#58: Survivor's guilt; survivor's love.
My dad had a stroke, but he's more than alright.
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“Deep dish or thin crust?”
“Dad, we are in Chicago,” I responded, “of course the pizza has to be deep dish!”
We were sitting at my dad’s kitchen island. Even though I had been there for almost two hours, I was still reveling in the sight of him, taking deep breaths like I was trying to inhale his presence into my cellular memory… which I was.
I had not seen him since Kendall’s graduation in June, and since his stroke shortly thereafter.
It had all begun with a fall and a jumble of words, and then — due to his wife Gail’s quick thinking — rapidly progressed to an ambulance trip to the Northwestern ER. A week in the hospital. Numerous tests. Multiple medications. Lots of specialists. A diagnosis of an asymptomatic lifelong heart issue. A stent inserted in early November.
When I arrived last Friday afternoon, dad welcomed me in with a warm hug, and we dove straight into the tome of medical records he had collected in the last five months.
We are cardiology experts in a way that no two MBAs should be, so we looked at pictures of his arteries, pre- and post-stent. We gave a sigh of relief that our arch-nemesis artery, the Left Anterior Descending — the one that ended Mike’s life — was in no way involved with dad’s issue. We don’t need two widow-maker heart attacks in the family. Though the stroke still cut it pretty close. Without Gail, who knows if my dad would be alive, let alone moving, talking, hugging, eating deep dish like his regular self.
A miracle, the docs had said.
Nothing like staring death in the face to work up an appetite. Thirty minutes later, he and I trudged out in the rain for pizza pickup, the puddles reflecting all the city lights — from car to Christmas — wrapping us in holiday warmth despite the damp chill. “Hold on a sec, Dad! I want to take a picture of you in front of the pizza joint. My Chicago friends will want to know what kind of deep dish we had.”
Mike’s passing (and this newsletter) have emboldened me.
Which was good, because a conversation the old Sue could never have had now felt urgent.
It was the next morning and I had my father captive as he drove me to the airport.
“Dad, so do you feel different?” I began.
He did to me. In the 18 hours I had just spent with him, I had seen him tear up more than once, engage in personal conversations, and muse about the big questions of life. This is not the practical, stoic, reserved father I remember from my childhood, or even last year.
“Well, you know, when you guys were very little, I made a conscious choice to be as healthy as I could — running marathons, never smoking or drinking — so I would be around for the long haul. So many people in my family died young or had poor health. I didn’t want to do that to you kids. So I changed my habits for good and figured I would not have to worry about dying until after I was, well, at least 83! I’m just so surprised this happened when I have done everything right.”
Can’t argue with that.
It’s scary as hell to be faced with your mortality, especially when you’ve worked so hard to minimize it. It’s a terrifying reminder of how little control we have… But I didn’t see fear in him. I just felt more love. Openness. Connection.
“Dad, you may not see this yourself, but you seem to have a new appreciation for life.”
“Well, I’d agree with that,” he said after a moment’s thought. “But I still do have survivor's guilt. No one’s children should die before them.”
And Mike, although technically his son-in-law, was his child too.
Fathers want to protect their children from pain and suffering.
If the crazy logic of the universe had allowed for it, dad would have volunteered to trade places with Mike without a second thought. To minimize the loss for the kids and I, but also because that’s the natural order of things. Parents are supposed to die first.
For years, I cursed the resulting guilt raincloud my dad seemed to be stuck under.
Back in 2020, for example, I had a podcast I really wanted my dad to listen to. It was my very first interview, and the very first question was about the moments that defined my upbringing.
I told the story of how, when we were little, my dad wanted all his kids to play sports. I was still too young for team endeavors, but my older sister was game and ready. There was no girl’s softball league in our town. So my dad did the logical thing (in his mind) — he strong-armed the boys’ Little League into allowing my sister to join. The other fathers were aghast. This was the early 70s and that sort of thing just wasn’t done.
My dad was not a feminist or a women’s libber per se. He transcended any label. In a matter-of-fact way, he just believed opportunity was for everyone. He never once said, “You can do anything a man can do,” because it was just understood. We could do whatever we wanted to do, period. Gender wasn’t a factor.
Almost 50 years later I wanted my dad to hear me tell this story. To hear what an impact it had on my entire worldview, my success at work and life.
But months went by and dad still hadn’t listened.
“Dad, do you need me to resend you the link?” I gracelessly prodded.
“No, I have it. I just need to get in the right frame of mind to listen,” he responded.
“It’s not maudlin, I promise! It’s a very empowering interview,” I urged.
“I don’t doubt that. But I still suffer from survivor’s guilt sometimes,” he replied. I dropped the subject.
It was really hard to watch my dad carry that burden even when the kids and I were busy succeeding, evolving, turning our lives from a tragedy into a redemption story.
But now, he’s got his own redemption story to live out.
And it doesn’t matter that the guilt still weighs on him. Because that’s life — it’s never going to be all perfect, all happy, all sunshine and rainbows.
He only feels guilty because he loves the crap out of me and the kids, after all.
What surprises me most about loss, over and over again, is not the depth of despair that follows.
That’s expected.
But the sheer ferocity of the love that remains always knocks me off my feet.
Last weekend, I watched my dad be moved to speechlessness by acts of kindness, past and present. I feel him engaged even more deeply in caring for his children and grandchildren. We text frequently about how the kids and the Steelers are doing. He’s still up to his same 79-year-old routines, but with a new level of intention. He’s checked in when so many people his age are slipping out the back door.
Everyone says ‘I would die for you’ like it’s some heroic act, but in my estimation, living is harder.
To live in the ongoing tragedy that is life and let it crack you open rather than shut you down. To allow hurt and pain to show you just how much you’d do anything for the people you hold dear. To become the most loving version of yourself because when you can’t control a damn thing, loving is all you’ve got.
I think dad lived the harder bargain compared to Mike. First, he had to watch me and the kids suffer without being able to make it better. Then, he got to live with knowing that no matter how much he cares, he can’t fix everything. And most recently, despite all the marathons and absolutely no vodka gimlets, he got whacked with a stroke that should’ve ended his life. He can’t put his faith in the future, even though he has worked so hard to secure it for himself and his family.
What’s left then?
A father who loves like there is no tomorrow.
With love for life,
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I had great deep dish when I was in Chicago in 2014 but for the life of me, I can't remember where it was from. It might have been Giordano's. (I just looked at a list of top restaurants in Chicago and now I'm very hungry.)