Dad

On January 12, my dad was laid to rest after a brief battle with cancer. When I originally sat down to write this, I intended it to be the eulogy to my him that I did not have the chance to give.  The final product is nowhere near as good as I expected and would probably be inappropriate as a eulogy for anyone.  It does not flow, is not very focused, and is even disjointed and rambling at points.  It even ends suddenly.  Somehow though, all of that seems fitting for a sort tribute to my dad.  So, here it is, flaws and all.

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Nick was my dad.  You would think that as his son, it would be easy for me to do this—write glowingly and lovingly about my dad and how great he was.

The truth is it’s not that easy.  It never is.  That’s the problem with words.

Words, especially those written on one or two pages and perhaps spoken over a matter of only a few minutes, cannot ever convey 27 years of a relationship between a father and son.  I hope you, and he will be satisfied with my attempt.

My dad was a dreamer.  For as long as I can remember, he regularly had the next big idea for that one thing that was going to revolutionize the world.  That one idea no one had thought of yet–that one idea that was going to make him rich. 

But he never talked about buying cars and houses and taking exotic trips with his eventual fortune.  He always talked about giving me a chunk of it and letting me invest it on his behalf—as if I knew how to do that.  The rest, he always said, would be used so that he could live comfortably—not extravagantly—just comfortably…and so that my brother and I could have whatever we wanted.
He wanted the best for us.  He just wasn’t always able to provide it.  For him it wasn’t as much about being rich and famous as it was about his family.  For him, it was about no longer having to struggle.

And he was a man who had his struggles.  He had his demons.  Most times, we do tributes like this and we avoid talking about the struggles and the demons because we think it takes away from the tribute.  I think in my dad’s case, those things were so much of what defined him that it’s impossible to remember him without remembering them.

More importantly, in some sort of weird way, I learned more from watching my dad go through those struggles than I ever might have otherwise.

My dad was not the one who taught me how to tie my shoes.  He didn’t teach me how to throw a baseball or how to drive.  He was not even the one who taught me what it means to be a man.  But that does not mean he did not teach me lessons that I will never forget.  By watching him struggle with his own life and by watching how those struggles affected those around him, I learned some of the most valuable lessons any dad could ever teach a son.

I learned that I would never be a person who blamed others for his lot in life.  I would never be one to make excuses for my shortcomings.

I learned some of my first lessons about the importance of choosing friends carefully and how treating the people you love poorly can have long-lasting and sometimes permanent consequences.

I learned that bad choices and bad habits can combine to put us in very deep holes…and that getting out of those holes can sometimes be made more difficult by failing to learn those first two lessons.

I learned the damage that addiction can do physically, emotionally and mentally.

But I learned that none of these things—and nothing else for that matter–is impossible to overcome.

My dad was a drug addict for 30 years of his life.  In one of our last conversations before he died, he told me that he had been clean for 9 years.  Part of me doesn’t believe it, which I think is a feeling that only makes sense if you knew my dad.

Still, a bigger part of me does believe it.  And I choose to listen to that part of me now.

I choose to believe it because that means his life was not lived in vain.  It means he contributed more to my life than a portrait of self-destruction and wasted opportunities.  I share those contributions—those life lessons—with you now.

Face your demons.  Refuse to give in to them and your other struggles.  Start today.  It doesn’t matter how debilitating they have been in the past.  It doesn’t matter how much they hold you back currently.  Begin the fight before there is no time to enjoy the victory.

Make peace with your mistakes.  Realize that they do not dictate who you are, or who you will become, but they can do both—in a positive way—if you let them.

Do not wait for a better time to say what you feel to the people you love.  None of us knows if we will be the next to wish we had more time, that we could have one more moment.  That time, that moment, is now.

Rest in peace, Dad.
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Thank you to my amazing wife, who celebrated her birthday with me on airplanes as we went to bury my dad.  And thank you to three very special people whose show of support during the last few weeks has made me realize how lucky I am to be a part of their lives…This process was made easier because of all of them and I will always be grateful.