On My Father’s Yahrzeit

On My Father’s Yahrzeit

Pamela Joyce Shapiro

My parents were married on July 3rd.  Countless times, growing up, I’d hear that Independence Day marked the end of my father’s freedom.  It was a good natured quip—they were happy.  That changed when he became ill.  At 44, he was too young and my mother too sheltered to deal with the years of treatment, uncertainty, and financial burden cancer would bring.  This was not the life she had chosen and as the years passed with only brief periods of respite, her fear and sadness turned to anger.  While he battled cancer, she battled life.  We tiptoed around her hoping to escape landmines of bitterness. 

Through it all, he was remarkably resilient, reporting for chemo and radiation in the dark of icy winter mornings before heading to work.  My father kept the details of his disease and shifting prognosis secret to shield his children from worry.  He began a new course of treatment the morning after my wedding, having postponed the first infusion to be there.  My parents kept it from me so the news of yet another relapse wouldn’t mar the day. 

A few years later, an extended period of remission allowed him to recover physically and financially.  In July of ’79, he and my mother bonded in joy over the birth of my first son.  For two years they seemed happy again, sharing delight as their grandson grew from infant to toddler.  But the cancer returned, another job ended, and options for treatment were limited.  A family friend in New York provided a job with benefits and my parents moved out of state for the fourth time in 12 years.  My father began outpatient treatment at a county hospital before transferring to a private research institute for an inpatient experimental protocol.  My mother raged—oncologists, nurses, administrators, friends and family—no one could escape the vitriol of her stolen life.

No longer able to work at all, my father filed for disability and returned to Pennsylvania to be near his children and grandchildren. He lived his life with silent understanding, accepting my mother’s escalating discontent and unpredictable frenzies, never judging and always loving.  She smashed glasses and, in a grand symbolic gesture, tore up a cherished pastel portrait of her younger, once contented self.  Eight months pregnant, I distracted her with lunch outings and shopping trips for baby clothes.  The day trips provided welcome relief for them both.

He grew thinner, sicker—wan with half moons dark as bruises beneath his eyes.  We knew he was dying.  I’m not sure he knew.  Always wanting life, he asked for more treatment but the doctors refused.  Weak as he was, he came to the hospital the day my second son was born and cradled the sleeping infant in his arms.  A few weeks later, on July 4th, I was home chatting with company when my mother called saying only, “Come now, your father wants to see the children.” 

We arrived to find her uncharacteristically calm.  They had spent the previous day, their 36th anniversary, making peace.  My father held the baby for a long time, then turned to my older son and said, “Come give Papa a hug.” But this was not the Papa my son knew and he seemed frightened, hesitant. I recalled how, as an inconsolable infant, only my father’s touch could sooth him, and how they played and laughed, lighting each other up.  I prodded my son to go to him.  Understanding as always, my father asked his grandson if he would shake Papa’s hand instead.  And so they sealed their last goodbye.

That evening, while my husband and older son attended nearby fireworks, I put the baby to bed and called my mother.  There was no answer.  I dialed again and again, and then I knew.  Three weeks shy of his 57th birthday, while others celebrated Independence Day with booming rockets lighting the nighttime sky, my father looked up at his bride one last time and passed quietly.  He lived 13 years with the tyranny of a slow and relentless cancer, and now he was free.