I received news today that my father had died. He’d had pneumonia, the “old man’s friend”, but somehow I didn’t expect him to die of it. He’d been written off so many times and pulled through that even though I thought it was theoretically possible, I didn’t really believe this would be it. And perhaps the idea that my father could die, that it was possible, wasn’t something I really believed, emotionally
But he could. And he has.
A big man, both tall and broad with a red face, my father was one of those men for whom “larger than life” was coined. His temper was legendary, and he often seemed to radiate fury. I had seen him, in his prime, wade into large crowds, and a path would melt open in front of him without a word being spoken or him having to push at all. I have seen men literally shake when he lowered his voice to a whisper. His ready temper made him a bad father in many respects, and a worse husband, but it had its uses. I still remember, when I was 23, and extremely ill, the way my father used his fury, a living thing which seemed barely leashed, to make sure I got the care I needed, and was treated the way he felt I should be.
He had me late, at age 39, so I never knew him as a young man. From the time I was 1 till I was 5, we lived in Malaysia, and we seemed to be quite wealthy. But a business deal went bad, due to politics, and my father lost it all. He never really recovered. There was a nasty edge to his temper afterwards which I don’t remember from before. Always a bit of a boozer, he hit the alcohol harder, drinking every night when he came home. We returned to Canada, but somehow he seemed out of place there. He was a man meant for Asia, a man more at home in other countries than in his own.
In my life, he seemed most comfortable as a boss, especially in third world countries. When he managed a large project in Bangladesh during my teens, he seemed in his element The temper which in Canada caused him problems was shrugged off, and his loyalty and fairness shone through and were respected by those who worked for him. I remember his second in command, a local man, telling me that he didn’t care about my father’s rages, what he cared about was that if my father was wrong, or did wrong, he would admit and apologize. What mattered is that when man’s wife was sick, and needed medicine, he’d get it for him. What mattered is that if a man needed help in court, my father would be there for him. In Bangladesh the temper was not an issue, and his virtues were respected.
Infamously focused on “getting the job done”, he didn’t manage UN FAO (Food and Agriculture) headquarters well, cutting past their procedures and concerns time and time again. I remember hearing the blow-by-blow of his battles with “Rome”, year after year. He was protected by the fact that the locals whom he was there to help, including the Chief Forester and the Minister, loved him.
Eventually, of course, Rome finished him off. They told his supporters in country that it was bad for his career to stay so long in one place, removed him from Bangladesh and his support, then they never gave him work ever again. A beautiful piece of bureaucratic infighting, from which he never fully recovered, being a man who needed a job to do which mattered. Playing nice and by the rules had won out over getting the job done, and my father was a dinosaur, a man who grew up in the Great Depression, a man with little finesse and no respect for rules which didn’t make sense to him. The bull had been gelded.
My own relationship with my Dad was rocky. I didn’t like how he treated me, and more importantly, I didn’t like how he treated my mother. For a couple years in my twenties I cut off all contact with him, and unfortunately with my mother (it being one of those households where it was impossible to get to the wife without going through the husband.) His drinking and his temper revolted me.
As with many men, much of what I am today is in direct reaction to my father—in direct reaction against him. And yet, the truth is I have many of his characteristics, including his distaste for game playing, his belief that doing the job right is what matters and his unwillingness to tolerate bullshit and hypocrisy.
But as he aged, he mellowed. We arranged that there would be no drinking during my visits. And, perhaps most importantly, when I was deathly ill in my early 20s, he charged out from Victoria BC, to Toronto and helped in every way he could. It’s something I’ve never forgotten. The one time it really mattered, he came through.
So I’ll miss the old bastard. I wish I’d taken his illness more seriously this time, and gone out to see him, but I’ll try and honor his memory by remembering the best of him, the man who got the job done in the third world, saving many lives and to hell with Rome; the man who charged out to Toronto and helped me when I was sick; the man who helped many of those who needed it, who was loyal to his friends and those who worked for him.
If there is an afterlife, may he find in it a battle worthy of his rage, and the wisdom to know when and who to unleash it on. In many ways he wasn’t a good man, but he was a man, and if he wasn’t a good family man, it is still true that the world is a better place for him having lived than if he had not.
May we all be able to say the same when our own time comes.
