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When I was 32, my dad died of cancer. He was only 53, four years younger than I am now. He was good-looking, sarcastic and well-read, loved Westerns, chess and tennis, and he liked to walk. He was an alcoholic. But I never saw him drunk. And he stopped drinking long before he died.
Father's Day had always been a pleasant day for our family. As kids, we'd go to my grandparents' house on a lake outside Minneapolis, play Whiffleball – I have four younger brothers so getting up a game was easy – or croquet or go out on the boat. Nothing elaborate; just a simple Sunday. Something to look forward to.
After my dad's death, I continued to anticipate Father's Day. All week, I'd scheme to avoid it. I couldn't stand to think about his absence and the absence of my two sons. Two years after my dad died, my first wife and I had split up, and she moved back to the Minneapolis neighborhood where we grew up and took our boys with her.
Some years I'd leave Charlotte the Saturday night before Father's Day, just drive by myself, trying to get out of range. I could have driven to Maine and I would have failed.
On Sunday, I'd put on my running shoes and go. “First in flight” is more than a motto. If I had a 5-mile course, I'd run 6 or 7. If I had a 7-mile course, I'd run 9 or 10. I'd try to run until my body hurt so badly my brain would forget.
I never ran far enough to forget.
So here we are, 25 years after my dad's death, Father's Day 2009, and I'm looking forward to it. I'll talk to my kids, Lee and Peter, who are grown and gone.
And I'll thank my dad for the inspiration he provided this week.
I don't know if I tried to be like him or if it just worked out that way. He was a newspaperman, working on the sports desk and then as books editor for the Minneapolis Tribune. Newspapers are all I've ever done.
He and my mom separated when I was a high school senior, and even though he dated profusely, I always think of him being alone. I always figured I'd end up alone.
I'd be the guy in the dark, quiet bar, and maybe there'd be a woman a few stools down. Probably she wouldn't like me. But she might. My jokes would be new to her, and maybe she'd think I was funny, and we'd go out and fall in love. Then it would end. And I'd be back on the barstool again.
My dad loved movies, and when I was young he took me to see “Shane.” Shane was a gunfighter who tried to go straight but couldn't because his past reeled him in. We can't escape who we are. That's what the movie has said to me the past 15 times I've seen it.
My second wife told me I was not Shane. What she meant is I didn't have to go through life alone, didn't have to be my dad and didn't have to romanticize a life that doesn't exist.
My dad pulled a Shane after he was diagnosed with cancer. He had been hurting for a while, and doctors couldn't find out why. He knew he wasn't imagining the pain, but nobody else did. Now that it was official, he could get well again. I'd fly up to Minneapolis and we'd talk about places he would walk and I would run when he got out.
But he wouldn't get out and he knew he wouldn't get out. He was dying. And he didn't tell anybody, not even my mom, with whom he was still close. The intent was to go out with a single selfless act and spare the family the truth and thus the pain.
He wasn't selfless.
If you love somebody, doesn't their burden become your burden? Love isn't some pristine emotion you store behind thick glass. Use it. Let us in.
Yet when I learned a few months ago that I had cancer, I instinctively told the surgeon I was not going to tell my kids or my mom. Why worry them? This wasn't going to kill me.
Why not just stay in the shadows through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation and emerge healthy and whole when we gathered for vacation?
The surgeon looked at me and said, “Tom, you have cancer. Tell them.”
Reluctantly, I did.
I have squamous cell carcinoma, a cancer that settled along the base of my skull, in a tonsil and two lymph nodes.
My dad's cancer began in his shoulder and quickly consumed him. I stood with him while he waited to go into radiation one afternoon, and as he lay there on his back he began to cry. I was incredulous. I had never seen him cry. I didn't even know he could cry.
I don't think he had been especially happy his final few years. But when he realized life could be taken, he fought. He hurt so badly, yet he fought desperately. The pain was evident, as was the outcome. This was not a fight he would win.
“What keeps you going?” I asked.
“What keeps you going?” he responded.
Nice.
Outside his hospital window was the Mississippi River. It's powerful and mysterious, full of twists and adventures, and it changes every time you look. Life moves the same way. Today might be miserable. Tomorrow could be fantastic.
That's what keeps me going.
Since my dad died at 53, 53 became the unit by which I measured time. When I turned 48, I was minus-five. When I turned 50, I was minus-three. When I turned 54, I was lost. I had outgrown the calendar.
I wanted to be with him when he died, but he died on his time and not when he was expected to, and I had to come home. One day the phone rang, and I knew. I put on my running shoes and took off.
I think about my dad all the time, and one of the things I think is this: If he had survived cancer, how he would have chosen to live.
Here's how I live. A problem arises. I ignore it. The problem comes back. I ignore it. The problem becomes too big to ignore. I run.
My life is not boring. But all the running has cost me dearly, and I don't want it anymore.
I hit bottom a few days ago. My body felt broken. I did fine with cancer surgery because it was a one-time hit. I thought chemo would be a test, as in – come on, take me head-on, let's see what you've got.
But chemo cheats, comes at you from the side and from behind and hits you in places you never realized could hurt. I hate the side effects, and I hate myself for hating them.
Worse, my spirit broke. I've long been the guy who quietly tries to cheer up others. I could count on one hand the days in my life that I've felt depressed. I need two hands now. I'd wake up, look out the window and think, not again, not with the way life is going now.
That's not me. I needed help. But I hate to ask. To whom could I turn?
When I needed to learn how to hit a baseball, control the center of a chess board or develop a love for boxing, be comfortable outside the mainstream, write a sentence or be talked out of quitting my dream job at the Minneapolis Tribune, I turned to my dad.
So last week I turned to him again.
“Dad, what should I do?”
I believe his response was, “What should you do?”
Other dads get ties for Father's Day. I get Yoda.
But he's right. I know what to do.
Life is amazing, but it's not amazing all the time. If I continually look to escape, I'll always be the guy in the running shoes, passing by. If I refuse to work through the ugliness, I'll never find the beauty.
My dad could have given in and gone gently to his death. But he found something he believed in – the promise of another day.
I've never fought for anything as hard as he fought for it. I, too, want another day. But I want a day that's different than all the days that have come before it. I want to put my running shoes away and stand and fight for what's important and for the people I love.
If I really do take after him, I can do this.
It's time.
