The Missing Thing

I haven't written anything here since February. There are a couple of reasons. The first is, I'm busier than last year. It seems people's desire to advertise on the radio is stronger this year than last year. People have taken my calls, accepted me into their shops and shoppes and stores and outlets and pick your favorite synonym for businesses. Last year wasn't so busy, so there was more time to write here, to reflect upon the slowness of it all.

There is another reason. My father died in February. I don't know if you've ever been through that type of loss. I sense many people have, either losing a parent or close grandparent or best friend. I had lost all of my grandparents before, but we were never close. I've always cried when my dogs died. Never with humans. Until my dad.

Lester Perry Philp, Jr. was a huge influence on me. He was funny. He wasn't as funny as me - this isn't a self-pat on my back, it's actually a compliment to him. He wasn't as funny as me because he was more mature than me. He knew when to stop. Sometimes he stopped too soon, lessening the impact of the humor. He'd miss opportunities for one-liners because of his maturity. That hurt his chances for the Laugh-Track Hall of Fame.

A roommate of mine from college got married a month ago. Like my dad, this guy was hilarious. I loved him in college for his incredible ability to make me laugh. He had "IT." It was a certain carelessness one needs to really be funny; careless as it pertains to what others may think of you. If you really want to make somebody laugh, you need to be ready to bomb and not care. I think because of getting rejected so much in high school by the opposite sex, I was in the perfect place to room with an incredibly funny person. His influence could rub off onto me, merge with my father's influence (and let's not forget an older brother's influence, he who had the perfect sense of humor when it came to getting thrown into garbage cans by bouncers at bachelor parties), and mold me into being a guy not afraid to attempt to make people laugh at any point in time, even if the attempt failed horrendously.

When my father died from lymphoma on February 17th, he took something of mine with him. It's hard to state exactly what it was. But it's four and a half months later and I know it's gone and it isn't coming back, like my dad. You wouldn't know it if you hung out with me for between 7 and 9 minutes. You'd think I was the same bubbly guy I was in high school and college and beyond. In most ways, I am. But that one piece of me, the piece I can't fully comprehend, isn't there now. It's like if I breathe in as deeply as possible, I can't go as deep as I could on February 16th.

On February 16th, I awoke at my regular 4:45AM time - didn't need an alarm, my body just did it - and went to my computer at home, writing stuff. I like to write. On February 16th, I wrote like I also did.

I wasn't going to see my father that night. You see, he wasn't supposed to die. That's what the doctors had been drumming into our heads. "We still think he'll get through this," they said. So me, always being the optimist, finished the work day close to home. It would have been a pain to trek all the way back down to Morristown to see my dad when I could just see him on Wednesday.

My brother called me around 7:30 that night. He said Dad hadn't been awake all day. Things didn't seem right. I should probably go.

I turned to my wife and said I had to go. I drove down to Morristown Hospital, got there around 8:15 or so. He was still asleep. I talked to him a bit, told him how if this had been a movie, I'd tell him how I forgave him for all the crap he did to me as a kid. But then I laughed and said this wasn't a movie and he'd never done anything crappy to me in my life. He'd been a great dad. This isn't Monday Morning Quarterbacking or respecting he who has passed into the netherworld. My dad was really and wholly a great dad. We always got along. He always made me laugh. I always wanted to make him laugh. It was fine between he and I, between my brother and he, between my mother and he. I come from a good family. Good parents. "Dad," I said, "you did well."

A weird thing happened then. His mouth started moving. His eyes were closed, he was still on his back, but his mouth was moving, like it was silently making sentences.

I watched, unsure what was going on. He'd lost so much weight and most of his hair. The skin on his hands was dry, chapped, but improving after weeks of sores brought on by the goddamned chemo that didn't do anything but cause him side-effect after side-effect. But his mouth was moving. Maybe he was hearing me. Maybe he was waking up.

A nurse came in and checked his vitals. She asked how things were going. I told her his mouth was moving and she said that was good.

I wish I remembered how long it took, but he did awaken. I asked him to open his eyes and he did for a few moments. I held his hand and asked him to squeeze. He did.

The pastor from my church, Jeff Campbell, came by around then. My wife had called him, she being unsure what her role should be as her husband's father was potentially dying and she was home unable to do anything to help. Jeff and I helped raise my dad's bed so he could sit up. We turned on the TV. We started talking. Granted, my father wasn't a very good conversationalist at the moment because of the tremendous pain his mouth was giving him. Just another wonderful side-effect of the chemo's "therapy."

I asked him if he was in any pain. He said, "No, why do you ask?" You didn't know him, most likely, so you wouldn't realize that he was making a joke. "Hey, Dad, what's going on?" I could have said any day of any year between, say, 1982 and 2009. He'd say, "Fine. Why do you ask?" He'd get you with the "Why do you ask?" part. Sales people call that a "pattern interrupt." It throws you off. Shock jocks would call that a shock tactic. It's unexpected. Comics would call it a way to be funny, or at least introduce humor into the act. As my father lay on his bed, dying, his mouth covered in sores, the cells in his brain at that very moment betraying him exponentially, as all of this bad stuff was going on, he made a joke. His Joke. He still had it.

Pastor Jeff and I left around 10PM. He was still awake, but tiring. As I walked out of the room, I said, "I love you." He looked back. Didn't say anything. Just looked. I have no idea what he was thinking. Maybe he wasn't thinking anything at all and was slowly falling back to sleep. I'll ask him in heaven one day, if I remember. Then I'll report back to you.

I called my brother and told him things were looking up. I visited Mom, told her things were looking up.

My wife woke me up about 1:15AM on February 17th. Mom had just left a message. My dad had gone for an MRI of his brain and come out having problems breathing. They didn't think he was going to make it another 24 hours.

I slipped on some jeans and a long-sleeved Cape May shirt. He loved Cape May. I don't recall if I put the shirt on because of that; I think it was somewhere in my thoughts. I said goodbye, jumped into my car, and, miraculously, made every green light between Wayne and Morristown. I composed his eulogy in my head. It was a half-hour eulogy. I'd have to edit some when it came to his funeral.

I ran through the hospital, waited impatiently for the elevator to slowly come down, the doors to slowly open then slowly close, and then slowly crawl up to the 4th floor, Franklin Wing, room #422. I ran into the room.

My brother was already there. Mom was there. Dad was there, of course, breathing hard and fast.

By mid-morning, they'd put some morphine into his IV to help slow his breathing. At 5:01 that afternoon, he'd taken his last breath. And he'd taken a part of me with him.

Don't feel badly. We gain in life and we lose in death. My memories of that day, of how my dad looked and felt, are already fading. Not fast, but they're fading, morphing, changing. The day was sunny, but I can imagine telling my kids in 30 years that there was a wild snowstorm going on and I'd had to walk to the hospital from Wayne in my bare feet.

There is a lesson somewhere in this. I'm not sure what it is. My mom is making it, like an alcoholic makes it from one day to another without taking a drink. I know she's thinking of my dad with almost every breath and I know there's got to be a part of her, and we've never discussed this, that thinks about going to him right now. But she won't do that. She'll keep plugging away, getting used to it all, until the memories fade enough and the sunny day that her husband died was snowing and her youngest son had to walk to the hospital in his bare feet.



Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd. Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060