My Father The Dam

Silent, strong and deep, my father was like a dam.  He held back the emotions that must have been in those final years. The anxiety of knowing he had Parkinson’s disease that commandeered his body. The fear of knowing he was caught in a narrow gorge as awareness of his world shrank with Lewy Bodies dementia. The struggle to communicate as turmoil replaced the peaceful, still waters of the early days.  And in the end, when he could no longer hold the waters back, he let them pass.  They gushed through turbines, sending high-voltage emotions to us, his family; providing as he always tried to do.

Is it my turn?  Is Parkinson’s genetically determined? Or is my parentage simply one factor of many? Was it the innocent but unavoidable exposure to the toxic chemicals, cast like a canopy over our apple orchard trees each spring and summer? It could be either, both or neither. We may never know. For Dad it doesn’t really matter, and for me it matters little. Although it may assist those others who will know the many symptoms of this idiosyncratic disease. But, even if I knew, there is no reason to blame my lineage. We all pass on our imperfections, resist them as we might. We cannot hold the water back completely or indefinitely.

He was not perfect but he did his best.  He was a good father. I think of him still, these 10 years gone, my father, the dam.