I suppose it’s only natural that we try to summarize a person after they are gone.
I could make a list of things about my father:
He loved to travel
He loved his family
He loved his work
He loved good food
He loved parties
He loved to be a host
He loved classical music
He loved harmonious space and light
He loved a good political discussion
He loved to read
So many of the things he loved slipped away from him in the last five years. If time strips us down to our essence, and sometimes I believe it does, then he was radiant love. At the end, unless he was too tired, which was more and more of the time, he beamed at those he cared about, his entire face lighting up with pleasure. He became a very sensitive receptive soul.
When I was a child, I believed that my parents’ generation must have been different from me, somehow more courageous and less sensitive, to have survived the chaos, fear, and hunger of the thirties and forties. It would have been too heartbreaking to imagine them as capable of pain as I was. I couldn’t admit to myself how terrified they must have been until I saw that sensitive human being emerge as age stripped away all the defenses. When my father told stories from those times, he hid behind an ironic, slightly humorous story telling style that had me fooled until almost the end.
When my father first moved to Minnesota, it became quickly obvious that he wasn’t able to make new friends, that he would be completely reliant on Ron and me for his emotional life. It felt like a huge weight. It was a big responsibility, and I won’t pretend there weren’t days and weeks when I wanted to run away from it. At the same time, I am glad for the time we had with him in our care.
Here are some of the gifts I received during these last years:
My father had very definite musical tastes - he’d made these so clear over the years, that I didn’t feel comfortable imposing my own more wide-ranging ones on him, even when he no longer had the energy to protest. Add to that the fact that one sure way to bring him pleasure was to take him to a piano concert. My father’s presence renewed and broadened my appreciation for classical music and that has enriched my life.
As my father lost the will and energy to talk, he taught me the importance of being present, nonverbally. Our family was extremely verbal - we talked for the sheer pleasure of turning an elegant phrase or showing off complex vocabulary. The only way to get some quiet was to hide behind a book; that was a sacred act and anyone reading could only be disturbed if truly necessary. As it became harder for my father to talk I struggled to keep the conversation going, at first. I strained to fill the airspace and fished for topics that could provoke a response. The first time I decided to just be quiet was on a car ride. I had picked my father up at dusk to take him to my house for dinner. I said nothing. After about five minutes, my father said: “Look at the moon. It’s beautiful.” I’m grateful that my father reminded me to look at he moon.
My father loved sitting in the sun. It was one of his last remaining reliable pleasures. Over the last few years, I’ve spent hours sitting in the sun, listening to the birds, watching the leaves sway in the breeze. I’m grateful for that.
The best present I received came one day while he was recovering from a broken leg and had to stay at a nursing home. It was September, the sun was still warm, and every afternoon, I wheeled him out into the flower garden where we sat for about an hour. One day, he said, looking away into the flowers: “I know that moving you from Germany to South Carolina was hard on you.” It sounds so simple. But it healed me.
Siegfried Poser January 23, 1925 - February 19, 2014
