If fate had its way, I never would have been born. My dad should have died a number of times before I was even a thought in his head.
My father has had one of those ridiculous lives where you only realize just how ridiculous it is once you recount the events out loud. When the Boston Marathon bombings happened, I was upset for the obvious reasons. But I was consumed by "what ifs" because my parents, who live in the city, always attend the marathon and sit by the finish line to cheer on the runners. They didn't on this occasion for the first time in years simply because of an out-of-town appointment they couldn't miss.
In high school, during practice, my father was struck in the head by a baseball that immediately knocked him unconscious. (By the way, his religion teacher/baseball coach was the one who threw the ball — and then failed my dad for the semester because he missed so much class due to being in the hospital.)
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He was in a coma for days, given his last rites and was expected to die.
He recovered to live out the following experiences: He survived a crash landing in a plane; walked in on an armed robbery; was a door away from a homicide on a hotel floor; and was one of the people who was supposed to stay in the World Trade Center hotel on 9/11 before his meeting was canceled.
One of his most meaningful experiences, however, was his own father's passing at a young age.
When my father was in the Marines during the Vietnam War and stationed in the South, his father collapsed and died of a heart attack. He was 53. He had no previous health problems.
When someone close to you dies unexpectedly — and even more so when you face death yourself — you gain perspective. And that's what happened with my own father. He takes care of himself, to be sure, but that's not all it's about. He lives the life he wants to — he makes decisions and plans and follows through, a quality I lack but wish I didn't.
My mother's bout with cancer made him even more like this.
Let it be known that my dad is a much cooler person than I: He's ridiculously smart and successful, but more than that, his personal life is extraordinarily full. Now retired, he travels with my mother each week — to his stomping grounds in New York and New Jersey, to the beaches in California and Hawaii, and to glamorous cities in countries I've only been able to read about (I'm totally not jealous of this, of course). He's living the life he wants to because health is fragile, mental health needs as much attention as physical health, and life is short — and he knows all that.
As I wrote last month, my mother's cancer really made me aware of my own health, about being proactive and about the element of survival. But my father — in his own solemn, quiet way — taught me about the importance of living. Life is more than work and stress and waiting "someday" to do something you want to. "Someday" isn't always guaranteed.
This week my family is not only celebrating Father's Day; we also are marking a big milestone for my dad. He turns 65 today. He's the one senior citizen I would trade lives with in a second.
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