From My Brother AL

Picture a little boy running halfway around a block to avoid getting on a bus headed for day camp. Why? Because it was only a small van and not a full-sized yellow school bus, of course. Now picture a middle-aged father running after him. Picture this same father filling in as a coach and as an umpire for the young boy’s Little League game. When called out at first base by his father the umpire, this boy gets angry and decides he doesn’t want to play any more and just walks home. Perhaps youthful indiscretion and foolishness? OK, except without him, the team has to forfeit due to lack of a sufficient number of ballplayers. So now the father the coach finds he again has to run after him, and brings him back to the game. This same kid decides he wants to follow his brother climbing a tree. Except he forgets to follow him down and gets stuck and his dad has to talk him down. And finally, for some reason better left not understood, his bigger brother convinces him it is OK to pee in the draw of a desk in their room. This too comes to the father’s attention. Obviously this little bundle of joy was me and that father was my dad. What was my punishment for these youthful indiscretions? As punishment for these youthful indiscretions my father took me to Met games in field level box seats and let me stuff my face with all kinds of stuff from, hot dogs with Gulden’s mustard to ice cream to cracker jacks to Coke’s to pizza which tasted like cardboard for nine innings and sometimes 18 if it was a doubleheader. He took me to the batting cage during the week, came to my little league games, some of my high school games time permitting, a playoff soccer game in college….I think you get the point.

My father was an honorable man and a man of integrity. He tried to teach me personal responsibility. When I was about 10 years old, we were coming home from temple, and he found a parking ticket on his wind shield. As he left the spot, he saw the officer who had issued the ticket. He pulled up to him, and instead of giving him a hard time or attempting to talk him out of the ticket, he said he understood why he got the ticket and that he was in the wrong. In effect, he told me that the man was just doing his job and that he, my Dad, should take responsibility for this deserved ticket. This lesson in personal responsibility still resonates with me to this day.

My father was truly a nice guy who wanted to do right by everybody. A terrific storyteller, he could cheer anybody up and often did so. He was a natural born salesman who made friends easily. In fact, he was elected the president of his international trade association, EASA, in 1985.

It has touched me deeply that the two aides who have worked to help him these past few years have enjoyed working with him and are genuinely saddened by his passing. I suspect this is not always the case with a client. And I would like to thank them Georgina and Maudry for their caring. Along with my mother and my sister, they kept him going on what I believe was borrowed time.

Nobody’s perfect, and there are always things, whether real or imagined, a son can look back on and disagree with in the way his father handled a situation. But there is one thing I know about my dad, he always loved me and he always had my best interests at heart. No matter what I did I always felt secure in that knowledge (he would always love me. )

There are so many things I feel about my father and so many things about him I would like to tell. There just isn’t the time right now.

Towards the end, when he knew death could come at any time, I never saw a trace of self pity. Of course there was some trepidation, and perhaps some anger and frustration at his failing body, but no self pity. He truly loved life, but knew it must end at some point. He was concerned that I and others not feel sad for him. Well, this is one wish of his I cannot comply with. The world seems a far lonelier place without my dad in it.

My father always ended his conversations by saying “Stay well”, whether at work, on the phone or in person. Towards the end and in failing health, when he would say this to me, I’d say right back, “YOU stay well” and he’d say he would try. Unfortunately last Saturday he could no longer do that (keep that promise). And so I say to my father, I love you, I will miss you, /I’m glad you were my dad, you are not alone, you will always be in my thoughts and with me as long as I live. Dad, stay well. YOU stay well.