Dying Dad: Why Me?

October 4, 1994

Sitting in the waiting room at death’s door. Is that an accurate metaphor? My dad is
clearly waiting outside of death’s door, but dare I say I am, also? I guess it’s no different than
when I accompanied my dad to the North Shore Cancer Center for radiation treatment 2 weeks
ago. I rode with him in the ambulance from the hospital to the clinic, then I waited with him in
the waiting room until he was wheeled into the treatment room, where I was not allowed to
follow him. Now it is the same, isn’t it? I am sitting with him in the waiting room at death’s
door. Soon he will be carried through, and I will not be allowed to follow. Maybe some other
time.
It is now just over a month since my father was given his terminal diagnosis. When last I
wrote about this drama, I was embroiled in conflict and confusion. I was reeling from my father’s
deathbed confession to me that he had had a series of extra-marital affairs in the mid-
seventies. My anger towards him made it all the more difficult for me participate wholeheartedly
in his care. And since, I couldn’t tell the rest of my family what my problem was, they had no
choice but to assume I was just acting like uncaring jerk for no good reason. Fortunately, or not,
I was unable to keep my father’s vile secret for long.
I wonder about the saying: “What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to
deceive.” What do they mean by “first”? Does it mean that the tangled web begins instantly upon
the commencement of our deception? Or does it mean that we weave a tangled web at first, but
once we become more practiced at deception we are able to manage with less tangle? Or did the
original framer of this so famous aphorism simply need a one-syllable adjective to suit
the meter and he/she just happened to come up with “first”? In any case, it was the consequences
of tangled webbedness that inadvertently and circuitously led to my mother learning my father’s
secret.
As I mentioned, when I heard Dick’s confession I was quite blown away. I had long
participated in the family conspiracy that said that my father may have had myriad shortcomings

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but at least he had always loved his family steadfastly and unflinchingly. It was easy to fault Dick
for so much else but, as I was often reminded, you had to admit he loved his family.
Ya right, except for a secret series of affairs that he had successfully kept secret for twenty
years. And if he was able to keep one horrible secret so long and so well, what other horrible,
hateful contradictions might also remain yet hidden? I had been having hard enough time
reconciling the family myth of the ever-loving father with Dick’s recurrent tendency to lash out
angrily at my mother for the slightest imagined offense. But those outbursts were just random
sniper fire compared to the atom bomb blast of his now revealed infidelities.
The enormity of my father’s confession proved way too massive a load for me to carry
solely by myself. Dick had asked me to share this matter with absolutely no one, but I reasoned
that his primary concern was that it not be found out by the rest of the family, especially my
mother. Consequently, as soon as I returned to IMS, I sought out Joseph, swore him to secrecy
and shared second hand my father’s news.
That was OK, wasn’t it? I just told Joseph, no one else, just to ease the overwhelming
burden of carrying the nasty secret. And it did feel a little lighter having shared it. But not light
enough. So I swore Sharon to secrecy and told her, too. Then Carol Wilson, and then Steve
Armstrong, and then Michele. But I swore them all to secrecy too, don’t worry, and they’re all
Dharma Teacher’s anyway. That was a relief too. But it wasn’t enough.
It was during the 3-month retreat in 1991 that I helped rescue the deer that fell through
the ice into the nearby pond. After that adventure was finished, I went back to my meditation
practice but I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened with the deer. Even as I
walked silently, slowly, contemplatively back and forth in the walking meditation room, inwardly I
was vividly reliving the deer story in my head. I would start at the beginning and tell myself the
whole story right to the end. Over and over, I narrated the story to myself and there seemed no
end of self-storytelling in sight. Finally, I stopped my meditation and sat down and wrote the
story down. Getting it all down on paper, got it out of my head and I was able to move on with
my retreat and my life.
For the same reason, I wrote a story about my father’s confession. I had about run out of
people I could justify including in the slowly growing tangled offspring of my father’s original
deception. But still his secret was ricocheting wildly in my head like a trapped sparrow trying to
crash its way through the windows out of our garage. So I sat down and started typing.
Nineteen pages later, I felt better. I printed a copy of the story and read it over once, then twice,

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and then I was done with it. In fact, I felt so done with it, that I had no need to talk to anyone
about my father or the whole situation at all for quite a while. I had successfully thoroughly
gotten the episode out of my system and onto paper. The only small problem remaining was
whom to send the story to.
I mean, I hate to write a nineteen-page story and not share it with anyone. This
wasn’t a journal entry; it was a story, after all. After some thought, the perfect reader occurred to
me. How about my friend Eric in California? Eric is a big fan of my writing and a long time
confidant and commiserator in my inter and inner personal struggles. And he’s even a Dharma
teacher, and he lives three thousand miles in the opposite direction from Marblehead. So I slid the
sole copy of the story into an IMS envelope and put it in my pile of business needing to be mailed.
The next day, I received a call from my mother saying that my dad had suddenly become
desperately short of breath and had been rushed by ambulance to Salem hospital. I hastily
gathered up my things, including my not yet sent mail, and dashed back to join the battle. My
father had apparently thrown a blood clot, which had lodged in his lungs in life threatening
manner. He was put on blood thinners to prevent any more clots and in a couple of days was
transferred out of intensive care to the oncology ward.
Having my father in the hospital turned out to be a great relief for all of us. First of all, it
made it much easier for my mother, brother and I to sleep through the night without constantly
awakening in response to or in anticipation of needs of my dad’s. Also, I found it a tremendous
relief to have my father moved outside of the scope of group family dynamics. It was quite hard
enough for me to work with my anger and resentment towards Dick regarding his confession, but
was virtually unbearable at the same time to watch him lash out angrily at my mother again and
again. Having him in the hospital was like sending a bad child from the dinner table to his room.
We visited him in the hospital one at a time in order to maximize coverage, so there was no longer
any all-together group to manifest dysfunction in.
We settled into a routine of daily hospital shifts, and entered into what I’ve come to call
the Bogs phase: things were all bogged down; the going was slow, tedious and uneventful. I
would go to the hospital for a two-hour shift, during which time I would mostly sit and play
cards on my notebook computer. Occasionally my father would ask me to get him some ice
cream or hand him the urinal, and we would talk about nothing much else. Eventually, my shift
would end and I'd go home and do nothing until it was time to go for another turn.

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 One day my mother took me aside as we were changing shifts. She told me she had
something she wanted to confess to me. Not again! I had barely survived my dad's confession;
what was my mother about to tell me?! She told me she had recently been searching around the
house for some misplaced piece of information, and in her search had inadvertently found a paper
I had recently written. It was, of course, my cathartic nineteen page story, which was still waiting
to get mailed to Eric. How much of it had she read, I cautiously inquired? All of it, she
admitted. There it was: the secret was told; the cat was out of the frying pan after the barn
door was closed. The beans were spilled and there was no use crying over them. I felt mildly
angry at my mother for reading something so personal behind my back, but also relieved that she
had accidentally released me from my burden. I asked her how she felt and she said she didn't feel
angry because she couldn't afford to. I tried to point out that she might choose not to afford to
act angry but she should feel however she really felt. She told me she forgave my father his
indiscretions but admitted that was because he was dying.
I went home and let my mother's confession sink in for a while. Eventually, I had a
bright idea: my father was never going to confess to my mother, because he was too afraid of
her wrath and rejection while he was so dependent on her care. But if my mother honestly felt
forgiving, for whatever reason, then I encouraged her to tell my father she knew everything and in
the same breath tell him he was forgiven. Only in this way, could he possibly be freed to die
without the burden of his secret. The only drawback to my suggestion is that my mother
absolutely refused to risk it. She didn't want to do anything that might upset my father while he
was so sick.
And that's the way things went during the bog period. Everywhere around me, people
seemed to be playing conflict-avoiding, reality-denying games. At one point, my father called the
old rabbi, who had years ago retired like all-deserving Jews to ever-sunny Florida. My
father confessed to the old Rabbi that he no longer had faith in the Jewish vision of the Kingdom
to Come. In other words, he was afraid to face death; what support could the Rabbi recommend?
The Rabbi's advice was don't think about things like that. Don't give up hope; don't throw in the
sponge. When I asked my father what he thought the Rabbi meant by hope, he refused to answer.
Did he mean that my father might survive this disease? Yes, that's what he meant, I was told.
Good advice on dealing with death, eh? Try not to think about it; pretend it's not going to
happen. Words from the wise.

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 As time bogged by, though, it slowly sunk in to my father that he was dying, but the more
he realized it, the more he tried to avoid knowing about it. It's like when we used to get bussed
to summer camp as small children. Someone taught us that to avoid bad luck, we had to hold our
breath when we drove past the cemetery in Salem. This seemed like a sensible bad luck avoidant
strategy so I would always fill up my lungs as the cemetery approached and then hold, hold, hold
it until we were passed. The only problem was the cemetery in Salem is rather long, and the road
we took beside it was usually congested with stop and go traffic. I would hold my breath forever
and ever but it was never long enough. Sooner or later my lungs would explode and I'd be forced
to gulp bad-luck, death-tinged cemetery air. Likewise, my dad sits in stop and bog traffic valiantly
trying to hold his psychic breath until the cemetery passes him by. All I can say is it never worked
for me.
The bog time ended yesterday, not long after I had discovered a way to not only survive
them but to actually enjoy my detention in them. What I discovered was a woman named Lynn. I
was introduced to her at someone's house last week, just by accident. She recalled that we might
have met once a long time ago. I replied that I would not have forgotten meeting a woman as
attractive as she. Next thing I knew, I was spending all my spare time hanging out with her. She
was (and is) intelligent, caring, sensitive, and fun loving. And she works at home, so I can find
her almost anytime. And did I mention extremely good looking? And best of all, she likes me
back.
So suddenly, I like bog time. Go to the hospital for a couple of hours, spend the rest of
the day with Lynn. I've complained in recent times that the only women I could get in bed with
were old lovers like Carol or Gabi or Susan, because it wasn't worth the trouble to get to know
someone new. Now, all of a sudden, it wasn't any effort; it was a delight. Just spending as much
time as possible together; just getting to know each other; just becoming friends. We've been
slow getting romantic, despite a strong attraction between us for one good reason and alas one
bad reason. The good reason is that every little moment together feels so pleasant that there's no
need to hurry on into the potent realm of sexuality. Everything is happening so nicely on it's own
that there’s no need to steer. The other reason is that regretfully we both know that I am only a
creature of bog time. I'm like Cinderella at the bog time ball, and soon enough I'll be back at
IMS, not chained to my dying dad in Marblehead. Knowing this, I feel us both holding back from
getting too deeply entangled. Before meeting Lynn, I kept watching the clock and calendar,

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waiting for this dying dad ordeal to run its course. Now I find myself hoping the poor old guy
can hold on at least for another year or two or three. Aint love grand?
But, as I said, the bog time ended yesterday. The last memorable bog event was a visit
from the new Rabbi, while Dick and I were hanging out pretending we weren't holding our breath.
The Rabbi offered his greetings then settled into the breath-holding swing of things. After a
while, my father commented that he had been asking himself over and over but that it was totally
an unfathomable mystery to him. The rabbi agreed that it was indeed a mystery. I couldn't help
interrupt breath-holding to ask my dad, what exactly was indeed a mystery? He replied that the
unfathomable mystery was why he should be dying instead of someone else. The Rabbi asked my
father if he knew the answer to that question, but my father admitted he didn't. Neither did the
Rabbi, we were told. And that was all he had to offer.
I was stunned and amazed by this most impressive display of breath-holding. This Rabbi
must have studied at the same seminary as the old Rabbi. Why Dick? What a mystery. I didn't
want to preach out loud to the Rabbi, so I preached emphatically in my head. I knew the answer
to Why Dick? The answer was Why not? I exclaimed telepathically that death was just like jury
duty. There is this big list somewhere with everyone's name on it, and sooner or later your name
gets called and convenient or not you have to go. It our duty as world citizens, along with taxes.
I'm sure Dick paid his taxes every year without being mystified why him and not someone else.
Of course, I didn't say any of this out loud, so I guess I'm no better than the Rabbi.
Maybe he too was giving long sermons of cosmic explanation silently in his head. Maybe both
these Rabbis knew whom they were dealing with here. Maybe they knew that Dick is so terrified
of dying that encouraging him to look at it in anyway would only cause him much pain and no
gain. I know anytime during bog time hospital visits that I tried to gently steer the conversation
towards considering what lay ahead, or even what was currently going on, Dick would roll his
eyes into his head and cease to be available for further discussion.
My last shift before bog time ended, went by uneventfully. For the second day in
succession, Dick was too tired to do anything. At the end of my shift, my sister Susan came
bounding in like a Coke-head on a Colombian package tour. She was just overflowing with
gushing cheerful energy. She announced her intention to get Dick up and dressed and take him to
the lounge to watch a video. I pointed out that Dick hadn't moved a muscle all day, and the
nurses chimed in that they hadn't been able to budge him. Well, he had promised he'd watch a
video and that was the way it was going to be. I was awestruck at the contrast between my

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hyper-passive time-biding style and Susan's hyper-ambitious, action packed agenda. I didn't stay
to see how her plans panned out but I figured she'd either drive Dick over a cliff or maybe
succeed in rousing him to live for a moment yet.
I found out later that Susan had succeeded in getting Dick dressed and out to video land,
but that he had been quite exhausted by the adventure and had returned quickly to his stuporific
bedridden state. That night, coincidentally or not, Dick slid out of the bogs, even beyond the
beach and dropped off the continental shelf into uncharted dark waters. When I saw him the next
day, he was in all kinds of new pain and hardly seemed human in his contortions and gasping.
Eventually the doctors came and put him on a morphine drip and announced that he had at most a
week to go, maybe less.
When I saw my dad yesterday, he was all morphined up, and no longer in so much pain,
nor anything else either. He opened his eyes a little when I talked to him, but that was about it. I
took his hand in mine and just stood by him for a while. All my issues were dissolved in his abject
helplessness. It's like we had been having a life long tug of war but now he had let go of his end
of the rope. He wasn't laying any trips on me; he wasn't reaching to push any buttons. He was
just a pure personification of the helpless hurting baby he had always hidden not far beneath his
psychic surface. I held his hand and cried. I thanked him for being my dad; I thanked him for
everything. I kept crying. Finally I kissed him on the forehead and told him not to forget that we
all loved him. I wished him good luck and cried my way out of the hospital and all the way to
Lynn's house.
Ah, thank god for Lynn's house. I was glad to cry for me and my dying dad; I was glad to
tell him the simple loving things that had always been too dangerous to say till then.
Unfortunately, once in the car, I realized I didn't feel at all safe going home to my family in such a
state of openness and vulnerability. If not for Lynn, I don't know where I would have gone.
After a few hours with Lynn, my sad mood was washed away. By and by, we went out to
dinner, and eventually lingered and lounged on her couch, drinking wine and drinking up each
other. Finally Lynn announced it was getting late and time for me to go home. But I didn't want
to go home; I wondered if I could spend the night with her? We danced around with that
suggestion for quite a while. Lynn was tempted by reluctant. She admitted a habit of getting
involved with unavailable men, and was hesitant to add me to that list. I played the edge as long
as I politely could, then eventually gave in and reluctantly drove home.

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 To sleep, perchance to dream. Ah, there's the rub. I dreamt I was sailing on a boat that
was the size of a CD player Walkman. My passenger on this tiny boat was a person both invisible
and completely paralyzed. When I got in the water the boat sunk until I was up to my armpits in
cold ocean water. I worried about my invisible passenger but more about myself. I knew I was
supposed to run out of gas, then drift out to sea, then get rescued. That was the script but I didn't
trust it, so I baled out of the movie. I turned to a woman sitting nearby on the shore and asked
why she didn't rescue me. She explained that I hadn't followed the script and thus she couldn't
rescue me. I woke up crying in the cold and the dark.
My overwhelming immediate urge was to go to Lynn. I realized I had suggested we sleep
together only for casual cozy reasons. I hadn't realized till then how badly I needed to be held and
cared for and rescued. Oy, but it was not quite five in the morning, and Lynn had just sent me
home a handful of hours earlier. I hesitated to bother such a new friend so soon and so often and
so late at night. I tried to think of someone else who might rescue me at five AM, but there was
no one else. But then I remembered me.
In 1989, during my first 3-month retreat, one night I awoke finally on the verge of long
overdue tears. But wait, I protested, I can't cry by myself alone in the woods; there's no one here
to hold me. It was then that I discovered that I didn't need anyone else to make it safe for me to
grieve; I could do it myself. I could love me, and soothe me and make it OK to cry. I had
practiced for years caring for various crying girlfriends; now it was time to learn to tender the
same tender care to myself.
Not only did I remember me, I remembered my dying dad, too. Many times this month, I
have been irritated at what a big baby he's been in response to his death sentence. He's just been
curled up in a fetal ball, terrified, helpless, crying to be rescued. Many times, I have lamented that
he had no tools, no training, no inclination, to deal graciously, gracefully, even gratefully with
overwhelming emotions. Thus I had complained about my dying dad, yet there I was myself
whimpering in the cold and dark to be rescued.
Remembering me and my dying dad then, I realized I could let sweet Lynn sleep a while
yet. I remembered that it was possible to care for myself, that I was the only one who could
always be there for me, even someday at the very threshold of death’s door. I relaxed into my
sorrow and neediness, alone in the cold and dark. I held myself in my mind’s caring embrace, in
my heart’s loving caress. It took a while to melt my grief but bit by bit it happened. Slowly the
cold turned toasty and the dark lost its ominous edge. I did it to take care of myself, but I same

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time offered it as an example to my dad, who lay not so far away, in his own dark, cold place
where no one can possibly reach him now but himself.
I eventually let go and fell back to sleep. The next day found my poor old dying dad still
hanging painfully in death's doorway. He's always been a slow student, I guess. But I didn't get
start getting the hang of dancing with the boogie men until recently, and I've got the tools and
training and inclination. I guess I'll have to be patient with my poor old dad. He's just a little
baby, after all.

October 5, 1994
I stayed up late last night writing what you have just read. By the time I awoke this
morning, Dick was dead. It was like a stone that had been falling down a long well shaft for the
last six weeks and now it finally hit the smooth, inky water. I stood looking out the front-door
window for quite a while. The leaves on the maple tree out front were half autumn red, half
summer green. It was too lovely to take my eyes off of for a bit.
Finally, I went upstairs to give my mother a long hug. She started right away to chat, but
I told her to shut up and just hug me. Later, Susan, Matthew and I went to the hospital and
visited my father’s body. He looked very dead. I returned home and had some breakfast. My
mother observed that now Dick is free from his problems. She couldn’t resist suggesting that it
was time for me to be done with my issues too. I told her to shut up again. Life goes on.