Father's Day

It is May 5, 2010.

Yesterday I called my parents’ home, as I’ve done weekly since I moved away from home: Clear Lake, Iowa, in 1996. I suppose I’m a little proud of this, but not really. After all, it’s not difficult to stay in touch with me. If you comment on my blog, I’m likely to keep up an wordy email correspondence with you for months on end.

No one was home, and so I got the voice message. “Hello, thanks for calling the…” my mom’s voice began, bright, cheerful and clear. I swallowed, a lump in my throat. The phone’s eerie silence engulfed my mom’s voice almost before the beep. I could barely leave a message, and I hung up, realizing it was the final flicker, for me. The last, minor detail.

Up until a week ago, every time I (or anyone) called the house, and no one answered, my father’s calm voice would instruct callers to leave their voice message: “Hello, thanks for calling. We’re not home at this time, but please leave a message, and we’ll return your call.” My father never developed a nasally north-Iowa accent (though he did utter “warsh” instead of “wash”) and his voice message always was a source of comfort for me, a familiar voice, a bell’s clear peal within any din.

But the last time I heard my dad’s voice, for real, was in January. I was home for a visit over Martin Luther King weekend. Strangely enough, my dad’s voice seemed exceptionally cheerful as he said goodbye to me that Monday morning. After all, we’d suffered through a bout of car trouble on the way up. We left my car, marooned in Clear Lake awaiting a new rim. He eagerly loaned me his almost-new Volkswagen, agreeing to pick up my car and exchange later. It was the least he could do, he said, he was happy to offer as a gesture. And he was legitimately thrilled.

After that weekend, almost immediately, my dad’s voice grew noticeably strained. At first he said it was a sore throat. Then just an infection, a normal side affect of heavy chemotherapy and radiation. He still had his hair, proudly. Then he said his raspy voice was related to a long-term issue in his throat, only aggravated by his lung cancer. It would return. He always said it would come back, maybe not like before, but would be much stronger once he got through another round of medication.

But it didn’t. In February it was a loud whisper, and I suppose he never really believed that it would return, but if he didn’t say his voice would come back, well, then it didn’t have a chance.

And it’s just a voice. He still emailed. It’s not like our phone conversations disappeared, or the talks didn’t happen, or that he couldn’t converse with anyone – it was just different. A hoarse whisper, a throaty laugh, a stilted breath – a little bit sobering to hear. But it wasn’t like the voice was totally gone, or impossible to talk.

The voice message was different, a respite of strength anytime my brother or I called from far away. Each time my parents missed my call, I could hear my Dad, a welcoming cadence informing me to leave a message. At first his message was always reassuring, but later a somber reminder of what, probably, was coming. But at least it was his voice. At least it was him.

And it also served as a reminder of his daily struggles. After a while, his voice grew more faint. He could no longer call and adjust service to anything: phone, gas, utility, credit, whatever. He’d be conscious of making the other person uncomfortable, trying to decipher a wheeze. No more voice recognition, on phone or otherwise. No more ordering food. No more booming, soulful laugh, sounding like he happily gulped for air. It all was gone.

But the voice message remained. So did the phone calls, each and every week. And other phone calls – like when we adopted Sophie the Cat, Jr., or when Ms. Faded Glory won a big trial, or whenever I returned home after a long trip, just to inform my dad I’d made it OK, like I always did. The calls became daily.

And the whisper turned to a gasp, then a pause, and soon it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t even talk on the phone. It was too faint – not a son nor daughter nor spouse just wouldn’t be able to understand.

And it was never shocking, just sad. Depressing and melancholy. The kind of sadness that burrows into your chest. Where it sits, and grows and ebbs and flows.

The last time I heard the whisper, it told me to “Be careful,” as I left Clear Lake, on my way back to Lawrence. Be careful, a stilted whisper but typical phrase, uttered as though life was always the same, as though I’d get home and immediately call my parents just to let them know I was OK, like always. Uttered as though he could even field my check-in call from a sedentary hospital bed, stationed right outside his Main Street window.

And I left.

And in 12 hours, I was back, and the voice was gone for good.

That was in April, and the voice message is now changed. Of course, the message is changed. Of course the message isn’t the only thing. Everything has changed. Absolutely everything’s changed.

I’ll never hear the voice again, except in memory. Which is something, I suppose. You always know this stuff. You’re always aware what’s happening, but it doesn’t seem real until the recordings have fully receded into nothing. Until the pages have been shut. Until the voice disappears into something different, into memory and sadness and acceptance and tears and deliverance and relief and all the emotions that swirl for months, years and far into the distance.

You can make peace with the result. With the disease, and the struggle, and even the end. You can make peace with the successes, the failures, the regrets and the pride, and you can leave nothing left unsaid. But you can’t make peace with the difference – the hollow emptiness, the knowledge that the voice is no longer there, not ever again.

I wish, of course, that I could hear the voice. I suppose we all do. Happy Father’s Day.