I Need To Do Better

I remember trying to help my Dad after Mom died. A man the State of Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction once called the most intelligent man he had ever met, could not seem to be able to find a job. Virtually penniless because he had been a teacher most of his later life and had pulled his retirement money out of that to try and pay for Mom's medicine and those final horrific bills, he was desperate.

He could not teach unless he repaid the retirement money, which he could not. He could not stand long enough to do the simple jobs that are always available. He finally got a job with the FBI doing clerical work. It lasted long enough that the stress made his inherited tendency to diarrhea reappear so violently that he had to quit. There I could help him. I bought him a bottle of acidophilus tablets and within days that problem calmed down. He was amazed, his problem had actually ruined the lives of relatives before him.

He seemed to be feeling a little better, reconnecting with old friends including two fraternity brothers from college, when he got a call. One of them, a prominent editor with a publishing company, the father of two sons, one a surgeon and the other just months away from being a surgeon, had died. The official story was cause unknown. The truth? It turned out that his son, under the stress of his final exams, had an epileptic seizure and now could not be a surgeon. Then he discovered that his wife of many years had once had what might have been a seizure when she was sixteen. The final blow came when his son, already a surgeon, had a seizure. He felt betrayed by his wife and the universe and killed himself.

My Dad sat down after this call and must have dozed off. He awakened at six thirty in the evening thinking it was morning and went to get his newspaper. It was not there so he called the paper, then he called the woman he was engaged to before he met my mother, she was also a former colleague when he worked for Title Three in Education, and talked for six hours. Both the newspaper and Nadine called my brother and said something was wrong. Dad was sixty years old, brilliant and totally worn out.

He had holes in his soul, empty pockets, nothing to look forward to except dying and joining my mother. Here was the sixteen year old who went to college and graduated with a masters before he was twenty one. Here was a man who read classical Greek and German and Latin, unable to communicate with anyone coherently. Here was the beloved teacher who had helped so many students on both ends of the spectrum succeed. Here was a man who had once worked four jobs to make ends meet for his family.

He finally got a job with the Association For Retarded Adults, helping people make a transition into independent living. It lasted a few more years and he seemed to enjoy it some. He was a born teacher, but eventually he just withdrew from the world until he died.

I adored my Dad. I loved him so much. I never thought I would say this, but I need to do better.