When daddy cried...
My father. Again.
*a disclaimer - this is not a happy post.
I have written briefly in the past about my father's positive outlook on life. His ability to look at a bad situation in a positive light, to remain calm in a stressful situation by essentially not really recognizing the stress at all. He (almost) always had a smile on his face. He (almost) always seemed happy. He was so good at it no one will ever know if he really felt it.
My father was and always will be my hero. I look up to him in countless ways. This does not mean he was perfect.
Dad had an instinctive talent for making and losing money in massive quantities. Money really didn't matter. Making it was really just an unexpected consequence, and losing it done in a very off-handed, absent minded professor kind of way.
He loved to work. He was an idea man and his life was driven by the need to explain the thoughts in his head until they were realized by the world around him, and was, as a result, responsible for a few substantial shifts. Once he had seen his industry grab the idea...
New idea...
New industry...
New challenge...
New life for everyone around him. Usually meant new financial situation, new house, new town, new school...
Following the dream. Larry the nomad.
At the end of his life my father was battling a debilitating illness, feeling, physically, at most times, as if he were suffocating. This did not stop him from dreaming. He was working on marketing an exciting new technology to the entertainment industry. He worked on this project for the last 6 years of his life, the longest amount of time he had ever devoted to any one idea.
...there's no context here...
My father was penniless. He was dying. He needed a $300,000 lung transplant. He had no insurance. His social security payments were so high from all the money he made and lost in the past, that the state insurance he received for being disabled demanded an 85% monthly deductible leaving him with $450 dollars to pay for 6 essential prescriptions not covered by the government that totaled $1,400/month. I paid his rent and eventually moved him into my studio where he slept on an air mattress for 4 months on oxygen 24 hours a day. He went to the doctor's for a check up, was put in the hospital, and sat there for 4 months until he died Christmas morning. On the 17th of December he made a meeting to consult on a university business curriculum half way across the state for "after the holidays." He just never quit.
Back to the exciting technology. He had a partner pull the rug out from under him. They had a deal with major revenue potential. Transplant money potential but we never really spoke of that. The bids were in and his partner got greedy, substituting his own inflated pricing plan without consulting my father or his other partner. They were made to look like greedy fools - and there was no way to charm his way back into the deal. The partner said..."Sorry."
We were sitting at a yuppie filled restaurant waiting for our bowls of oatmeal and he tried to tell me. He tried to tell me what happened but he couldn't - he ran out crying. He didn't want me to see it. He was humiliated. He felt embarrassed, he felt like a failure, he felt hopeless, he felt guilty for burdening me with any of it. He was terrified. I ran after him and hugged him, both of us weeping. I knew at that moment that his life was over. He didn't give up - tried to resurrect, tried to launch something new. But I knew the transplant money was gone. And I think, at that moment, he knew it too. It was the only time I ever saw him cry. I was 28. It was a year before he died but the moment we said goodbye...and we never really said it.
*a disclaimer - this is not a happy post.
I have written briefly in the past about my father's positive outlook on life. His ability to look at a bad situation in a positive light, to remain calm in a stressful situation by essentially not really recognizing the stress at all. He (almost) always had a smile on his face. He (almost) always seemed happy. He was so good at it no one will ever know if he really felt it.
My father was and always will be my hero. I look up to him in countless ways. This does not mean he was perfect.
Dad had an instinctive talent for making and losing money in massive quantities. Money really didn't matter. Making it was really just an unexpected consequence, and losing it done in a very off-handed, absent minded professor kind of way.
He loved to work. He was an idea man and his life was driven by the need to explain the thoughts in his head until they were realized by the world around him, and was, as a result, responsible for a few substantial shifts. Once he had seen his industry grab the idea...
New idea...
New industry...
New challenge...
New life for everyone around him. Usually meant new financial situation, new house, new town, new school...
Following the dream. Larry the nomad.
At the end of his life my father was battling a debilitating illness, feeling, physically, at most times, as if he were suffocating. This did not stop him from dreaming. He was working on marketing an exciting new technology to the entertainment industry. He worked on this project for the last 6 years of his life, the longest amount of time he had ever devoted to any one idea.
...there's no context here...
My father was penniless. He was dying. He needed a $300,000 lung transplant. He had no insurance. His social security payments were so high from all the money he made and lost in the past, that the state insurance he received for being disabled demanded an 85% monthly deductible leaving him with $450 dollars to pay for 6 essential prescriptions not covered by the government that totaled $1,400/month. I paid his rent and eventually moved him into my studio where he slept on an air mattress for 4 months on oxygen 24 hours a day. He went to the doctor's for a check up, was put in the hospital, and sat there for 4 months until he died Christmas morning. On the 17th of December he made a meeting to consult on a university business curriculum half way across the state for "after the holidays." He just never quit.
Back to the exciting technology. He had a partner pull the rug out from under him. They had a deal with major revenue potential. Transplant money potential but we never really spoke of that. The bids were in and his partner got greedy, substituting his own inflated pricing plan without consulting my father or his other partner. They were made to look like greedy fools - and there was no way to charm his way back into the deal. The partner said..."Sorry."
We were sitting at a yuppie filled restaurant waiting for our bowls of oatmeal and he tried to tell me. He tried to tell me what happened but he couldn't - he ran out crying. He didn't want me to see it. He was humiliated. He felt embarrassed, he felt like a failure, he felt hopeless, he felt guilty for burdening me with any of it. He was terrified. I ran after him and hugged him, both of us weeping. I knew at that moment that his life was over. He didn't give up - tried to resurrect, tried to launch something new. But I knew the transplant money was gone. And I think, at that moment, he knew it too. It was the only time I ever saw him cry. I was 28. It was a year before he died but the moment we said goodbye...and we never really said it.
posted by Freckles at
10:12 PM
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