Announcing My Dad’s Death, 12-17-2017
My dad died Saturday morning in his sleep. For the past year, he has been in failing health since he broke his hip twice. He fell, broke his hip, had a hip replacement then fell again during the recovery so he got another hip replacement with bigger rods installed. Next March, he would have been 90 years old.
Looking at it now I can see that I’ve had a difficult relationship with my dad most of my life. We have the same name, Edwin H. Kinon, he’s the 1st, I’m the 2nd, but we couldn’t be more different. He was Archie Bunker, I was Meathead.
I verbally fought with him all the time as a teenager and young man.
Actually, I was livid with him because he was not keeping up with me with my education and maturity. He would continue to stay painted into a corner while I implored him to venture out into the middle of the space where all the abundance of diversity lived. For most of his life he rebelled against the open marketplace filled with exciting, liberating, powerful new ideas. At one point I left him behind then something terrible happened. As I was finally graduating from college as a 24 year old, my mom died suddenly due to a brain aneurysm.
Months later a truce began between me and my dad. I began to make the effort to look at the world using his operating system.
I grew up with two brothers and a sister. He grew up alone on a farm in upstate New York with no brothers or sisters. His parents immigrated from Finland. He didn’t start speaking English until he attended grade school. I’m told that his parents would argue with each other to the point that they would not talk to each other for a week at a time.
He didn’t go to college, or graduate from college. I did. He worked with his hands. I work with ideas, concepts, images to advance business goals.
Though he wasn’t the Taylor of Panama, he was the Carpenter/Cabinet Maker of America. I mean all over America – he moved us back and forth many times among New York, Florida, California, Oregon, and Arizona.
After my Mom died we fostered a new friendship. I began to accept my Dad for who is was and how he got there. Finding room for each other taught me patience and that understanding has given me the patience to work with many troublesome clients, vendors, or coworkers.
I can see now that being his oldest child, I constantly pushed him places he hadn’t anticipated.
Finally, I also want to say he has always pushed me in different ways too.
Sometimes he pushed me to be like him:
- He taught me at a young age to clean and organize your tools at the end of each day for a fresh start to the next day. Consequently, I’ve been organized my whole adult life.
- He was constantly attracted to new opportunities consequently I’ve not been afraid of new opportunities too.
- We all pick our sense of adventure – some people read many books, others eat different foods, others enjoy a wide range of films or music. My dad’s sense of adventure was exploring the countryside no matter where he lived. I still do that too all the time! I enjoy getting a little lost nearby then finding my way home again.
Sometimes I pushed myself to be the opposite of him:
- Most of his life he wasn’t very social so I have always been very social.
- His lack of social grace hindered his sense of humor. I have used tactful humor as a passport to fully explore the world. It has opened many doors for me.
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Last night as fate would have it, Sharon and I attended another Christmas Revels show. With all the fast-paced technology all around us creating artificial heightened realities we enjoy attending these shows. We saw three of them in Oakland, and now we’ve seen three more shows in Portland. Each year it salutes different culture’s songs and stories about surviving the shortest day of the year (which will be Thursday).
This year’s celebration of winter solstice is called Nordic Lights, a mythic journey into the music, dance, and traditions of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. While the large cast sang ancient songs from Finland, I cried and soared with my dad. It truly felt like his spirit was flying away.
For a while I was up there with him but then after all these years my own rocket ship somehow activated different thrusters that I haven’t ever used before. I am on a different trajectory now. After this weekend, the telemetry will begin to report that both of my parents are gone.
Suddenly, the universe seems much, much bigger and scarier.
Mom, Dad, I wish you both were still here soaring with me!
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