The Eulogy That Will Never Be

There won't be a service for my father, so this is perhaps the closest thing to a eulogy that he will receive. It's rough, but so are the emotions. I think I can't bring myself to edit it, even though it probably needs it. Here then, it will rest, as thoughts formed, but unrefined, over the last decades.

I started, but never completed, a eulogy for him in 2009. He was bedridden and near death. But then, as he did so many times, he bounced back. Cats only have nine lives. I can recall perhaps a dozen instances where he sat at the edge of death, or was at least hospitalized for a serious condition, and he returned. Perhaps part of me felt that this time was no different. But I had been bracing for his death, and I find myself more or less ready for it.

In some ways, I lost my father a long, long time ago. He suffered from bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia for most of his adult life, though it became completely unmanageable shortly after my birth.

I am lucky, in many ways. A few years ago I realized how hard it must be for his sister and my mother. When they saw him, they were constantly reminded of the man he used to be. Free from such memories, perhaps he was free from my expectations.

Or at least somewhat free. Here's the thing with an almost-absent father. It allows children to project an ideal into the void of absence. I saw him so rarely that I was persistently, if subconsciously, managing that absence. In the absence of real presence, real perspective, I formulated an ideology that was too rigid -- whether as a fundamentalist Christian or a left-wing liberal or an ambitious student. And upon that edifice that substituted for substance, I broke, time and again.

When Roy, my stepfather, came into our lives, I think I readily gave him the title of father, though I didn't say so until their wedding, 15 years later. But how could anyone live up to decades of longing and wishing, at once vague and insistent? Disappointment was inevitable, and our present relationship, while cordial, perhaps suffered from the gulf between what I wanted and what he was capable of providing. He is a good man, a victim of the expectations of a child not fully grown up.

My father was possessed with real charm and humor. In some ways, it seemed that he "got" me more than my mother ever did. She is a wonderful woman who has given me everything, and yet I feel that the gap between her world and mine is nearly unbridgeable. For his flaws, he was more pragmatic, and yet more emotionally self-aware. He had the self-confidence to make jokes, bawdy ones.

So it was natural that I would relate to him a lot more than my mother. As part of that, I harbored a long, deep-seated fear of being bipolar. It didn't help that I was actively discouraged from expressing strong emotions, either positive or negative, in the presence of my mother and grandmother. God bless them, but they knew crap about psychology, and they thought that things like stress, or ambition, or improvised poetry, or seriousness, were all signs of impending and irreversible mental collapse. I exaggerate a bit, but my young mind did magnify the fears. By 7th grade I was aware of genetic predispositions, and was a little scared whenever I had trouble sleeping before a big Academic Decathlon competition, or stayed up to write an overlong English essay.

For the record, I've been cleared on that front. Bipolar disorder generally manifests itself in the teens, and whatever exuberance I may have exhibited was pretty natural. But the strains put on myself did show, and I became depressed. I dropped out of grad school. I developed addictions and antisocial habits. I ran away from home for two months. In the end, the diagnosis isn't bipolar disorder. It's depression coupled with bad coping habits. There is something laughable in how a fear of being mentally ill played a primary role in making me so.

But I am talking more about myself, and not about him. Eulogies are often more accurate reflections of the speaker than the one spoken of.

There were tremendously good things about him, too. Having lost everything, he relished simple things. We would go and get terrible strawberry shakes (before I learned that I was lactose intolerant), or Mountain Dew at Taco Bell. We'd walk around the not-too-great part of Norwalk, and he would say hi to his friends. Wherever he was, he needed to be, and generally was, a big man, known, "well-liked", as Willy Loman would put it. I did pick up insecurity in how he would freely dispense gifts (often going into a bit of debt to do so), but I'd say he was far more confident in social interactions than I ever was.

And his humor! He loved cracking jokes. They were often crude, (I'm packing a gun, and it's got a single chamber.) and occasionally racist (A Frenchman, an Englishman, a Texan, and a Mexican are on a plane. The plane is going to crash if the load isn't ligtened, and so the pilot calls for volunteers to sacrifice to save the others. The Frenchman shouts "Vive la France!" and jumps off the plane. The Englishman shouts "For Queen and Country!" and jumps. The Texan shouts "Remember the Alamo!" and throws the Mexican out of the plane.) But he was quick both to make others laugh and laugh at my own jokes. My students probably wonder where I get my weird sense of humor -- it comes, in part, due to positive reinforcement from my father laughing at my terrible jokes for many, many years.

Most of all, I know that he tried so hard to live up to what he imagined where the standards I set for him. He quit smoking so many times, and would tell me, with pride, how long he had stopped smoking for, and how much money he had saved. Inevitably, he'd start again -- there just wasn't much to do in the facilities in which he lived. And when it would come up, he'd look a little abashed, as if I were the father, and he were the misbehaving child. It was sad, but endearing, and I forgave him for his lapses.

His drug lapses were harder to forgive. He had been, for most of his life, a creature of chemicals, in one form or another. When I was about 10, he gave me a two-page, double-sided, double-column list of all the illegal drugs he had taken in his life. Granted, a lot of these were nicknames for the same sorts of drugs (barbituates, for instance), but it was still pretty impressive. Apparently, one of the problems with mania is that it feels good. He would enjoy feeling manic, and sometimes resort to illegal drugs. Apparently he bought meth a couple times, and was hospitalized for extreme blood pressure (220/180, I think). His strong heart saved him, then and many other times. He did always encourage me to stay away from drugs, a message which seems to have stuck.

His manic episodes were really hard to deal with. My mother would drop me off for visitation -- he didn't have formal visitation rights, but he had the expectation of seeing me once every two weeks. It was usually for a couple hours on a Saturday. Most of the time, he was fine. But sometimes, he was unbalanced, or full-blown manic. He'd rage about losing the house, or imagine getting back together with Mom and having us all live together. He'd make elaborate claims about his work as a senior scientist at Hughes, and his crypto-clearance security. Sometimes he'd make physically intimidating gestures, claiming to know martial arts. (For the record, as far as I know, he never, ever hit me or my mother -- a low standard of decency, to be sure, but I want to be absolutely clear on that point.) Twice -- it was only twice, but I remember each time -- he said he was disappointed in me and thought I was being raised badly.

He'd always ask forgiveness later. And it always came.

I don't know how I was supposed to react. I think I was told that it wasn't his fault, which is hard for a child. Children see things in terms of blame, and without some really subtle explanations, it's easy for a child to think it was his own fault. I don't think I blamed myself for his outbursts, but it felt odd not being able to criticize or judge him on his bad behavior. I don't know where that anger, or confusion, went -- but I know it didn't go away completely.

He was never without a girlfriend. He was charming, and even when obese, reasonably handsome. Some of his girlfriends were sweet and kind. Some seemed almost childlike or developmentally disabled. All suffered from mental illnesses. But they all loved him, and in time, I got used to Dad's girlfriends. Towards the end, we'd even have some decent man-to-man conversations about his relationships.

"Dad, she seems a bit obsessed with money."

"Yeah, she grew up poor."

"She also seems to have a thin skin. I think she gets easily offended by your jokes."

*smiles*

"Uh, are you sure she's the right match for you?"

*thinks* "We like to cuddle, and I can always eventually make her laugh."

Toward the end, his medication balance was decent enough for him to actually feel what normal humans feel, in normal amounts. Sometimes, he wasn't angry or depressed because of bipolar disorder, or becaue of schizophrenia. Sometimes, someone just pissed him off, or he was having an off day. I was actually happy toward the end when I could see that, and a bit disappointed that others in his life would try to medicalize every change in mood. For instance, he was a bit depressed a couple months ago when the managers at his retirement home were fired, because he liked them and cared about them.

In thinking about my father's life, I often focus on the hurt. It hurt having him in my life. It hurt not having him in my life. Sometimes I think it would've been easier if he had been completely out of the picture, or if he was a complete asshole, or if my mother hated him. But he was there, and wasn't an asshole, and my mom, sadly, never stopped loving him, even though they were divorced, and both had moved on. Two years ago I asked if they would've gotten divorced if I hadn't been around. I thought, maybe, she would've toughed it out on her own, but divorced to protect me. I don't remember her answer, but that I asked speaks to some lingering guilt that a child has when parents divorce, perhaps especially when they remain on reasonably good terms.

I've realized that, by focusing on the pain, and what was missing, I've become a worse person. Looking back especially on the last few years, I've lived as though I thought the world owed me something, that he owed me something. And, passively, or in fits of active self-destruction, I was waiting for payment.

Even with less experience, I think I was more wise as a child. I didn't have this attitude. I found gratitude, through my cousins, through the many wonderful role models I have, male and female. I found enjoyment in school. I made my world simpler, and more easy to handle -- yes, in response to chaos and complication and fear, but it was a correct instinct.

So I now know, that memory is a choice. I can dwell on the pain or the missed possibilities, and continue to live like I'm owed something. Or I can choose to remember the good parts, choose to highlight the good things that came from that relationship.

It's not historically accurate. It's not honest. But it's a better way to live. I don't advocate it for everyone -- I can't expect or ask someone, who, say, had an abusive parent to replace those memories with happy ones. But perhaps for those of us carrying around resentments for less serious sins, forgetting and selective memory might be part of the answer. The truth, such as it exists, magnified and distorted by our memories and motivations, is often too expensive to keep.

So I'm going to try, hard, to remember how I learned empathy and forginveness, how I learned the joy in the small and inexpensive. I'm going to remember how Dad showed me how to speak with women, how to make friends, and how to enjoy life. For he did enjoy life, in a way that I never did. Perhaps, seeing his past and future more clearly than I gave him credit, he chose to embrace the people, and places, and activities, available to him in the here and now.

Miles Yamada was a man who loved those around him, imperfectly, but intensely. He exhibited courage in facing his inner demons, and compassion in embracing his friends and family. He played an important role professionally as a successful engineer at Hughes Aircraft during the height of the Cold War, working on a number of civilian and military contracts that earned him the praise of his superiors. Disabled by bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, he still strove to exhibit a level of kindness, compassion, and humor that is worthy of emulation. He taught me that it's important to be kind to those who are different, and that a little charm and grace goes a long way in this world. I am grateful for the time spent with him, playing cards, drinking soda, and, most of all, talking. He will be missed.