The blink of an eye

The thing about clichés is that they get to be clichés because they’re true.
Even that simple observation is a cliché. I know I’ve made it before, probably in these pages.
And one of those true clichés is that the older you get, the faster time seems to slip away.
When you’re 10, a summer afternoon can feel like a lifetime. When you’re in your 60s, a lifetime seems to have passed as quickly as a summer afternoon.
In just a few days, it will be 30 years since I received the phone call that told me my father had died.
Thirty years, though it seems an instant ago.
Thirty years ago, our twins — now married and living in Boston and raising families and building careers — were 5-year-olds. Thirty years ago, our youngest — soon to finish law school — wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye.
And yet it all happened yesterday.
I remember the night my father called and let me know he had lung cancer.
To say I didn’t take it well would be an understatement. I called him back a few minutes later when I’d regained some of my composure. His words: “Keep your feet in the buggy.” It was his way of letting me know that he had the reins and while there was a wild ride ahead, my job was to stay calm and not make things more difficult than they already were.
I’d never heard him use that expression before, but I’ve used it countless times since then in times of adversity or challenge. “Keep your feet in the buggy” is pretty darned good advice.
I remember visiting his hospital room at the IU Med Center in Indianapolis.
Thirty years ago, a diagnosis of lung cancer was a death sentence. Dad had agreed to take part in an experimental chemo program in hopes it might advance the fight against cancer. If it did, he was not the beneficiary.
I remember going to see him in the final weeks.
A hospital bed had been put in his study at my parents’ home in Richmond. He was still dictating letters from bed, which my mother duly pounded out on the typewriter at his desk. He’d been vice president for development at Earlham College before his retirement, and he was still working on behalf of the college in his final days.
The desk was a beauty. I’d known it all my life. It was Dad’s when he was plant manager and secretary of The Jay Garment Company. It was his when he was publisher of The Commercial Review and The News and Sun. And it was his while he served at Earlham.
To protect its surface, it had a thick sheet of glass. On my last visit, knowing that hospice had already been involved, I perched myself on the corner of the desk and listened while he offered words of advice.
And when he was done, I stood up. And as I did, the glass top of his desk cracked. Just a little bit. Just the corner where I’d perched to listen to him.
I was embarrassed, and it could have ruined the moment.
But my father didn’t let it. He blamed the glass. He blamed the desk. But he didn’t blame me. I would always be forgiven. That’s something that comes with being a father, as I’ve learned.
That was in 1983. Thirty years ago. A lifetime. A blink of the eye.
I’m grayer now, just seven years away from the age my father was when he died.
But he still whispers in my ear now and then. He’s still the yardstick I’d use to measure my own life. And I still feel a little bit guilty for breaking that piece of glass on his desk.

[[In-content Ad]]