My father’s library: A very personal reflection

Originally published in December, 2015, I have updated this essay with an addendum.

I was standing in my father’s library last night, looking for a book I could not find, but as I scanned the titles I began to read the shelves as life lines, like the lines that always creased his forehead and fanned out from the corners of his eyes as he squinted through the windshield or glanced up into the rearview mirror of the car. For as long as I can remember, my father never drove without a grimace. The shelf lines are deep and distinct. His love of classic literature represented in tattered hardcover volumes with faded lettering on the spines. His life long obsession with Russia marked with rows of history books, discourses on Stalin and Marxism taking up more space than I’d remembered. And the Soviet literature, of course. Then his more recent forays into western American literature, Ivan Doig, Wallace Stegner. I wonder when he ever took the time to read. When other men might have eased into a life of retirement, my father resisted. Retirement is, like false teeth or hearing aids, for old men. He is 87.

My father is one of those men who, living by Dylan Thomas’ dictum not to go gentle into that good night, has spent his life fighting death with massive doses of mega-vitamins, a deep-seated distrust of doctors, and the belief that if one keeps on working, dedicating oneself to physical labour day after day after day, the Grim Reaper will never get a foothold. Ever. That means continuing to struggle with wheelbarrows full of wet cement, devising new projects, and never turning his back on a beloved old Mercedes that has broken his heart and nearly cost his life a few times. No matter how bent and weary, despite occasionally falling into the wood stove (“it’s nothing”), my father shuffled on defiantly until last Sunday morning when he fell and suffered a massive stroke in the simple human act of putting his pants on, as we all do, one leg at a time.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, was my first opportunity to get up to see him. Fate was not conspiring to make it easy – unless I am reading it wrong – but my car collapsed before I even made it out of town. For better or worse, we were across the street from an established mechanic shop and outside the house of a family who kindly took us in out of the -21c weather until we could make arrangements to get up to my parent’s house, a little cottage in the woods outside a village about 2 hours north of the city I live in. Long story short but one of my brothers was able to drive us, when attempting to rent a car proved impossible. From there I drove my mother, in her car, to Red Deer where my father is hospitalized – a further hour each way.

My first reaction to seeing my father helpless and restrained to his bed was, naturally, heartbreaking. But as my daughter and I took turns holding his hand, stroking his now smooth forehead, witnessing the genuine joy in his eyes – so pleased to see us even if he won’t remember – I realized that I have never, in my life, felt closer to this complicated and difficult man. Meanwhile, my son, hung over and fighting a panic attack, held back, not ready yet to come close. And that’s okay. They have had their own challenges over the years (the long hair and beard chief among them), but he and my father are, in their way, remarkably close. They have gone to the opera together and Thomas has already been given some of his grandfather’s most precious books.

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A childhood favourite of my father’s. My son keeps it safely in a plastic bag.

My father has never been an easy man, but as I grew older I was able to appreciate how harsh his own upbringing was, and to recognize in him the mood disorder we both share, even if he denies its existence. I learned to leave him space, to meet his outbursts without taking them too deeply. After all, how could I, the intellectually inclined, queer black sheep of the family, not love a man who worked in construction camps in remote Ontario, learning the electrical trade organically, until he could save enough to money to do what his family always discouraged – move to New York City and enroll at Columbia in his late twenties. He studied engineering, but he should have been an academic if he could have justified the path. His greatest thrill was reviewing opera and classical music performances for the student newspaper. His love of all things Russian also stems from this era – I am not entirely certain of the exact genesis, but seem to think it may have involved a woman. Hard to imagine,as my father never struck me as the romantic type but he did, in his younger years, bear a striking resemblance to Humphrey Bogart. Maybe there was smoky Russian woman in his past.

As it turned out, he never finished his degree, in those days it wasn’t necessary for an engineering designation. When he met and married my mother in 1957, school was abandoned for full-time employment and, over time, they would move to rural western Canada where he would pine for the New York of the 1950’s while simultaneously looking for more and more remote locations in which to settle. These last few years, working away in defiance of death in a cottage outside of Caroline, Alberta, have probably been some of his happiest. And now we don’t know what the future holds. In the months ahead as my brothers and I seek to find accommodations for our parents, I want to make sure I can look after the library, because unlike the countless carefully labelled jars of salvaged nut and bolts that insulate his workshop, for me, this is where his heart lies.

I want to curate it for him. Whether or not he is ever able to read again, I know he would want the company of some of his books if possible in the future. And I want to trace and record those shelf lines in his honour.

Update: My father did recover to return home, against his doctor’s orders and, for a time managed better than expected. On July 5, 2016 he suffered a stroke and was involved in a head-on collision (as to which came first it will never be known). Remarkably he survived the initial trauma and the stroke, but further complications continued to arise in hospital and he passed away on July 20.

In the midst of all this, my mother was taken to the hospital on July 6 due to infected sores on her feet. When she arrived her oxygen levels were less than 60%. Her lungs had been so restricted by long term effects of osteoporosis that the exchange of CO2 was severely impacted. A respirator failed to reverse the situation, and she passed away on July 9, 2016.

Within two weeks, we lost them both.

Author: roughghosts

Literary blog of Joseph Schreiber. Writer. Reader. Editor. Photographer.

32 thoughts on “My father’s library: A very personal reflection”

  3. Like Audrey, I too found your essay very moving. It must have been such a challenging time for you Joe, especially given everything that has happened over the past year. I hope that you and your father can find some comfort in this library of books over the weeks and months ahead. Take care. J.

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    1. Thanks Jacqui.

      Difficult yes, but also a sense of relief in an odd way. We have all been seeing worrying signs that may have indicated mini strokes over the past few weeks. Something was inevitable. The degree to which he recovers will determine how well he will cope with the changes he inevitably faces now. It is still so early.

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  4. A very moving and interesting post. I’m glad you’ve found writing it helpful. I always find it fascinating looking over people’s bookshelves but even more when it’s someone you know and love. All the best for you and family.

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  5. “…I began to read the shelves as life lines, like the lines that always creased his forehead and fanned out from the corners of his eyes as he squinted through the windshield or glanced up into the rearview mirror of the car.” What a portrait you have painted! I hope you find what you are looking for. What you think he would be looking for.

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  9. Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I wish you and your father the best and know first-hand how difficult it is to have your parent struck down by a stroke. My mother had an acute stroke in mid-November. Quite unexpected. My mother, like your father, defied odds. She was a fighter, outliving lymphoma. I never considered her at risk for a stroke. Her mother died of one, so I know that I, too, am at risk and much watch my health.

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    1. I have followed you accounts of your mother’s stroke. It was always one of my father’s great fears, but I am not surprised, he has been showing worrying signs. The hardest part is the distance. And the fact that my car broke down. I rented a car and my son and I were going to go up today but the forecast is for 5-10 cm of snow. So we will now go Tuesday.

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  10. A beautiful heartfelt post, Joe. That generation of men never learned to express their emotions, which can make relating to them difficult but you can at least take comfort in a shared love of literature. I love the idea of you curating his library for him: those books could not be in better hands. By the sound of things your father is a fighter, so hopefully his hospital stay will be short lived …

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  12. A lovely post,and very moving. I hope your father makes a good recovery, and that you all look after yourselves, too. It’s a difficult and stressful time to be a child. All the best.

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    1. Thank you. I am heading up today. Apparently he was able to eat some toast and peanut butter yesterday and that cheered him greatly. Snow and a lousy rental car has kept me from visiting as I’d intended this week. Wish they were closer.

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  14. The 31st of December was my mother’s 87th birthday. She too is a reader. She too is in quickly failing health. She too lives in books, for books, with books.
    Your thoughts about your father have triggered memories of many kinds. Thank you.

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    1. You’re welcome. My father is making a remarkable recovery, cognitively. I am impressed as I have years of experience working with much younger stroke survivors. He is carrying around a copy of Harpers but reading is difficult. I’m not sure if it’s eyesight or concentration but it is still early. Apart from the long drive to visit I think we are all enjoying this slowed down, calmer man we are finally having a chance to get to know.

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  15. Reblogged this on roughghosts and commented:

    It is the Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. We planned to gather, as a family, at my parents’ house to begin the process of determining what will be kept, sold, and thrown out; and to assess the repairs required before the house can be put on the market next year. However, an early taste of winter has caused us to cancel our plans due to road conditions (they lived two hours northwest of the city where my brothers and I all live). With a mixture of relief and unresolved need to begin the process of closure, I am re-posting an updated version of what was, at the time of its original writing, a premature tribute to my father. The sentiment, now relevant, remains. His library is one of my major concerns.

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  16. What a beautifully written and heartfelt elegy to your father. Transfixingly written. How lovely that you can reflect on that complex relationship with such quiet joy and obvious love. Death is a time of sorrow, but it can also be a time to reflect on all that you’ve gained from a wonderful relationship, and this post reads like the latter. To lose is to have loved. It is small comfort, but it is good to remember that those who leave us leave something behind within us that can never be taken. My condolences on your bereavement. It must be a hard time, but that you can confront it with beauty and love is an honour to your parents, and yourself.

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    1. Thank you for your kind words. When I wrote the original post in December things looked very dire for my father and somehow the words poured out immediately. Even though he recovered the next six months were difficult and we worried about both our parents. And then suddenly they were gone. I think it will be a long time before I can adequately write about that, especially my mother.

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