an arrangement

On Sunday, 30th January 2005, my father, Guido Victor Walter Andrew Regelbrugge died at the age of 66. In all, he had three sons, three stepsons, six granchildren and another one due in May. But that doesn't come close to the heart of my father; the stories of my father. I alone lack the perspective, let alone settled heart and mind to eulogize him, so I won't even try. I loved my dad and he loved me, his first son, more than we probably ever conveyed to each other. However, despite a relationship affected and strained following a divorce the hurt from which he never did shake free notwithstanding a loving second marriage and the passage of 21 years, the point is that we did love each other, we confronted all issues for better and very often for worse, and we would both have acknowledged we never approached in words our mutual love between father and son, son and father. He would often attribute the sub-optimal times in our relationship to a fact of which he was certain; that I was his son most like him in so many ways. Of course, my predictable but unstated actual response would have been one of denial, but the fact is, regardless of the veracity of his belief in this respect, I realize now more than ever how honored I am that he thought of me that way. Moreover, I realize now more than ever that there is no way I could ever touch, influence, mentor, inspire, motivate 1/100th of the people who passed through the classrooms, soccer fields, and living rooms of my father. I am in a different profession, a different life, and though I'd like to believe I have similar speaking and motivational talents, as Talk Talk sings, life is what you make it. It is a long road ahead, and the pain of my dad's death is far too close for me to have sufficient perspective from which to expound upon learned truths; to connect the dots of memory and fact; ascertain to what extent I could or should have done certain things differently; better understand why and how things went bonkers for us only after his remarriage; pick up the pieces left off in his wake -- things unsaid, relationships with others unresolved, honoring commitments I made to him in the weeks before he died and only now realizing the magnitude of such commitments in light of numerous and diverse new revelations the extent to which my dad never knew....

There is one point I do wish to convey at this time. Neither my dad nor I were/are people who revel in regrets (non, je ne regrette rien....), and especially not with respect to facts underlying our own relationship. We were/are too proud, too headstrong for that. But here is the thing. Irrespective of regret, when looking back in hindsight at the times -- days, months, years -- during which we were at odds over one thing or another and the certitude that to this day I still think I was always in the right and I am positive he likewise thought he was always in the right, what a waste; a calamity. How, or why is it that people who love each other so can let such myopic preoccupations and principles stand in the way of the finitude of our times together on this planet? A waste. As my dad suddenly exclaimed to me with reference to a different, but likewise recurrent subject that did not directly involve me one month before he died, "for what?!?" I resolve to think more broadly, of the bigger picture of what ought to be in contrast to the world according to Paul, the gospel according to Paul. This may sound trite but I defy you to tell me you don't lose sight of this fact in your own life from time to holiday and back again. I know we are humans bound to err and we are inherently consumed with ourselves, some far, far more than others, but when it comes to mothers, fathers, siblings, children, spouses, significant others, dear friends ... life is far too short, far too bereft of compassion to drift from, or grow estranged from the ones you love over what are ultimately, for people who will all one day share the ground from whence they came, trivial, egocentric concerns. My wife sighs and wonders how long my new "I love the world" coda will last, knowing me as she does, but the beauty, after all, lies in the trying. To try, is to be. My dad would have liked that sentiment, and would have been proud to know I've arrived at such a mantra, as perhaps he too would have concluded had I predeceased him. It just shouldn't have to take a death to bring such a sentiment to life; make it real....