My father passed away on June 6th in 2006.  Every June I especially miss him between the anniversary of his passing and Father’s Day.  My Dad was a unique man, a scrappy survivor who had trouble enjoying the fruits of his labor.  There are many things I now wish I could ask my father and I often think of how he would advise me.  My relationship with him is still very active and as I get older, I actually learn more from him, appreciating things about him as I gain more perspective.

My local Rabbi recently reminded me of the saying in Judaism that follows the mentioning of a deceased person.  In Hebrew it is, “Zikhronah livrakha,” meaning, “May his/her memory be for a blessing.”  (You may see the phrase on tombstones in cemeteries).  I have always really liked this ritual, and now that I have several loved ones who have passed, I especially like it.  For me, “May their memory be for a blessing” is an active invitation that is bi-directional.  When we remember someone, it certainly is a way of honoring them.  Each time we think of them, we are blessing the deceased by bringing their life and their love into our presence.  At the same time, I also think “may their memory be a blessing” means we are blessed with their memory.  When I remember my father, I feel blessed with a closeness to him, even if it is painful.  I also remember things he said or would say, knowing who he was and what was important to him.  It helps me remember that I was blessed to have known him.

Every once in awhile I have an intense dream with my sister or my father, or even one of my grandparents, in it.  When I wake, I really do feel blessed that I was in their presence.  I can see their face, hear their voice, and feel the connection.  It saddens me as the closeness fades as I awaken, trying to hold on to the vividness in vain.  But I always feel lucky that they had come to visit me, and that we had some time together.

Rituals are an important part of the lifelong journey of grieving for someone who was important to us who has died.  Whether it is making “Nanny’s cole slaw,” listening to the song that my sister liked at Christmas (thanks to my girls for helping me find it in spotify), or lighting a memorial candle on my Dad’s birthday, the actions are a concrete way of remembering, which is truly a blessing.

Below is a piece I wrote about my Father several years ago.  I had just been laid off when the clinic I was working  for lost funding.  I was longing to ask my Father for advice, as he was someone who knew how to rise up when knocked down.  I include it as a blessing to my Dad.

The Secret Lives of Our Father’s

My favorite piece of what is left of the life of my Father is an item I never knew he even had.  I discovered it in a tiny white box hidden in the back of his armoire, tucked behind several classic pieces of art we made him as children.  It would have been easy to miss it when I was sorting through his belongings after his death, as my Father was a large man, not prone to owning things that were literally so small.  

But inside the box, sitting on top of crumbling old foam, was a small medallion, the kind you pin on your chest, with crossed swords prominently embossed in the metal.  There was also a tightly folded yellowed newspaper article, carefully placed underneath.  “Lefty Lenny Leads Team to City Cup Championship,” the title read.  My Father’s name was Leonard, and I’d known he had fenced, but this article describing his championship was indeed news to me.  It told the story of how my Father not only fenced to win in the tournament, as a Sophomore, but also ran the entire team.  His poorly funded public high school in Brooklyn could not afford a coach, and so rather than give up on the sport, Lefty Lenny led the team, as its captain and its coach, to the New York City Cup victory.

I’d always known my Father was from very humble beginnings, living in a tenement apartment in Brooklyn, the son of a garment salesman, as was the trade of many of the Jewish immigrants at the time.  I was quite familiar with his stories of playing stickball on the stoops of the brownstones because they had no fields to play in, and passing the time with chemistry experiments made up of kitchen ingredients because they couldn’t afford a chemistry set.  I’d heard my Grandmother talk about her sweet sons and all the ways they respectfully made due.  But to me, my Dad had always been a financially successful man who was actually rather argumentative and rough.  He seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder, vigilant to getting what he could.  He showed his love by making sure we had everything he felt we were owed from the world, even if we didn’t want it.

I recall even now with a cringe my Dad negotiating the price of my first car.  “I’m going to wear them down,” he told me, and instructed me explicitly not to say one single word, even threatening me if I showed any hint of actually liking the car.  But wear them down he did.  We sat in the used car office for more than five hours, some of the longest of my young life.  There were loud echoes of his fist slamming on the desk, grunts as he tried to raise his large body up out of the chair in a feigned attempt to march out of the negotiation, and many heated exchanges with the string of chain smoking car sales managers who moved in and out of the office throughout the day.  But my Father had the ultimate upper hand, as the man could not be embarrassed, nor would he ever give up.  Indeed I drove away that evening with a car, an extra tire, and a year’s warranty.  They even bought us lunch.  But the thing I learned that day about my Father was how much it meant to him.  While I was writhing in teenage humiliation and exhausted from the effort, my Father was in his element having won a victory not only for me, but for the underdog and the downtrodden consumers of the world, who, on this one day, would not be cheated out of one extra dime.

My Father was always picking a fight with the world.  Each day and every encounter represented an opportunity to battle injustice.  I once remember on vacation, my Father spending an entire afternoon in his room making repeated phone calls to house cleaning and management because we hadn’t been given the proper amount of towels.  The rest of us were frustrated and at his use of our vacation time for something that seemed so insignificant.  But when the stack of towels finally arrived, he glowed with the pride of a man who had saved us from impending doom.  No matter where we were or what we did, my Father could find the one thing that was lacking.  A complete reversal of gratitude, he glossed over all that was good and zeroed in on acquiring the one thing that could be better.

His motivation had so little to do with materialism and nothing to do with selfishness, however.  In fact, my Father was the most unselfish man I knew.  He drove a beat up old car and wore clothes with holes, while my mother drove a top of the line model and had a closet full of dresses and shoes.  It was part of my Father’s paradoxical nature.  He took such poor care of himself, while forcing the rest of us to settle for nothing less than the best.  Only when I became a mother could I begin to put this characteristic in perspective.  Like so many parents, we treat our children in reaction to the way we were raised.  For my Father, it was providing us with all the things he never had.  It gave him such pride to pay for my Ivy League education.  He himself had gone to a small, then unknown, college, yet smooth talked his way into a place at MIT for his doctorate.  Professors took note of his determination and his fortitude in filling in the gaps of his education.  They provided him with a scholarship if he could prove that he could keep up with the many students of privilege.  He was extremely intelligent and throughout his years used his smarts and determination to catapult himself into places and opportunities that he would never otherwise been offered.  He sold himself, promising things he knew nothing of, but would teach himself how to do.  Even winning the hand of my mother, an upper income girl with a finishing school mentality, was a success that my father prided in.  He literally miraculously survived being shot in a robbery.  After losing his own business while recuperating, he reinvented himself and talked his way into being a well paid expert consultant for an industry he had little knowledge of when he was hired.

The rough and slightly paranoid man I had grown up with was just an extension of the young man who had to be scrappy and make his way in the world by being aggressive and reaching for what was beyond his grasp.  He had to believe he was entitled to what the world had not given him.  And for me, having been provided with the essentials of what I needed growing up, it was hard to understand his constant battle for more.  But now, years after his death, during the economic recession and with a family of my own, I have a newfound appreciation for my Father and a longing to have been more connected with this aspect of him.  My husband and I are going through hard times and I feel a vulnerability I have never known before.  We are in financial crisis and I feel scared that we can lose our home and the world does in fact often feel like a dangerous place:  bills, taxes, loss of income from my non-profit employer losing funding and my husband’s manufacturing business floundering.  I now have a connection to the man who felt the need to fight, but I lack the confidence and the experience in asserting myself the way my Father could.  I feel such empathy for my Dad and a respect for his ability to rise above his situation and make things happen by sheer will and hard work.  I think about his determination, and wish I had taken note of his skills and self reliance, his courage, and his self made success despite the odds.

He died in early June seven years ago, now.  This past Father’s Day I felt a particular emptiness when I passed by the store displays of fishing gear or  the tools I used to buy him as gifts.  I wish I could ask him what he thinks I should do.  I would love to find out how he would address our situation.  I know he would not be lying awake at night worrying, but then doing nothing but hoping things would get better.  I know he would have a plan and a list of people to contact.  He would pound the pavement or pound his fists, whatever it took to make sure he was given a chance, and then he would make it work out.  I try to channel that energy and feel the part of me that is indeed a part of him.  I miss him in a way I have not missed him before.  I can only imagine what Lefty Lenny would do.  What sword might he draw?