[CT] My father passed on Sunday

[Dan Moran]

Derek Glidden wrote:

> You sound very calm (maybe you're just writing very calmly) which is
> admirable and even enviable; when I eventually lose a parent (or if,
> since I'm still not fully able to admit that they might die one day)
I'm
> going to be a wreck for months.  It's a frightening prospect.

I feel very calm. I'm not sure if it'll last or not. 

I was 12 when my father had the first of his near-fatal heart attacks --
I've been braced for him to die for so long that right now I have no
idea how I feel about it.

He was the most interesting person I knew -- in the sense of having
depths and contradictions to him. He was astonishingly charming -- the
last couple years he lost a lot of his interest in women, but he was
dating a woman in his 30s when he was in his late 60s. Started by dating
the mother, broke up with the mother, waited a respectable period,
started dating the daughter. I've had people (women -- no man's ever
criticized me for it, unsurprisingly) call me promiscuous over the
course of the years -- my only response has been, fuck, you don't know
my Dad; Warren Beatty had nothing on him.

I've spent my entire life comparing myself to him and more often than
not feeling like I didn't measure up. I had lunch with Sean Connery once
-- and granted, he was a movie star and the entire room was focused on
him -- but if he hadn't been a movie star he'd have had the same
response. I get that myself -- put me in most rooms and if I want to run
the room, I can. But I don't get it the way men like Connery get it -- I
don't get it the way my father got it. He was extraordinarily good
looking -- not the way some men are, good-looking to the point where
they approach feminity -- he was a rugged black Irish with an
extraordinarily masculine voice and presence. There's an acronym the
Christians use -- WWJD -- I've spent most of my adult life asking
myself, "What Would Dad Do." There's a theory that young men without
fathers are more prone to violence because their image of masculinity
came from a movie screen and television -- I'm sure that's at least part
of the answer. I never had to wonder what "being a man" meant -- all I
ever had to do was look at my father. He was one.

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