FATHER'S DAY

11/20/2002

My father died today at 2PM almost two years after entering a nursing home in Chicago. He was 96 and a half years old. He outlived his wife, my mother Jeanette by 8 years and a month. He surprised himself-he surprised us all. My father had determination; we called him stubborn. He believed in what he believed in; if he had any doubts, he never shared them. He was a good man, a dutiful man, a man with strong feelings who rarely showed them. He was afraid of feelings, he was afraid of love and still, he loved. He had a very astute mind. He was a short barrel-chested 5 foot 2 inch tall fellow who liked to say, “Where I come from a man is measured from the neck up.”

My father was the son of a Russian peasant farmer; he was born and raised 50 miles from Kiev. He came over on a ship when he was 8 yrs old. Thirty years later he had graduated from the University of Chicago and become an attorney. He worked hard, made a modest income and supported a wife and five children with a comfortable middle class upbringing. He was honest and he was naïve. He wore his shoes until there were holes in the soles but drove nice cars.

He came a long way in his long lifetime, a long way from a Russian farm, a long way from a childhood where his mother would hide him under the bed when Cossacks would ride through and raid their villages, looking to kill young Jewish boys.

On the boat over he would go for food twice, turning his cap backwards and scrunching his face into a disguise his second time through the mess line in order to get a second meager helping.

My father never danced a lick in his lifetime. I began laughing just by picturing him dancing. It is an absolutely inconceivable image to imagine. He didn’t understand or like music, had absolutely no conception of rhythm-listened only to talk radio if he listened at all. As irony would have it, my mother’s most favorite thing to do was, dance; that, and to sit in the dark nursing a martini, listening to music and lamenting by the glow of her cigarette. My father was an absolute teetotaler and the most responsible person in the world. My mother was an alcoholic who avoided and delegated responsibilities and resented those responsibilities she did fulfill. Dad never complained; mom never stopped complaining. Evidently God did everything possible short of breaking a two by four over their heads to awaken them to their shadows but, both remained gratefully unaware of the cosmic irony; they were both equally strong willed.  In this way they were more alike than different. My father had no need of religion; believed it was a crutch for the weak and/or ignorant. My mother liked the pomp and party possibilities religious occasions could present; she loved any excuse to dress up.

Meanwhile, my father did what good men do, he worked and worked some more and paid the bills and enforced the discipline when we got too big for mom to. He never “hit” us; he didn’t believe in violence as a solution or teaching tool. He relied on reason and reasonable punishments, which resulted in sentences of being grounded. The worst sentence he ever imposed on me was for thirty days. On the twenty ninth day I went to him and begged for one days reduction so that I could attend a very important high school party with my girl friend who I missed dreadfully. He said, “No.” It took me a while to get over that one for me; about thirty years or so.

My father played poker with the boys 2 to 3 times a week and often stayed late at “the office”.  He had one affair. He got caught. I don’t know that my father ever knew that he loved my mother but I do know that he needed her. He begged to stay and she let him because she needed him too and years later when she died he cried repeatedly in his grief, “I never knew how much I needed your mother.”

I remember his sandpaper beard.

How the skin was loose around his mouth and cheeks allowing a young son to climb onto his lap and stretch his mouth into funny crooked smiles. Of course there not many times we played like that, there are never enough times that we get to play with our fathers. I would have liked him to smile more. Later, I believed he wished the same for me.

My father wore Old Spice after-shave of course. When they came out with a musk scent, as a man I switched to that. Evidently, it wasn’t popular enough and was discontinued so now I start each day with the scent of my father upon my own face.

My father outlived a lot of people; he outlived his friends, his work, and his sense of usefulness. He was a generous man with his money. He continued to give as long as he could because that is what a good man does.

In the end, when his spirit chose give up the ghost I tried to explain to my youngest son, Benjamin who is named after my father’s father, where it is that grandpa’s spirit went. Evidently that wasn’t necessary because he immediately offered without hesitation,  “I know dad-grandpa has become an angel.”

Stretch your angel wings father and grandfather,

And fly unfettered with all those other brave and tired angels

Who so deservedly have earned their wings of light.

Know that I love, honor and thank you.

Know that part of the gold I carry

Came, of course, from you,

Abraham Rabichow

Abraham Rubichek

Abraham Rabishov

Dad‘s Eulogy

I never did sing for my father,

While he could hear,

Nor did I dance for him

That he might see me celebrate

His strength, courage, integrity.

For far too long

Did I imagine him against me,

And so decided

To be against him.

He did not love me

In ways I wanted,

I needed him closer 

To set me straight.

I grew crooked

Without his attention..

Remembering him now though,

Straightens me.

My father never quit a thing,

Complained, or shed a tear

 For himself.

Holes in his socks,

A drunken wife,

Five children and he stayed.

I never honored my father

For pulling the wagon

That was his family,

Dutifully day after thankless day.

My immigrant father,

Peasant farmer,

Cosack survivor,

Who measured men from the neck up..

after 96 years

has finally fallen.

I sit with him in his final hours

With nothing left to say.

He is gone without a word,

to that place i don’t exist,

I place my hand upon his once broad forearm

a single tear rolls down my cheek and suddenly,

 “He’s Awake!”

And startled back to here and now.

“I know you! “ he exclaims,

Smiling and alert,

“Why you’re my number two son, Harvey!”

A leap of heart,

A flood of joy,

An ocean of tears..

All I ever really wanted from my father

Was for him to finally see me.

                     "Separate from yourself that which separates you from others."

                                 (visit otterssong.blogspot.com and join the dialogue)