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Some final thoughts
30 September 2005
It's taken a while to put my thoughts about my father in order. I haven't had a lot of time to think about his passing of late, what with all the meetings, events, committees and other municipal responsibilities. It's almost like I've put him in a separate room in myself, so I could go and meditate on him when the time was right.
I'm not sure it's right now, but I don't want to let things slip by.
At his service - a non-religious gathering for a non-religious man - I quoted Robert Benchley who said, "Death ends a life. It doesn't end a relationship." We keep those who passed from us alive in our hearts, our memories. Death merely closes the chapter on the physical form.
Some people have the solace of believing the dead stay alive in some heaven or other afterlife, consorting with angels or saints. Like my father, I have no such belief.
Death for me means the end; nothing personal continues on. Perhaps, as some Buddhists believe, life is a form of energy that continues past the body, a vast pool of energy that gets recycled through other forms and shapes. But if so, the I, the ego, the stuff of personality that makes us who we are, cannot pass the filter of death. We - that definable, identity, our self-awareness - is inextricably linked to our physical bodies.
No ghosts, no spirits, no ectoplasmic father hovering in mid-air to watch over me or pass along messages from the realm beyond thew white light. That sort of superstition merely annoys me. It belittles a person's memory to cling to them as some tattered remnant unable to find closure. There were no prayers for Dad.
My father gave me two gifts and they will always remind me of him.
The first was his love of reading. My father didn't merely read - he consumed words like he was a guest at a fabulous banquet. Trips to the library were part of his weekly routine. His reading was broad and wide, but seldom deep. He read for pleasure, mostly, and liked to be entertained by books. TV played a distant second to his reading, and more for news than entertainment.
Unlike me, Dad didn't own a lot of books; a couple of boxes. I kept a few, mostly for his memory: some Boy's Own Annuals from 1910 or thereabouts, a collection of comic British poems I remember him reading (and listening to Stanley Holoway reading on an old 33 rpm LP), a few coffee-table books from National Geographic, some odds and ends. His affection was for the reading, not the keeping, of words.
And that gift gave me education, insight, gave me worlds to explore, people to meet, boundless horizons to discover. I dove deeper into books than my father, and read less for entertainment than for knowledge. But like my father to his end, reading is still part of my daily life. I carry a book everywhere in case I have the opportunity to open it. I read an hour or more every night at bedtime. I read at lunch, in the washroom, at any break. Mostly non-fiction, mostly history and science, and I prefer to own what I read, filling shelves to overflowing with books.
Sitting outside with Susan in the late sun, enjoying a glass of wine, each of us lost in our own book, is one of those simple, but deep pleasures we share together. When we go to Mexico, we take a box of books. her love of reading is one of the reasons I am so close to Susan.
Dad and Mom gave me a microscope for one birthday and I spent many summers in private enjoyment, discovering the unseen world through the tiny lense. There were still wild spaces, undeveloped fields and green areas where kids could find frogs, turtles, snakes and praying mantids. I wandered through them, learning about their life cycles, using my microscope and magnifying glasses to peer into their minuscule worlds.
I remember standing in our back yard in October 1957, Dad and I, watching the tiny light of Sputnik cross the sky, and wanting more than anything to grow up and travel through space. That started me reading about space travel and astronomy.
When I was old enough, my parents let me take the us to far-away downtown Toronto so I could spend my day in the Royal Ontario Museum.
For a while, before Mom's stroke took its toll on our finances and Dad was forced to sell it, we had a cottage up near Penetang. We'd spend vacations there - Mom and Dad reading in the dappled shadows of the trees, while I roamed the woods, looking for new forms of life. I discovered walking sticks, great millipedes, salamanders, and even rattlesnakes.
Whatever I found, I then read about. My winters were spent accumulating knowledge about my summer discoveries, combing both the school and public libraries for information. I was precocious and soon left the children's section to hunt among the adult collection. Everything interested me and I was soon taking home adult books about subjects way beyond my schooling.
I remember vividly having some childhood illness around age 10 - chicken pox? mumps? - and having to spend days in bed. I had two adult books beside me: Fabre's Life of the Spider and Darwin's Origin of Species. I read Fabre cover to cover while I lay there. Darwin was tougher, way beyond my ability. I struggled with him, but fumbled. I didn't have the knowledge or maturity to appreciate his work. It wasn't for a few more years before I was able to read him and understand what he was saying. But at age 12 I was proud to say I had read Darwin, although I'm not sure today I really understand his great genius.
I also remember discovering science fiction. I was 10 or 11 and wandering in the local library one afternoon, when I saw a shelf of books by authors like Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein and Chad Oliver. I had never read science fiction, although my parents had given me Tom Swift Jr. books every Xmas. So I took out a couple. I was quickly hooked, and started reading every sci-fi book I could find. I used to save my allowance and buy those Ace double-title books from the local convenience store. I collected all of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books (I still have a set). I loved the imaginative tales, the stories of far galaxies and strange worlds with their alien creatures.
The other gift was chess. My father taught me to play when I was quite young, perhaps seven or eight. In a couple of years I beat him and we didn't play much after that, if at all. But I didn't really miss those games until I was a lot older. But although I've played tens of thousands of games since, I can still remember clearly playing with him at our dining room table.
Chess was a passion for me for many years and I played it aggressively. I travelled around Canada with a knapsack, a few battered paperbacks and a chess set. I played everywhere, everyone. Chess taught me a lot about thinking. It taught me strategy, to look ahead, to plan, to focus, to attack, to defend, and to sacrifice for a greater goal. It taught me to look beyond the moment to the future.
My chess heyday was in my mid-20s, and slowly slipped from my life until by my 30s I hardly played at all. Today I can read chess books, look at games, and enjoy them as from afar, but I can't play worth a damn. Whatever skills I had have rusted from lack of use. But I still remember keenly playing chess with Dad, then teaching the neighbourhood kids to play. Whenever I look at my chess set, gathering dust in a closet, I remember Dad taught me to play.
But even today as I play computer games or compete in some online mayhem, I owe my pleasure to Dad. He taught me that games are not just for kids, but an essential part of living, even as an adult. You're never too old to play games, and never to old to learn from them.
I was never big on sports. I had my science, my chess, the local library and the museum. Solitary pleasures, not team efforts. Dad taught me to learn for myself, to read, to educate myself, not to depend on others or a team. I wasn't big on competition, either, except on the chessboard, but even there I played moe for the love of the game than for the chance of winning. I like to think that's reflected in my political style; that I work for a non-personal goal, rather than to compete against others. I suppose not everyone sees that, though.
My father spend 20 years or so working for a municipality, one of those quiet bureaucrats who labour to make our cities just a little better. I suppose that gave me some appreciation of the human face of our own town staff, and to respect them as individuals, rather than treat them as merely employees. I always see myself as their counterparts, someone who has to create the strategies with them, not their boss.
I suppose I'm rambling now. I have more to say, but I am becoming too longwinded. I owe a lot to my father and never had a chance to tell him even a small part, to thank him for what he gave me. This is a sort of catharsis for me, to say those things that remained unsaid. I tried to tell him, there at his deathbed, but he was a little uncomfortable at the sentiment. The habits of a lifetime were hard for both of us to break. But he understood, and he knew.
I'm not sure it's right now, but I don't want to let things slip by.
At his service - a non-religious gathering for a non-religious man - I quoted Robert Benchley who said, "Death ends a life. It doesn't end a relationship." We keep those who passed from us alive in our hearts, our memories. Death merely closes the chapter on the physical form.
Some people have the solace of believing the dead stay alive in some heaven or other afterlife, consorting with angels or saints. Like my father, I have no such belief.
Death for me means the end; nothing personal continues on. Perhaps, as some Buddhists believe, life is a form of energy that continues past the body, a vast pool of energy that gets recycled through other forms and shapes. But if so, the I, the ego, the stuff of personality that makes us who we are, cannot pass the filter of death. We - that definable, identity, our self-awareness - is inextricably linked to our physical bodies.
No ghosts, no spirits, no ectoplasmic father hovering in mid-air to watch over me or pass along messages from the realm beyond thew white light. That sort of superstition merely annoys me. It belittles a person's memory to cling to them as some tattered remnant unable to find closure. There were no prayers for Dad.
My father gave me two gifts and they will always remind me of him.
The first was his love of reading. My father didn't merely read - he consumed words like he was a guest at a fabulous banquet. Trips to the library were part of his weekly routine. His reading was broad and wide, but seldom deep. He read for pleasure, mostly, and liked to be entertained by books. TV played a distant second to his reading, and more for news than entertainment.
Unlike me, Dad didn't own a lot of books; a couple of boxes. I kept a few, mostly for his memory: some Boy's Own Annuals from 1910 or thereabouts, a collection of comic British poems I remember him reading (and listening to Stanley Holoway reading on an old 33 rpm LP), a few coffee-table books from National Geographic, some odds and ends. His affection was for the reading, not the keeping, of words.
And that gift gave me education, insight, gave me worlds to explore, people to meet, boundless horizons to discover. I dove deeper into books than my father, and read less for entertainment than for knowledge. But like my father to his end, reading is still part of my daily life. I carry a book everywhere in case I have the opportunity to open it. I read an hour or more every night at bedtime. I read at lunch, in the washroom, at any break. Mostly non-fiction, mostly history and science, and I prefer to own what I read, filling shelves to overflowing with books.
Sitting outside with Susan in the late sun, enjoying a glass of wine, each of us lost in our own book, is one of those simple, but deep pleasures we share together. When we go to Mexico, we take a box of books. her love of reading is one of the reasons I am so close to Susan.
Dad and Mom gave me a microscope for one birthday and I spent many summers in private enjoyment, discovering the unseen world through the tiny lense. There were still wild spaces, undeveloped fields and green areas where kids could find frogs, turtles, snakes and praying mantids. I wandered through them, learning about their life cycles, using my microscope and magnifying glasses to peer into their minuscule worlds.
I remember standing in our back yard in October 1957, Dad and I, watching the tiny light of Sputnik cross the sky, and wanting more than anything to grow up and travel through space. That started me reading about space travel and astronomy.
When I was old enough, my parents let me take the us to far-away downtown Toronto so I could spend my day in the Royal Ontario Museum.
For a while, before Mom's stroke took its toll on our finances and Dad was forced to sell it, we had a cottage up near Penetang. We'd spend vacations there - Mom and Dad reading in the dappled shadows of the trees, while I roamed the woods, looking for new forms of life. I discovered walking sticks, great millipedes, salamanders, and even rattlesnakes.
Whatever I found, I then read about. My winters were spent accumulating knowledge about my summer discoveries, combing both the school and public libraries for information. I was precocious and soon left the children's section to hunt among the adult collection. Everything interested me and I was soon taking home adult books about subjects way beyond my schooling.
I remember vividly having some childhood illness around age 10 - chicken pox? mumps? - and having to spend days in bed. I had two adult books beside me: Fabre's Life of the Spider and Darwin's Origin of Species. I read Fabre cover to cover while I lay there. Darwin was tougher, way beyond my ability. I struggled with him, but fumbled. I didn't have the knowledge or maturity to appreciate his work. It wasn't for a few more years before I was able to read him and understand what he was saying. But at age 12 I was proud to say I had read Darwin, although I'm not sure today I really understand his great genius.
I also remember discovering science fiction. I was 10 or 11 and wandering in the local library one afternoon, when I saw a shelf of books by authors like Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein and Chad Oliver. I had never read science fiction, although my parents had given me Tom Swift Jr. books every Xmas. So I took out a couple. I was quickly hooked, and started reading every sci-fi book I could find. I used to save my allowance and buy those Ace double-title books from the local convenience store. I collected all of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books (I still have a set). I loved the imaginative tales, the stories of far galaxies and strange worlds with their alien creatures.
The other gift was chess. My father taught me to play when I was quite young, perhaps seven or eight. In a couple of years I beat him and we didn't play much after that, if at all. But I didn't really miss those games until I was a lot older. But although I've played tens of thousands of games since, I can still remember clearly playing with him at our dining room table.
Chess was a passion for me for many years and I played it aggressively. I travelled around Canada with a knapsack, a few battered paperbacks and a chess set. I played everywhere, everyone. Chess taught me a lot about thinking. It taught me strategy, to look ahead, to plan, to focus, to attack, to defend, and to sacrifice for a greater goal. It taught me to look beyond the moment to the future.
My chess heyday was in my mid-20s, and slowly slipped from my life until by my 30s I hardly played at all. Today I can read chess books, look at games, and enjoy them as from afar, but I can't play worth a damn. Whatever skills I had have rusted from lack of use. But I still remember keenly playing chess with Dad, then teaching the neighbourhood kids to play. Whenever I look at my chess set, gathering dust in a closet, I remember Dad taught me to play.
But even today as I play computer games or compete in some online mayhem, I owe my pleasure to Dad. He taught me that games are not just for kids, but an essential part of living, even as an adult. You're never too old to play games, and never to old to learn from them.
I was never big on sports. I had my science, my chess, the local library and the museum. Solitary pleasures, not team efforts. Dad taught me to learn for myself, to read, to educate myself, not to depend on others or a team. I wasn't big on competition, either, except on the chessboard, but even there I played moe for the love of the game than for the chance of winning. I like to think that's reflected in my political style; that I work for a non-personal goal, rather than to compete against others. I suppose not everyone sees that, though.
My father spend 20 years or so working for a municipality, one of those quiet bureaucrats who labour to make our cities just a little better. I suppose that gave me some appreciation of the human face of our own town staff, and to respect them as individuals, rather than treat them as merely employees. I always see myself as their counterparts, someone who has to create the strategies with them, not their boss.
I suppose I'm rambling now. I have more to say, but I am becoming too longwinded. I owe a lot to my father and never had a chance to tell him even a small part, to thank him for what he gave me. This is a sort of catharsis for me, to say those things that remained unsaid. I tried to tell him, there at his deathbed, but he was a little uncomfortable at the sentiment. The habits of a lifetime were hard for both of us to break. But he understood, and he knew.
