It's Not the End, It's the Journey: A Tribute to My Dad
Published April 21, 2006
Recently, Chantal Stone wrote A Few Thoughts On Life And Death Thereafter, although I actually found it on her blog, The World Inside My Head.
It got me thinking about the most traumatic experience I've ever had with death, my father's. It took us over 30 years to develop the relationship we both wanted, but even two stubborn mules will finally pull in the same direction, and for the last 20 years of his life, I came to love, respect, and admire him. I also understood how much of what's good in me was his gift.
I'm a hard-core agnostic, but dad was a fanatic atheist. He was also brilliant, a self-educated man who had had to drop out of high school when his father died during the Depression. Reason was his God, and since there is no way to reason your way to faith, he denied it categorically.
He died in 1998 of emphysema. I will always be in awe of the fight he put up, confounding doctor after doctor, as the disease progressed. He refused to give in, even when he was on oxygen tanks. The tanks may have made him give up tennis, but they didn't stop him from playing golf 4 or 5 times a week. He never complained, never lost his sense of humor or his love of reading and music, nor his passion for a good debate.
He was the most stubborn human being ever to put foot on the planet.
But in the end, as always, the disease won. He lingered for nine very hard days in the hospital, and not only was I there the entire time, I was with him at the end. During those nine days, with the whole family there, we had a simple rule — you didn't cry in front of him. He knew he was dying, but he had no need to talk about it, and he didn't want people getting upset in front of him. We joked, discussed books, fought over his treatments, and talked about every issue under the sun...except his death.
He just wasn't concerned about God and what happens after death.
- It's Not the End, It's the Journey: A Tribute to My Dad
- Published: April 21, 2006
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Culture: Religion, Culture: Family and Relationships, Culture: Society
- Writer: Mark Schannon
- Mark Schannon's BC Writer page
- Mark Schannon's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
I know your dad's departure was eight years ago, but you have my deepest condolences. Reading the piece made me think about losing my father in late '03. Yeah, it's the journey. How blessed are we that ours included our dads...
John & NR, thank you for your sentiments. I never intended to write this, but I was commenting on Chantal's blog and it all just flowed out. Then I knew I had to enhance it and write what's been inside me for so long.
And John, wait until I review your book. It's magnificently written with a complexity that slowly becomes clear as one reads on.
Mark.....
Thanks for the mention ;)
One of things that stands out for me is "the end doesn't matter; it's only the journey that's important."
I think that is so true....one of the things that always bothered me about Christianity, and other faiths for that matter, is that sometimes people can become so consumed with the idea of heaven, "treasures in heaven", that they often neglect to live their lives to fullest here and now.
It sounds like your father lived his life to the fullest, and he passed that gift down to you.
This was beautifully written and I'm really glad you expanded on your thoughts from my blog.
Not many of us can say with truth "I fought the good fight" when we come to the end.
Mark, your father was one tough and hard to beat man. I'm willing to bet that the Angel of Death is still out of breath from dealing eith him, and its been eight years.
And he said the most important words you could possibly hear from a dying man:
"I fought the good fight."
May I only be so lucky to be able to say something like that near my death, and mean it.
It strikes me that a book about a man that struggled that hard to live would be read as an inspiration. If you get it published, I'll be glad to review it.
Bliffle & Ruvy, those last minutes with my father are the clearest and most powerful memories in this mess of neurons I call a brain. I'm not a very visually-oriented person, but I can see it so clearly. I hope too that, at my death, I can go without fear and believing that I fought the good fight.
And Ruvy, the Angel of Death, at last report, was still in a clinic recovering and muttering to himself. God had to name a temporary replacement.
But a book!? Yikes. One of the issues would be the issue of complete disclosure/truth vs. hand selecting events to make a philosophical point. I don't think right now I could write the former--I'm not sure I'd ever be able to. The latter would be a bear--it's an interesting idea and at least I have a start. (Thanks--like I needed more to do, LOL.)
And that's the truth!
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Mark,
Very touching; painful but complete. It would be a cheap god that would order us to believe in a particular faith. Clear-headedness and kindness. What more could be asked of us?