Laurie Kahn

At eighty-one, after two heart attacks, my father announced he was going on a cruise. “Unwise,” the doctors decreed, recalling his last heart attack that occurred while he vacationed on a remote Canadian island requiring a helicopter to take him to the nearest hospital. But my father stood firm. “If I die on the cruise, so be it. Let them throw me overboard.”

The unwavering unrest between my mother and father allowed my father and me to have many adventures. My sister was my mother’s companion, with an upside of visits to museums, theater, an introduction to classical music. The downside was endless struggles with my mother about her weight, her taste in clothes, and my sister’s preference for white lipstick and teased hair.

I escaped my mother’s tyranny of female expectations. My father and I went fishing, ate rare roast beef sandwiches slathered in coleslaw, cheered at football games, and endlessly talked politics.

My father, unlike my mother, was not taken with status or riches. My father’s fishing philosophy was that we needed to rent an aluminum boat with a small motor and find the prettiest spot on the lake. He believed the fish simply would follow our lead.  

 On the third day of the cruise, my father had a heart attack and died. I have a picture on my nightstand taken the night before. He is sitting at the captain’s table holding a glass of whiskey with his right hand lifted, making a toast. He is grinning. The morning before, I imagine he had two fried eggs, an order of greasy bacon followed by a cigarette that a swig of Coke may wash down. For my father, the battle between pleasure and longevity there was no contest.

A week after he died, my sister and I met at my father’s house in Florida. We rummaged through our father’s clothes closet. With pride, he wore plaid pants with a striped shirt. My sister and I tried on my father’s shirts, sweaters, and sport coats and giggled endlessly. My father was a great fan of humor and laughter and disliked any signs of melancholy. We opened the refrigerator door and found a half-eaten jar of guava jelly, cream cheese, and orange juice—the ideal snack. 

We roamed around the house with a perfect pitch of irreverence. 

Tasteful art, some bearing a signature, four antique chairs and a desk inherited from my grandparents, a set of polish silverware were a few of the treasures my sister and I ignored. Instead, we rummaged through the top drawer of my father’s mahogany dresser and found the thing we both most wanted. Thank God there were two pairs of his red socks so we could both wear them to honor our father at his funeral.