Covid Didn't Take My Dad

For a while at our old house, I wasn't sure who he was.  I was the last of four children, and didn't know he was in the midst of a promotion and relocating the family and could only make it home on weekends.  My mother must have been concerned, because she tried to assure me once: ¨You know this man!¨

I remember noticing a glow of light around him as he genially told a story at the head of the table, what I now know was his aura.

Many years later he was nearing another milestone, his 101st birthday.

His 100th birthday party (pre-virus) was great: nearly everyone still living came to pay tribute to Herk.  His 90th had been another grand blowout.  My brother, two sisters, and I were always feteing and honoring him.  Frankly, I thought it a little much at times.  How often should you honor one guy?  What about his children (now reasonably fine adults), or his saintly departed wife?

Of course, he was the one who had served during World War Two, and survived a German POW camp.  During the winter Death March, with the allies closing in, Dad and a few buddies escaped into the woods.  They hid out for several days as the battles grew closer, keeping their night fire low, before a squad of soldiers and a Nazi officer discovered them.  Dad knew a bit of the language, and was able to smooth the waters by offering the officer an American cigarette, and some decent coffee (German ration coffee was made from acorns.)  The officer, impressed with Dad´s German, agreed that his side had lost the war.  ¨Hitler is a madman,¨ he stated.  ¨You go your way and I´ll go mine.¨ Dad told us that story at the new house whenever we asked for it after dinner at the kitchen table.  The question no one ever seemed to bring up was: What if he hadn't survived?

Over the years, especially after our mother's death, he continued to tell his story of flag, faith, and survival.  He spoke with media outlets and at local schools well into his nineties, while peppering in his own hard fast rules of life.  No one ever lost interest.  Just talking with him after our usual Friday night pizza at the kitchen table, I picked up details I may have missed earlier:

They finally met up with allied Tommies.  ¨Hey Yanks, the war is over!¨  As Dad looked back from the rear of a jeep, his heart fluttered wildly as if he was having an attack, and only years later did he learn it had been all of his adrenaline finally winding down.

Originally shot down as they bombed Hungarian oil fields, Dad was one of the lucky ones and avoided the flak entering the sides, and upon bailing out, watched as the aircraft slowly glided into a horrific crash against the mountainside.

At a hundred, he still shopped on his own at the grocery store when driven there.  ¨I'll see you inside!¨ he'd say by the doors, his cane slung into the cart.

Then came the virus, and as a precaution no one could take him out anymore.  His knees started bothering him more than usual (arthritis is a family affliction), though mostly, it was his heart endangering him, since he had a murmur caused by frostbite while in the war.

Dad's own father died very young of pneumonia.  His mother then boarded a ship with him and his younger sister back to homeland Germany, where her friends implored: ¨Balbina, all you can be here is a farmer´s wife, take the children back to America.¨

Again: What if she hadn't?

Newly married after the war, and serving corner groceries as a salesman in Brooklyn, Dad had a recurring dream in which he couldn't find the company car while on his route.

He still found a way to flourish, as revived more than once at the kitchen table:  ¨I had this one shop owner who never smiled -- a real SOB.  Then someone told me he liked to fish on the weekends.  On Monday I asked him how they were biting, and his face lit up.¨   

Growing up, my brother was sure he favored the girls since they were first born.  My brother and I took a lot of flak, so to speak.  We were never good enough.  I believe he preferred being the only male, and do blame him for my lack of any acquired mechanical skill.  ¨Use your head!¨ he'd say to us, then do it himself.

I can't speak for my brother, but there were other times -- and I'm talking all my life -- when he would look at me with a glint in his eye, and unimpeded love.

During the outbreak and isolation at home, he had what turned out to be a cardiac event.  My brother was there.  Dad couldn't walk and was on the floor near the kitchen.  He forbade my brother to call 911.

¨All I need is my warm milk and honey,¨ he said, trying to crawl.  It was a whole production. 

An ambulance to CMC Emergency, then finally into ICU, with no visitors allowed.

As an improvement -- as he improved -- he was situated into a favored rehab facility; no visitors, and more importantly, no Covid.  The goal was to eventually get him home again, using his walker.  But with the heart trouble, and not much physical strength returning, the goal then became to get him home after the house was redone, allowing him to get around in a wheelchair.

We had two window visits with him, a nurse bringing him down, his treasured grandchildren and the like all outside of the ground floor with many signs and all masked up.  Dad was also masked, but still had that glint in his eye, especially the second time -- waving to and recognizing everyone.  We were able to talk with him on the phone, and no one was counting him out.

Twice he ran a fever and was tested negative.  Then, during a regular procedure, the tech left the room, and upon returning, Dad had passed.  We believe Grandma, Mom, his beloved wife Jackie, in heaven, finally said ¨It's time, Herk.¨

Between teachers and school children who sent him cards and Valentines over the years, his parish friends, the folks at the VA hospital he always championed for, his fellow business volunteers at SCORE, the distant and not-so-distant relatives he always kept in touch with, and us, his family -- he will be greatly missed.

Sometimes I thought, he just may outlive me.  After I got the news from my sister and cried, I thought of the many others who would be crying that night.

The heavy irony is that this man, loved by so many, will have a relatively minor burial.  But in a year or so -- a full Celebration Mass and blowout luncheon.

And of the virus?  Dad feared it like the rest of us.  And I think he would say, as he did to a fellow prisoner having a difficult time early on at the camp: ¨Look, no one wants to be in this situation.  But we have to make the best of it.¨

Fin