On Being Lazy

My dad never picked favorites - whenever he was asked to do so he would flat-out refuse.  He always said that designating a favorite would just make one seem better than another and that there was no point in that. -  After years of hearing him say that, I knew better than to ever ask him to pick a favorite of one over another, but once during one of our middle of the night talks while he was sick, I asked him what he thought the worst quality in a person is. His reply: being lazy. I had to laugh, because that made me think about when remote controls first came out on the market for TV's and he thought they were ridiculous. "It's lazy enough just sitting there watching TV," he'd said, "but I can't imagine why someone couldn't get up off the couch every once in awhile to change the channel or adjust the volume!!"  When he said being lazy was the worst trait a person could possess, though, just out of curiosity I asked him if he thought it was worse to be lazy than to be a liar or a thief. He thought for a minute and then, with a half-smile of his face and in a tone that left me wondering about whether or not he was kidding, he said, "Well, at least when a person does those things, he's putting some effort into it." 

He also commented a lot over the years about how crazy (and by that I think he meant lazy) he thought it was when someone would drive around a parking lot in search of the perfect parking spot rather than just parking in the first available place they encountered and walking.  It just wasn't something that he could make sense of, I guess, and he often pointed out that the people who do it at the gym are the worst! 

I think Dad's distaste for laziness - which he thought of as a lack of activity or a lack of effort - made it harder for him to tolerate his physical condition and the challenges that came along with it when he was sick.  I'm sure he didn't like having to be helped or having to wait for help doing things, and it didn't surprise anyone who knew him that he wanted a plan in place so he could "do something" every day to work towards getting better.  When his health declined instead of improving as we'd been told it would with the treatment, though, I started to notice that he didn't comment nearly as much about wanting to have goals for himself or about needing help to do basic things. It was as if he had somehow resigned himself to his condition. I thought at the time that maybe he was just biding his time until he could be independent again.  Now I wonder if he somehow saw letting us help him as trying to help us. 

Feels So Good

Following is a guest post written by my sister, Jennifer:

While Dad was sick, we tried everything we could think of to make him smile, to help him relax, and just to take his mind off his worries.  During one of our middle of the night conversations (that I wouldn't trade for anything), we started talking to Dad about music, a subject about which none of his kids is particularly knowledgeable, but one that Dad had always been passionate about.  Dad played the trumpet very well as a young man and always loved listening to big band music, as well as Barbra Streisand and more recently Josh Groban.  That night, I asked Dad what his favorite song was and he said he didn't really have one -- he wasn't really that engaged in the conversation.  But I clearly remembered his having a favorite song when we were growing up and I wanted him to remember it, too, and so I started trying to hum the tune (it didn't have any lyrics, just instrumental, with a beautiful trumpet solo).  I have zero musical ability, however, and no one had any idea what song I was describing. 

A few days later, after I found the name of the song ("Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione), my husband Peter bought it on iTunes and emailed it to me so I could have it on my phone in Nashville.  I played it for Dad, and he smiled just briefly and said that he remembered it, but he really didn't have the strong recollection of how much he loved it that I had expected.  I kept insisting, "Dad, it's your FAVORITE!" and he just kept agreeing with me, I think not wanting to make me feel like I had gotten it wrong.  No one else remembered it as being one of Dad's favorites or particularly special to Dad at all.

Fast forward a few short weeks later, and Dad was home on hospice care.  On the night he died, my mom, sisters, and I were with him, sometimes all at once, sometimes in pairs, and at times one at a time.  During one of the moments when I was alone with Dad, I crawled into his bed with him, cramming myself between his body and the guard rail of the hospital bed, and I started humming the song into his ear.  Dad wasn't able to respond, but I felt sure he could hear it and that it might ease his mind in some way, still insisting to myself that Dad loved the song.  Then I remembered that Peter had emailed it to me, and I got my phone and played it quietly, holding the phone right next to his ear.  I'll never know if it made Dad feel any better, but it made me feel more connected to him (whether he remembered the song as having been a favorite of his or not!), even when he couldn't reply.

A few months later, on a random spring day in L.A., I reluctantly went on a Home Depot errand with Peter.  Peter loves Home Depot, and I really can't stand Home Depot, so as Peter was walking up and down the aisles looking for certain items he needed, I trudged along behind, working on my own to-do list in my head and not really paying attention.  The store was crowded, and the only sounds I could hear were parts of the background noise of busy shoppers and the occasional store announcement.  All of the sudden, as I came to a display of a truck bed with a fancy waterproof stereo system that was for sale, a song started playing, loud and clear.  At the exact second that I reached this display, Dad's "favorite" song started playing: Feels So Good.  From an aisle or two away, Peter heard the song, too, and knew of its significance to me, and he rushed over to find me with tears pouring down my face but with a big smile.

Dad always worried about us kids, and he always wanted to know that we were settled -- especially in our jobs and our homes.  Since we'd moved to the L.A. area about two years before, Peter and I had been renters, and that bothered Dad.  He wanted stability for us and for our children, and he knew I was anxious to buy a house that I could make into a home.  Even during his illness, Dad continued to ask me about whether there were any houses for sale that I liked and whether we planned to make an offer on any of them (then rolling his eyes and telling me they were all too expensive, in his practical, conservative way.)  It wasn't until March of 2011, two months after Dad's death, that we found the right house, and that was the reason we were at Home Depot that day -- to buy things for our new house.  It felt like Dad knew, and he was happy, and he wanted me to know that.

Halloween Memories

Except for naming “5” as his lucky number and identifying his favorite meal as spaghetti and apple pie, Dad didn’t play favorites, and so he would never admit which holiday he liked the best – but I know it was Halloween. 

I remember …

*In one of the funniest Halloween party ensembles ever, my parents once went dressed as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell … Mom was Peter Pan and Dad was Tinkerbell, complete with a green leotard, tights, and wings.

*On the Halloween when I was about ten years old, I went trick-or-treating with a friend who lived down the street.  At the end of the night, I got on my bike and started riding home with my Cocker Spaniel running along beside me.  On my way home, some bullies who were out that night threw shaving cream at my dog and me.  When we made it home and Dad saw us covered in shaving cream, he went ballistic.  My typically easy-going Dad turned into the Incredible Hulk; he flew out the door and came back a few minutes later holding two boys very nervous teenage boys by their shirt collars.  They sheepishly told me they were sorry, after which Dad said, “You still have one more to go” and then marched them around to the garage so they could apologize to my dog. 

*When I was in middle school, a friend of mine and I hosted a Halloween party.  My dad rented a gorilla costume and hid in the bushes in the front yard so that he could jump out and scare people as they left the party.  Several kids were so scared they took off running down the street … but there was no outrunning this gorilla, who chased them down so that he could tell them that he wasn’t really trying to scare them.

*When my middle sister was in middle school, he took her and a group of her friends to see Friday the 13^th.  Later, when the girls were upstairs in my sister’s room about to go to sleep, I heard Dad in the garage and went to see what he was doing.  With a zombie mask on, he got out the ladder, hauled it around to the back of the house, climbed up so that he was right outside the bedroom window, and started making scary noises.  He almost fell off the ladder laughing when the girls screamed and ran out of the room!

*My parents had just moved to Charleston, Missouri, when Dad turned 50, and we decided to throw a surprise party for him with a Halloween theme.  Mom and some friends took him out to dinner while we set up for the party, and the guests hid in the bushes so that we could all jump out and yell “Surprise!” when they got home from dinner.  Since the party was a surprise, Dad didn’t have a costume, but luckily someone gave him a Big 5-0 T-shirt, which he promptly put on and then modeled for everyone.  

                               HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Spaghetti

Just for kicks, I looked up the word “spaghetti” in the dictionary today.  It’s defined by Webster’s as “pasta made in long, slender, solid strings; an Italian dish consisting largely of this, typically with a sauce.”  Simple enough, but, to me, spaghetti has a much richer meaning.

As I’ve mentioned, my dad didn’t play favorites.  Like a lot of the things he didn’t participate in, he just didn’t see the point of it.  One night when he was in the hospital, I asked him who his favorite nurse on the floor was.  I was just making conversation, trying to keep his mind off all the things that were not going our way.  He replied, in total seriousness, “I don’t have favorites!  It would just make someone feel bad if I did.”  Point taken. 

But there were a few things that were his favorites among others: 

Favorite sport:  running
Favorite number:  5
Favorite color:  blue
Favorite college football team:  Auburn
Favorite meal:  spaghetti and apple pie
 

Running and #5 - what a great day!

Dad loved spaghetti.  He didn’t care if it had thick noodles or thin and usually didn’t even notice if it had meat in the sauce or not.  He didn’t like cheese on it (he always said cheese makes people fat.), and of course he didn’t want any kind of fancy garnishes.  He’d eat a basic salad (with fat-free dressing), if one was offered, but he didn’t mind if it wasn’t.  He really just wanted the spaghetti.  A few times I made spaghetti sauce from scratch for him – but he didn’t notice the difference.  Every so often we’d serve meatballs with the spaghetti – and he’d eat one or two to be polite, but what he really savored was the noodles with the sauce.  He didn’t care if it was served hot or cold.  He didn’t like fancy sauces – no alfredo for him!  Just the jarred sauce over regular spaghetti noodles and he was completely thrilled with the meal.

Every year, on Father’s Day and on his birthday on Oct. 26, Dad wanted to eat spaghetti.  In fact, we had it about once a week when I was growing up, but we never got tired of it.  On special occasions, we would also have apple pie, his favorite dessert.  He would always say he just wanted a little piece of pie and then, an hour or so after he’d eaten the small sliver, he would come back for more, usually with just his fork.  We could tell he’d been back for more by the shark-bite edges of the pie left by his using his fork to dig into it when no one was looking.  Like the spaghetti, he didn’t care about any variations on the pie and didn’t even notice when it was homemade.  Hot or cold, store-bought or not, he loved it. 

Maybe Dad loved it because he grew up in a family that was on a very limited budget.  Maybe it was just something that tasted good to him.  Maybe it was related to the fact that spaghetti is easy to cook (especially the way he liked it) and he usually didn’t like people to go to any trouble for his sake.  Maybe it was just his perspective of what was good and of what he felt lucky to have.  In any case, my family (near and far) is going to have spaghetti – and, if possible, salad and apple pie – for supper on Oct. 26 every year in Dad’s honor.  You’re invited to join in, too … Dad would have loved it!