, my daughter went abroad for the year. This makes my home a little emptier. Ruthie was such a support for me when my dad was getting sick and after he passed.
I find that not listening to music for a year has left me with a lot of thinking time. Every time I get into the car to go somewhere I am reminded of my dad because I don’t turn on the radio right away. Sometimes I would listen to podcasts but there were many road trips that were just silent. The silence leads me to missing my dad. I found myself missing the phone calls after dialysis where he would call to check in on me and my children. Yes you read that right, he would always call me. His voice was so hoarse from the treatment but he still wanted to check in with me. I never wanted to keep him long because I knew how exhausted he was. The sicker he got the more those phone calls meant to me. Of course I kept some of his voicemail messages and every now and then I find myself listening to them. Hearing his voice helps but makes it harder at the same time. I spent some time cleaning up my closet. One of the last activities that my dad did with some of his kids and grandkids was glassblowing. My brother’s family had the idea to go and my dad took us there. I made a purple heart paperweight. I had kept it in the bag for a very long time. I am not entirely sure why. Part of me knew that looking at it would remind me of my dad. But then again, I have his jacket and army shirt hanging in my closet and I look at that several times a day. So in August, I took the purple heart out of the paper bag and put it on one of my shelves. It has brought some tears to my eyes but it also brought smiles to my face. My dad always wanted to make sure everyone was having a great time.
September- A new school year. I know that the secular world starts their year in January. My year starts in September. It is a new year and a fresh start. September is also my parent’s anniversary and my mom’s birthday. I knew that this September was going to be a hard one. In typical Rachel fashion I made dinner plans with my mom on the anniversary date. I went to the store and got her some flowers and a carvel cake for her birthday. While I was picking up the cake I saw a beautiful pot of fall flowers. I picked it up. My hands are full and I am thinking “I should have just taken a cart.” I exit the store after paying for the cake and the pot of flowers and low and behold there is a quarter sitting on the ground. I knew right away that it was a sign and that my dad was with me as I picked up the flowers and the cake. Of course my hands were full so I kicked the quarter through the parking lot to my car and then picked it up. Those that knew my dad knew that he would frequent the shoprite looking for quarters from carts that people didn’t want to return. He would take those quarters and donate them to charity, his scholarship fund. There were many times that I went to the store with my dad and drove him around looking for the carts or he made me run after a lone cart to see if the quarter was in there. Soccer season starts in September. My dad always wanted to watch his grandchildren play sports. I think about my dad a lot while I watch my son run up and down the field. He would have been so proud to watch him score a goal during the first game of the season.
October- During this month we celebrated several Jewish Holidays. The “firsts” without my dad are always so hard. It was bittersweet to celebrate these holidays. It was nice to be around my family and to have my mom with us but there was an obvious empty space. I found it hard to be truly happy.
November- This is the month that conferences take place at my school. In years past, I would crash at my parents house in between school and my conferences. It was always nice to spend time with them and it saved me time driving back and forth to school. This year, I spent time with my mom. I sat on her couch, graded papers, and just talked. November is also the month of Thanksgiving- It is one of my favorite holidays. I love that families get together and it is a time to be thankful and grateful. I am always so grateful for everything that I have been given as well as my continued good health. This Thanksgiving was definitely different than years past. I had two of my nieces stay with us. Their grandmother, who is from Israel/California also came to spend the day with us. My mom came for the holiday weekend. My eldest daughter was not there because she is spending the year abroad. Usually I run the Ashenfelter race on Thanksgiving day. I haven’t run it for a few years and just couldn’t motivate myself to do it this year. Overall, Thanksgiving day was so very different from years past with so many different variables. The differences were good but my dad was noticeably missing. Last year at this time, he worked so very hard to get home from Kessler to spend Thanksgiving at his house surrounded by his family. At one point this year, one of my nieces said “we didn’t do this last year.” I needed to take a moment and leave the room because I started to cry. Nope, we didn’t do this last year because we were in a different place with different people. At one point we pulled out all of my scrapbooking materials and the kids (minus Shua) and myself made place cards. My nieces usually make place cards for their family on Thanksgiving. It was nice to have a new tradition and a way to distract me from the obvious missing person.
December- December 2nd is my day to celebrate being cancer free. There is a needlepoint that my dad made that hangs on the living room wall. I walk by this needlepoint any time I am in the room and it sits right across from the chair that I sit and grade papers or read my book. He wrote the phrase “Never give up.” My dad was one of my strongest supporters when I was sick. He was always looking out for me and trying to help in any way he could when I was recovering. Just writing about it now, I remember the time he took me to my chemo treatments and I introduced him to FRIENDS and had him watch one of my favorite episodes. I was hysterically laughing and he just kept looking at me like I was crazy. He didn’t seem to find it too funny. This time last year, my dad started to decline. We were in full swing of packing up the house because my parents were in the process of moving. My dad would say comments to me such as, “Rachel, my time is coming to an end,” or “Rachel, my body is failing me.” It was so hard to hear these comments. I would always respond with “don’t say that, you are a fighter, just keep at it, one day at a time.” I know that he was hurting and was in so much pain towards the end. As I write this almost a year later, I feel bad for telling him to keep fighting knowing that he was in so much pain. I tried to stop by the house on my way home from school to see him on the days that he was not at dialysis and I offered to do the pick up on the dialysis days. I guess deep inside, I knew that the time was limited and I wanted to spend as much time as possible with my dad.
In the middle of December, my extended family lost another family member. This month was a very hard month for me.
January 9th- Here we are a year later. Today was a tough day for me. It was an emotional day. I thought about my dad first thing this morning when I woke up. I thought about my dad when I got to school. I thought about my dad when my mom texted me. I thought about my dad when my friend texted acknowledging that today was going to be hard. I went onto facebook and looked at the last set of pictures he was tagged in. It was a teary day. I miss hearing my dad say “where is my buddy?” when he called me. I miss hearing his voice. I miss having him ask me to pick something up at the store for him. I miss his silly dad jokes that he loved but were really corny jokes.
I looked for my sign from my dad all day long. When I was ready to pack up and head home, I noticed a sticker on my desk. I have been giving out these stickers to my students as prizes or rewards. This sticker was left out of the bucket and was just sitting on my desk. I love that it is a map theme. How does it connect to my dad? My dad loved to take pictures of his family at every event. As a child I would sometimes get annoyed that we had to hold still and be in so many different pictures. Now I am so thankful that my parents took all of those pictures. I love looking at them to see the people and the places we visited. I have turned into my dad, requesting my children to pose for a picture.
I might not talk with my dad daily or see him on my way home from work anymore, but he is definitely in my heart and with me every day. He is with me when I play games with my kids. He is with me when I am doing an arts and crafts project. He is with me each day I teach my students. It has been a long hard year and I miss my dad greatly.
