Yesterday I ran into some old friends on the street.
Actually, they were more friends of my folks; they had a son who went to school with Rachel. Very nice people. After my mom died, they brought over, on a couple of occasions, complete meals that they had made for us. That's thoughtful.
Anyway, they asked about Dad and how he was doing, and I had to give them the bad news about his stroke. They were saddened, of course, and repeated over and over how nice he is and what a loving father he had been to all of us.
This last surprised me a bit. Not because I think he wasn't -- quite the contrary! -- but because I didn't think anyone outside the family would have noticed. Heck, most of the putzes in seemed to have not noticed.
The more I run into acquaintances and friends of Dad's, the more I hear about what a wonderful guy he was.
As a kid, he and I had our issues, naturally, as any parent-child will, but for the most part I thought he was pretty neat. Sure, he wasn't spectacular, like a rock star or astronaut or something, but he was pretty cool.
It's just that I never thought much about his interaction with others of his age. You see, I never really saw him as anything other than a father.
He was, of course, a C.P.A., but that was his job. And yes, he had friends, but who didn't. Mostly, he was always just Dad.
He made sure we had good food to eat and a place to sleep, took us to music lessons and parties, generally helped us grow up. He would talk to people after church, or take a client to lunch, or go to the occasional party, but they were isolated, unconnected events in my eyes, rather than what one would refer to as a social life.
Something I realized after my mom died was that they didn't so much have clients as they had a lot of friends whose taxes they did. Even the Salvation Army audits that my Dad always did were as much getting together with friends in the SA as they were work.
That should have clued me in that Dad did have a social life, and like any great person, had a real, noticeable effect on the lives he came in contact with.
I'm not saying that he went around solving everyone's problems or saving the world or anything. It's just that some people are more noticeable than others. Dad appears to be one of those people.
There are many examples -- the man who bought my folks' house when they were about to lose it after Dad's heart attack, the loan broker who helped me with the creative financing that allowed me to buy it back, the accountant who worked with Dad for many, many years -- of people who don't just "oh yeah, I remember him" but "Herman was a wonderful person".
I knew that myself, but in a different way, as a child sees a loving parent.
I always thought my siblings were reasonably intelligent; it puzzles me as to why they don't understand this as well.
This couple that I ran into also asked about all the kids. They weren't too surprised to hear that we weren't speaking, but thought that eventually we would get back together. I don't see that happening, but I didn't say anything.
I told them about Rita and how she's teaching riding, and that she went back east to school to learn about horses, and the wife said that Mom must have been behind that 100% (which she was) because she always wanted what we wanted.
That was true enough, although at the time it didn't always seem like it. I know that both Dad and Mom were (almost) always fully supportive of my work with computers, and even downright proud.
Both of them worked their tails off so that Paul could go to Berkeley. I remember going to visit him at his dorm room just across the bay, and Mom not even saying anything about the Playboy lying there in plain sight.
They asked about Barbara as well, who I mentioned is living next door to Paul. They asked if she was married, and they seemed a little surprised when I said no.
They asked about Stanley, and seemed like they expected to hear that he was living with an 80 year old rich woman or something, but all I could tell them was that he was living and working in the South Bay.
I didn't mention that Stanley had gotten together with Craig the day after Thanksgiving to go to the Auto Show, but hadn't bothered to visit Dad.
In any case, it was a nice talk, and I was glad to have run into them. They sent their best wishes to Dad, which I relayed to him that evening.
I got back from Longs rather late last night, and was a little too tired to hang out much with Dad. Rachel picked me up at the BART station and we zipped over to the Jewish home to bring him the newspaper, the Smithsonian magazine, and Forbes.
When we got there, he was getting ready for bed, but we stayed a few minutes anyway. While we were there, he asked what Paul and Stanley were up to; I didn't know, but I told him I would send them an e-mail to find out.
After the last stroke, Dad lost the use of his right arm and leg. When he sits in the wheelchair, he keeps his right foot on the footrest. Sometimes it slips off and we have to stop and lift it back on. Occassionally, he's able to help life the leg a bit to help me get it on the rest.
Last night, however, both his foot rests were folded up out of the way, and he has his feet on the ground when the nurse pushed him out of the bathroom (he had been brushing his teeth.) The nurse left him so we could visit, but Dad apparently wanted to keep going, so he started walking the wheelchair towards his bed -- with both feet!
I saw that and told him that was fantastic, and Rachel told him that that was a great birthday present. Mind you, I don't think he was actually pushing the chair much with his right foot, but it was still a step in the right direction. (Pardon the pun.)
Later, when we were leaving, I told Dad to keep up the fancy footwork, that I really enjoyed it. He responded by doing a little dance -- again with both feet! -- ending with crossing his left leg over his right in a sort of foot-bow.
Rachel and I both cracked up, and Dad had a huge grin plastered all over his face as well. That was definitely my Dad again, and that was the best birthday present of all.