Thanks, Dad

Today would have been my father's 86th birthday. I mowed the lawn in MD on Thursday, and it dawned on me that I've been mowing twice as much this summer, and each time I've thanked my father. I'm not even completely conscious of doing it, but I whisper a little "Thanks, Dad" every time I mow on a slope. Here's the story.

I desperately wanted to mow the lawn when I was growing up, but my father didn't just fill the mower with gas and let me loose; he embarked on a series of safety-based teaching sessions. First, he made me change my shoes from flip-flops to sneakers and told me to never, never mow the lawn in flip-flops. Then I learned how to start the mower and he walked beside me while I cut a few rows. Our front yard was a long slope, and when we got to that part, he told me to turn the mower off and we would try it again next week. We did the same thing for the next few weeks, and finally he decided that I was ready to mow the slope. He turned the mower off, and explained in detail that I must always mow the slope from side to side, never, never up and down. Grass is slippery, and if I slipped, my foot would slide directly into the mower blades. He had me repeat this several times, and then we started to mow the slope, side to side. He walked beside me, we finished the lawn, and we mowed like that, together, with Dad supervising, for the rest of the summer.

He did finally allow me to mow by myself the next year, checking that I had sneakers on and with a warning about mowing side to side on the slope. It was my job to mow the lawn until I went to college, but then I didn't mow for years because I lived in apartments. We bought the house in NJ where the whole back yard is a long slope, and I thought of Dad for a moment almost every time I've mowed there.

His health started declining almost a decade ago, and he was eventually diagnosed with diabetes, heart disease, end stage renal disease, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, and complications with all of these. He was sick, scared, and in pain, and because of those things, our relationship deteriorated to the point that he would barely speak to me. My sister and I took him to daily radiation treatments, doctor appointments, the pharmacy, grocery shopping, and a million other things almost every day for several years, but he wouldn't even say hello or goodbye at the end. It was a difficult time for all of us by the time he passed away in January.

He was never a warm and talkative man, and things were quite sad, frustrating, and difficult at the end. But with all the mowing this summer, and being careful on the slopes, it finally dawned on me that even if he wasn't the kind of father I wanted, he had still cared about me, as evidenced by all the care he took with teaching me how to mow. I do apologize for this rambling post that isn't like my usual, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot, and I wanted to write it down as it has resolved a lot for me. So, be safe, go side to side on the slopes, and thanks, Dad.