Everyone called our daddy Able.  That was his name.  No one called him Abe because Abe was short for Abraham. “My name is Able,” he would insist with a grin. We called him dad, of course.  But we would warn folks who didn’t know him to call him by his right name, Able. Eventually they would learn that the name fit him perfectly because dad was able to do anything. He could fix lawnmowers and tractor trailers, drums and drains, inputs and outlets, you name it and Able could fix it.  He was our dad and he was the best.

Helping mom raise five children was his specialty and priority.  He could make us laugh better than any comic. He built race cars from wooden crates with doll-carriage wheels. He taught each of us to swim, play pinochle, and drive a car. And he valued education above everything else except Sunday Mass which he never missed and made sure we didn’t either.

Daddy rarely ever raised his voice because one look was enough to restore peace and calm if the horde became too noisy.  When we observed other kids on the playground making ever-louder assertions claiming “my dad is better, stronger, smarter or funnier than your dad” we would just smile and walk away knowing full well that our dad was head and shoulder above all their superlatives. Our dad was the best, no question. He loved us and we loved him and we intended to keep it that way forever.

But forever came sooner than we expected. Mom died suddenly from a cerebral fusiform aneurysm. One week later dad was struck down with a progressively debilitating stroke. So we siblings decided to band together and rally him back to blissful health. We took turns caring for him, feeding him, reading to him, never leaving him alone for a second. We reasoned that as long as one of us was by his side he would never give in to a temptation to join our mother in the next life. We were determined to hold on to him, even if it meant keeping 24/7 vigils. We didn’t realize at the time that our possessiveness, while understandable, was the very thing that was keeping him from moving on to a better, happier place.

One day, when it was Jackie’s turn to keep watch over his bedridden, fragile frame, he suddenly opened his sunken eyes and announced he was going for a walk. He asked Jackie to fetch his cane from the hall closet. This stout, knotty, blackthorn shillelagh was dad’s prized possession. Before being confined to bed, he would amble through the neighborhood with it and eventually limp to the corner store to buy a daily paper rather than having it delivered to the door.

When Jackie retrieved the walking stick and dusted it off, she shook her head in disbelief. “Dad,” she thought to herself, “hasn’t been able to walk for many months. Why, all of a sudden, did he think he could manage to get both feet on the ground, let alone put one foot in front of the other for the briefest of gallivants?” She discovered the reason when she returned to his room and found that he had passed away. That’s when we realized that our loving hold on him was too tight.  We needed to let him go. Only then could he move on to that better place. Our kindness wasn’t killing him but preventing him from walking down the aisle again with Mom.

Holy Homework

During June, let’s remember to thank Dad, living or deceased, for all of his strength, protection, wisdom, and fun, and while holding tightly to those joyful memories, also promising, when the time comes, to love him deeply enough to let him go.

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