My Father, Myself - Part the First

I miss my dad — it's been 25 years, almost to the day, that he died semi-unexpectedly.  I guess, more appropriately, he died suddenly — it's just that we'd been waiting for almost 20 years for the inevitable.

He died of his third heart attack. One he couldn't have survived, based on the previous two and the scars they left years earlier.  My last phone conversation with him had been along the lines of "is mom there?"  It never occurred to me that shortly after that call, he wouldn't be.

We didn't always agree on everything, what parent-child combination does?  But, he was my champion and no matter what, would have fought dragons to defend me (even knowing at times that I had provoked them.) But I believe, after the struggles he'd been through in his own life, he was determined to protect me.  As he had his family and his country long before I came along.

Dad was the youngest of seven children born to parents who had immigrated to the United States to flee the turmoil in their native Hungary.  He grew up during the Great Depression.  He served in the Army Corp of Engineers on the front lines in Europe during World War II. Helping to build bridges and roads for Patton's troops, only to watch them be demolished after the last truck and soldier had crossed.

My father didn't talk much about his early life, as though it was something to forget, and he certainly didn't talk about the war, unless it was with someone else who had shared that experience.  In fact, he was so determined to leave the past behind that he changed his birth name to something more "American". And he never understood my desire to go to Europe when I lived in the greatest country on earth (cue Kate Smith singing God Bless America)

One of the greatest gifts I have been given (just too young and stupid to know it at the time) was a visit my dad and I had with a vice president of the university I attended.  This man had also served in Europe during WWII and I sat and listened as he and my father talked about their common experiences in Luxembourg, France and Germany.  And all I could think was "jeez dad, why are you talking about drinking and cavorting along the Seine with a university V.P.?"  I was too embarrassed to realize that what I was getting was a glimpse of my father, that rarely saw the light of day and few knew existed.

I still, on occasion, encounter that long-retired V.P. and every time I do, I thank him for the gift he gave me that summer day in 1979.  I leave out the part where it took me 10 years to receive it — a year too late to tell my dad how much it meant to me.

So dad (I know you're still there, watching for dragons, lance at the ready): thank you.  And tell Aunt Helen I said hello.