Tonight, 6 years ago was the last night I spent with my father. The following is an account of this night, also a Wednesday. I wrote it in the summer of 2005 so that I would remember details I knew I would forget or accidently change over the years. I miss him. I can feel the familiar sadness come over me tonight and I will allow it to wash over me like it does each year as I allow myself to remember our night together in the house I moved into with my family in 2006.
June 15, 2005 was Ed Mather’s wake and memorial service. He has been a really good friend of my dad’s for over 30 years. He was one of the greatest. most original high school running coaches to ever be. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about 14 years ago and has been in tough shape for the past few years. It was a Wednesday. I spoke with my several times during the day, but hadn't seen him since he was helping the Mather's plan the services for the past two days. Mark Wetmore, another close running friend, was in town from Colorado staying at the house with my parents and I knew he was surrounded by people who loved him and who loved the sport of Track and Field.
I had sessions with two clients and then left the office around 7:45 to go to the service which was being held at the high school auditorium. I had missed the wake. I had barely seen my dad in the past few days but would see him at the high school. Sitting with my sister Jennifer, and childhood friends Kelly Smith and Billy Nann, I listened to the priest talk about life and death. He recited a reading that had to do with God carving us out of the palm of his hand. This is a concept I have heard for years, but that night it struck me as so beautiful and important. The concept that each person’s life was created purposefully by God, every single one of us, struck me in a new way. People got up and said nice things about Coach Mather. I looked around the room and thought to myself that it was a bit eerie because the same people would be sharing the same stories if it were at a funneral service for my dad. He was sitting a few rows in front of me and across the aisle to the right, in the 4th or 5th row, next to Meg Dolan, in front of Meg Waldron, and in back of my Mom. Meg told me later my Dad fell asleep during the service. I don’t know what this means, if anything. I wonder too if he was just sitting with his eyes closed for a long time, which he often did when he was trying to absorb something that was just to big to do with his eyes open.
My dad stood up and went to the microphone. Choking back tears he said that meeting Ed Mather had changed the course of his life and that of his entire family. The direction of John’s life was altered because of running for Bernards High under the influence of Coach Mather. He said that his friend Ed had his faults, that all of us have our faults, but that someone once told him that every man deserves to be remembered for his best moment. That was it. Short, poignant- classic Larry Sullivan style. He walked to the back of the auditorium after that, I squeezed his hand as he passed me, and thought about going to stand in the back with him. But I didn’t.
A few minutes later we were all in the hallway talking. I was seeing people I hadn’t seen in years. My Dad was still inside, he had asked me where Mr. Lampa was, and went to speak to him. I talked to Chris Wilde and then saw Peter Carroll. He said my Dad had told him I was moving. I didn’t understand what he was talking about until my Dad came up and we laughed because he was talking about Eddie and I maybe moving to 37 Old Army Road when my Mom and Dad moved out. I joked that Daddy wanted this so that he would not have to clear all of his crap out. He was hoping to be able to leave his bookshelf "as is" and come visit regularly. My Dad was not a big fan of change…and by me moving into the house on Old Army Road he would not have to say goodbye. He was not big on goodbyes.
My Dad walked off and I got into my car with an acute sense of nostalgia. Seeing all of us sitting there, many of us who had been in those seats so many times before in much earlier years when Mather was a teacher and would be up on stage, wearing a cowboy hat and holding a live chicken, recruiting for the cross country team. He was quite the character. As I started my car, the Mathers were talking about going out for something to eat and I contemplated going with them. Then I thought maybe I would just go home because I was tired and it was around 10:00. I hadn’t really seen much of my Dad so I went to their house to talk about all that had happened that day. I sat at the kitchen table talking to my Mom and Daddy, Dave Sully and Mark joined us. Daddy seemed to feel good about the memorial; he said he was sorry he couldn’t find the light sticks he wanted to walk around the track with after the service. He was smiling. I think I had a diet coke in my hand. He was standing to the left of the kitchen sink, I think he took off his tie.
After a while we moved into the living room, near the green chair where we had stood together a million times in the 29 years we had lived together in that house. We had stood there on random school nights and insignificant weekend afternoons. The first Christmas we lived in the house, our tree stood in the corner. We had fought in that room, laughed in that room, he had sat in that green chair next to the kitchen door and spoke on the phone about track meets, world issues and the failings of human civilization for hours on end. My siblings and I had each walked down the nearby staircase for prom pictures in front of the fire place. My father and I stood there together on my wedding day as he put on his tuxedo jacket as we left for the church. And it is here, on this night, that he smiled and hugged me for the very last time in front of the same green chair near the kitchen door. He was talking as we hugged, but I don’t remember what he was saying. At the time it was just an ordinary Wednesday night, I would see him in the morning. I think it was a little bit after 11:00 when I left. I did not know that in 5 hours I would be called back…and he would be gone… and I would be left sitting in a thick, sorrowful silence in the green chair near the kitchen door, at the bottom of the staircase.
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