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Aug. 10th, 2008 10:36 pmI don't usually post much real life goings on here, but I'm making an exception today. Partly because I need catharsis. Partly because some of you know me in RL and probably would want to know this.
My father died yesterday.
He was 87 and he'd had a long, mostly good life. He was born in a tiny village in Latvia, studied marine engineering in Riga and survived World War II after being shanghaied by the German merchant marine. He immigrated to Canada in the '50s, and was the chief engineer on a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker for most of my childhood, which meant I didn't see him a lot, but when I did we had a special relationship. He was quiet, and sometimes stern, but also taught me by example a lot about living life without compromise. He taught me to use a hammer when I was four, and a power drill when I was ten. He and my mom always supported my not always entirely practical life choices. (You want to travel through Europe by yourself when you're not even finished university? Sure. You want to go to grad school in film? Okay.) He could build stuff from scratch that I wouldn't have tried with a full kit and instructions. (When he put new duct work in the house he and my mother shared a few years ago, he made his own rivets.) And for most of the twenty-odd years after he retired, he'd get up at five in the morning and go for a long walk to start his day.
But he hadn't been well for some time. And he hadn't been able to do much at all for most of the last year. Which was hard for me to see, and I'm sure harder for him to live with. And then on Saturday morning, his heart finally gave up and he collapsed in my parents' living room and was gone before the paramedics could arrive.
I'm glad I had the privilege of being his daughter. I'm sad I never got to know him as well as I'd have liked to. And I'm very grateful that whatever powers control these things saw that the Sweetie and I were there this weekend so that my mother didn't have to face this on her own.
Here's one of the last pictures I took of him, with his only granddaughter:
The Sweetie and I have come back home tonight, but we're going back up north first thing tomorrow for the funeral and to help my mom out with all the things that need to be done. I don't expect to be online much at all for the next week, but I'll be back sometime soon. (And with a piece of good news that I'm going to wait for a better time to announce.)
My father died yesterday.
He was 87 and he'd had a long, mostly good life. He was born in a tiny village in Latvia, studied marine engineering in Riga and survived World War II after being shanghaied by the German merchant marine. He immigrated to Canada in the '50s, and was the chief engineer on a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker for most of my childhood, which meant I didn't see him a lot, but when I did we had a special relationship. He was quiet, and sometimes stern, but also taught me by example a lot about living life without compromise. He taught me to use a hammer when I was four, and a power drill when I was ten. He and my mom always supported my not always entirely practical life choices. (You want to travel through Europe by yourself when you're not even finished university? Sure. You want to go to grad school in film? Okay.) He could build stuff from scratch that I wouldn't have tried with a full kit and instructions. (When he put new duct work in the house he and my mother shared a few years ago, he made his own rivets.) And for most of the twenty-odd years after he retired, he'd get up at five in the morning and go for a long walk to start his day.
But he hadn't been well for some time. And he hadn't been able to do much at all for most of the last year. Which was hard for me to see, and I'm sure harder for him to live with. And then on Saturday morning, his heart finally gave up and he collapsed in my parents' living room and was gone before the paramedics could arrive.
I'm glad I had the privilege of being his daughter. I'm sad I never got to know him as well as I'd have liked to. And I'm very grateful that whatever powers control these things saw that the Sweetie and I were there this weekend so that my mother didn't have to face this on her own.
Here's one of the last pictures I took of him, with his only granddaughter:
The Sweetie and I have come back home tonight, but we're going back up north first thing tomorrow for the funeral and to help my mom out with all the things that need to be done. I don't expect to be online much at all for the next week, but I'll be back sometime soon. (And with a piece of good news that I'm going to wait for a better time to announce.)
