Dads of Daughters: This is how you do it

Ever since Mom passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in March, we've been going through her apartment, trying to get the place ready for sale. Mom saved everything. EVERYTHING. 

Today I found the speech that my father gave at my wedding. Of course, I heard it before, on Sept 3rd, 1989, but that was a long time ago, and I was pretty overwhelmed with emotions on the day. I remember crying at the time, but today when I found it, I cried again for completely different reasons. My father died in November 2013, but even before that he had lost the incredible intelligence and way with words that made him the man he was to Alzheimer's. But not the love for us. He never lost that. His eyes always lit up when he saw us, even if he didn't remember our names.

Finding this speech brought my father back to me and made me miss him all over again. But it also reminded me of how much of who I am is because of who he and Mom were. If I am brave, it was because Dad and Mom were brave. If I have the courage to stand up for what is right, it is because he and Mom were courageous. 

If I have now found the love and support of a good man who respects my intelligence, it is because my father deeply loved my mother and respected her intelligence. 

Fathers of daughters: This is how you do it. 

Mom's Words of Wisdom

When you're grieving, you never know what will trigger the next meltdown, that next wave of uncontrollable sobbing, the feeling that your heart is broken into so many tiny fragments that it cannot ever possibly be whole again.

This morning I wanted to be brave, because my mother had been taking a memoir class at the Ferguson Library in Stamford, and she'd been working hard to complete her recollections, focusing on the theme of strong women in our family. I found out from someone in her class who came to make a condolence call that the deadline is April 18th, and so I'm going to try to finish the job for her.  Her work was all laid out on the dining room table in her apartment, and we'd put it in an archive box.

I hadn't had the courage to start reading, but I knew I had to do it today.

And at the end of chapter two, I read this:

"Life is a patchwork quilt. Each piece of experience, whatever size or shape, is part of our whole being. Our friends and family, our children, and their children, our forbearers and those to come in the future, all enlarge the quilt. We are covered in their love. And our love covers them.

I learned from a woman who was a prisoner in Romania in solitary for several years. She said that experiences couldn't be taken away from her, as material things can. Throughout her incarceration and torture, she made her thoughts turn to experiences: trips she would retake in her mind, planning how she would decorate her new home if she got out. Give yourself and your family every experience, don't wish you had done something and put it off."


My mother was an amazing, strong woman. I miss her so much.

PS: I taught my youngest nephew "Carpe Diem" on Sunday. I told him it was the way smart people say "YOLO." Then I introduced him to my friend Irene, who grew up in Germany and is a Latin scholar, to make sure he said it correctly. So now he knows how to say it in both English and German learned Latin. CARPE DIEM, my friends. And sew your love into the patchwork quilt of humanity.

SORROW FLOATS: Eulogy for my father – STANLEY P. DARER

delivered at Temple Beth El, Wednesday November 6th, 2013

I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if not for the influence of our father, Stanley Paul Darer – Schmaria Pesach ben Aaron v Malka

A critical part becoming a good writer is learning to be good reader. My father was a voracious reader who modeled to us, his children, that not moment of time that could be devoted to reading should be wasted - not even when sitting on the throne doing one’s business.

We always had a wide range of reading material available everywhere in our house, including the bathroom, which is where I got my start reading Foreign Affairs. Dad’s taste’s ran heavily towards spy novels, for obvious reasons, as well as autobiographies, and historical non-fiction.

Dad taught us the importance of learning from history – something I wish more politicians would learn. As kids, we’d snuggle up in our PJ’s watching the amazing BBC documentary series The World at War with him. He was way before his time with “reality TV” – except there was nothing lighthearted or prurient about this variety.

But Dad wasn’t always serious. He loved the absurd, too and we’d laugh together watching Monty Python and Benny Hill.

Dad was like that – quick to anger, but equally quick to laughter.
He taught us we should observe, and more importantly that we should care about what was going on in the world around us.

He also taught us, by his example, to be good citizens who engaged in public service. But as we got older and started developing our own points of view, we didn’t always agree on the direction of that public service. When my political views started to diverge from Dad’s, the arguments at family get togethers could get loud and quite spectacular, as my children Josh and Amie can attest.

Losing Dad to Alzheimer’s has been a slow, painful grieving process – I compare it to having your heart cut out with a butter knife. I hate the disease for robbing me of conversations I wanted to have with Dad, for robbing Josh and Amie of more time with their beloved Grandpoo, and for stealing the chance for Dylan, Daniel and Hank to get to know Papa and Dad as he really was. But as painful as it’s been for all of us, there have been moments of grace and humor, and even some lessons that living with this for the last ten years has taught me.

I learned that being open and giving to others eases your pain, too. I’d bring our dog Benny to visit Dad, with whom he had a very special relationship. If Dad was having a bad day and I felt sad, taking Benny to visit the other residents and seeing the smiles he brought to their faces made me feel better. Benny and I have made so many friends at Waveny that we’re planning to go for official therapy dog training so we can continue our visits.

Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned from Dad’s condition is to live more in the present. I’m Jewish, and a Mother, which (funnily enough) makes me a Jewish Mother, and if that weren’t enough qualification for being a total worry wort, I’ve fought depression and anxiety since I was a teenager. When I went to visit Dad I had to learn to go with the flow - to meet him wherever he happened to be that day. Sometimes it was the past, but mostly it was the present. We’d hold hands, listen to music, enjoy walking Benny, and just being together. The last time my father said coherent words to me, he smiled, kissed my hand and said, “You’re wonderful.” He might not have remembered my name, or even that I was specifically his daughter, but he remembered his love all of us up to the very end.

And that’s the other really important thing I’ve learned from this long and painful journey. I’ve been to weddings of Christian friends, and always loved Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. I’ve thought of it often these last few years: “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Dad didn’t remember my name, but his face still lit up when he saw me. Love is the greatest of these, and it’s what has supported us all and helped us get through this difficult time.

One vacation when I was home from college, Dad was reading The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. He drove me crazy because he’d start cracking up while he was reading and then he’d insist on reading the passage that made him laugh aloud. They were mainly about Sorrow, the Labrador, “a fetcher and farter”. I think Sorrow tickled his funny bone because we also had a Labrador – (Winnie, named after Winston Churchill) who could be rather flatulent himself.

I finally begged Dad to stop because I wanted to read the book myself. Like I said, Dad was great at modeling reading – and, pretty good at book talking, too.

But when he finally handed me the book, my father didn’t warn me about the sad bit - the part that made me cry so much when I got to it that I had to put the book down for the rest of the day to recover before I could continue reading.

Dad taught us how to drive, he taught us really inappropriate jokes, he taught us patriotism and the importance of casting our vote, he taught us to respect the office of the President even if you don’t agree with the man in that office. He taught me that I should always drink alcohol more slowly than any guy who took me out on a date. When I was going through my divorce, he came to Chabad every Shabbat to sit next to my son and help him prepare for his Bar Mitzvah.

But here’s the thing - Dad knew that we had to discover for ourselves that Sorrow Floats.

And even though we’ve had so long to prepare for this, even though we thought we were prepared, the shock of turning the page and learning that lesson, that Sorrow Floats, is just as devastating now as it was when I read the Hotel New Hampshire, all those years ago. But this time, I can’t go and talk to Dad about it, which only makes it more so.

STANLEY PAUL DARER
1934-2013

This is one of our favorite family pictures of Dad because it is so him - how many people would go for a camel ride in the desert in a coat and tie? But it was so very, very Dad.