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It’s taking me a long time to deal with losing my dad.  In the midst of editing a post about the memorial service we had for dad last month I remembered an email I wrote to  John Ryan, one of dad’s ex-students and a close friend.  John and I always had a good rapport and I consider him a friend, too.  He was with dad at a sociology conference in Boston and came to see me and my band over that visit.

First, John’s email to me:

Dear Ruth,

I am so at a loss for words.  Where would I have ended up without Pete?  I am so sorry for your loss.

Best,

John

I wrote this reply sitting at dad’s computer in his office at home.

John,

It is so nice to hear from you.

More than likely we all would have ended up “in a van, down by the river!” without dad.  I, too, am beyond sad, but feeling incredibly grateful for the few days with him at the hospital in late January to say goodbye.

Frankly, it’s all still a little surreal right now.  Things, literally his things, are sort of frozen in time.  It feels as though he merely got up from his desk to feed Nino and maybe take a nap, but he’ll be back at the keyboard any minute to continue whatever he was working on.  The many things he was working on.  The many things that, I believe, kept him going.  There was always a project in the works and another on the horizon.  His work ethic, his unbelievable intellectual curiosity, and his concerns and worries about his family members’ futures pushed his heart to continue beating.

As you know, he felt a constant thrum of pain somewhere in his body at pretty much every minute of the day for the past, oh, at least 5 years.  He was quite the trouper and didn’t complain much outside the family, but I feel comforted knowing he no longer feels pain.

I love him dearly, am more like him than I sometimes care to admit, and I will miss him forever.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 1:00 am and is filed under day to day, home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.