Walks with Dad

My mom passed away in the year 2000. Soon After, I wrote a piece that captured "some" of my thoughts. Here it is...

Walks with Dad

As far as wilderness treks go, this one wasn’t much. Our feet never left cement as we walked along Lake Erie at Sterling State Park. But this was no ordinary hike. As the pinks and oranges of the late-fall sky soared above our heads, our thoughts were with my mom – several miles away. “How long do you think think she has?” I asked. “Not long,” my dad whispered.

It had been a tough couple of months for my father. In May, my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. It was an experience that played to the best and worst aspects of my father’s character. His best was complete devotion to his wife. He never left her side. If she wanted a drink, my dad jumped from his usual spot on the sofa and did his best to assist her. He helped her walk, eat and sleep. If my mom couldn’t keep the food down, my dad was there to clean up. If the usual bad news arrived from another doctor, he was there to pick her up.

But this devotion to duty also was, in some ways, his worst trait. He never gave himself a break. He rarely slept and he hardly left the house. My brother, sister and I did what we could to help out, but our attempts invariably ended with my father’s words: “This is the promise that I made to your mom thirty years ago. I gave her my word that I’d be there for her through everything.”

I couldn’t argue with my father on this point. But I could find ways to help him break the stress. So, I began to take him on walks. I’d take him slogging through the mud of my favorite rugged hike. And he’d laugh as he asked, “What are you trying to do to me?” We’d breathe hard up and down the trails and I’d catch my father trying to mask his obvious exertion. We’d catch spray from our favorite Lake Erie hikes and watch the waves crash before us. For a moment, at least, we were not in that terrible world of sickness.

Of course, we also talked about other things as we walked. My father talked about his childhood memories of Belgium during WWII. “The night sky would glow with explosions,” he’d reveal. I tried to comprehend this far-away world. “We’d pick up the unexploded grenades and detonate them in the fields,” he would say. And I felt admiration for a man who had lived such an epic life. I’d laugh as he told about his papa’s attempts to steal coal from the nearby German headquarters. And I’d feel the depth of emotion as he described the loss of two infant brothers during bombing raids.

“Why haven’t you ever gone back?” I’d ask him. “That was a long time ago,” he’d say in his thick Flemish accent. None of his brothers or sisters ever returned, either. Once a decision was made in my family, there was no looking back. My father knew no English when he stepped off the boat into New Jersey, but he scratched out a life for himself. He helped start an auto repair shop, became a Catholic deacon and built the house I grew up in. He lived in a time of great struggles and had met them all head on.

While not so momentous, I also uncovered my struggles during these walks. I’d talk about the difficulty of inspiring the students in my English classes to learn their grammar. I’d grumble about the growing piles of leaves taking control of my house. And I’d bellow about the frustration of the daily chemo and radiation treatments that I drove my mother to.

But a funny thing happens when you take a walk in the woods with someone special. You begin to forget about the bad things. We’d watch an owl soar above our heads and dive to a nearby ridge in search of a mouse. We’d watch the bald eagle’s nest ahead for any sign of movement. We’d freeze in delight as a deer stealthily crossed our path. Sometimes we would lapse into the silent meditation that always seems to happen on a good hike: one foot, two foot, one foot, two foot…

Our trance, of course, would break with another good story. Often the outdoor memories of our past overshadowed the natural wonders arrayed before us. We’d talk about a family trip we had taken to Yellowstone National Park. I spent my birthday that summer in the geyser basin. “That was the best chocolate cake I’ve every tasted,” I remarked. “Who cares about the cake?” he’d respond. My dad spoke with amusement about the time that I had taken my non-athletic mom on a challenging hike. “Tell me again, Michael, how did she end up in that ravine?” With a sheepish grin, I repeated the story of how I had lost her deep in the woods. We both wondered in admiration about my mother’s will to find her bearings.
But hikes do end, and we would return to my mom’s side. In July, surgeons did their best to remove the cancer. But the mass was too large. “It doesn’t look good, does it?” asked my mom. We were honest enough with her to agree. But we also didn’t want to give up hope. I remember walking down the corridors of the University of Michigan hospital that day – standing tall with pride as I pushed an incredible woman to her room.

After the operation, I drove four hours a day to get my mom to her chemotherapy and radiation treatments. It was physically and mentally exhausting. This was especially true as it became clear that she would not get better. How does a person get up in the morning when everything seems so hopeless? I still can’t answer this completely. But I do know that one way I was able to face these wrenching days was the knowledge that a hike through the woods with my dad also awaited me.

Which brings me to that wonderful and terrible day at Sterling State Park. As night fell, we passed a handful of fishermen casting silently into the surf. Each was a shadow against the bleak horizon. There was little conversation that night. Each of the fishermen stood alone with his thoughts. And my father and I did the same. But it was enough just to walk together. As a duck quacked overhead and a lighthouse shined offshore, the sun set and we returned to our car.

Four days later, while teaching my social studies class at Addison High School, I received a message to come home. I drove without panic. I knew what lay ahead. My family gathered around my mom’s bed in her home and waited. At 6:30 PM on November 8th, she passed away. On this last day of my mother’s life, I told her that she would be with us during the walks that we took. She smiled and nodded. And so she is.