It's difficult to let go of a parent. I did not think I'd have to do it so soon. Last night I had dreamed he was still bedrid, only with an unshaved beard. My father always took care to be cleanly shaved, and even when he had a beard it was cut to look nice. I had dreamed he said his journey was not over and that he is still in pain.
My father was an optimist -- a sarcastic optimist -- but still an optimist. So, even though it's hard to let go, I'll try to not be morbid or depressed.
The parastas is in Galati, in open air. We've decided to do it there since it's the city where he was born and where he grew up. When they were young, he and my mother would go to Galati whenever they had a day off. Sometimes the train was crowded. One Christmas eve they traveled in the bathroom of the train because there was no room to stand elsewhere. However, in today's COVID-19 world, I did not travel with my mother and the children to be there. My father valued our safety more than protocol. The distribution of food is done by my father's first cousin, Emil or Emilus as my father affectionately called him.
Emil and my father were partners in a first fight against death. When Emil had been in his early twenties, he developed cancer. He had undergone three surgeries before he mentioned the problem to my father. The tumour kept coming back. My father was in medical school. He participated in the fourth surgery to make sure everything that should be removed was removed until they reached healthy tissue, and then sent the piece they removed to be analyzed in the laboratory. In the other surgeries they had thrown out what was removed without testing it. He then discussed the followup treatment with best oncologist in Bucharest. They did what they thought was the right amount of chemeoterapy, and later my father was credited with Emil's survival. They won the fight against cancer and what's more important, the victory was not temporary. It was a victory that lasted. In the same period, they had another cousin who also had cancer. However, his family did not accept suggestions, and kicked my parents out in a snow storm when they came over to discuss the medical treatment of their 20 year old son. That kid did not make it, but Emilus did and has survied my father. He is now kind enough to pay a last omage to the man who took him to treatments and provided hope when it seemed that there was none.
I am including some pictures of my dad from when he was young. This was the man who received love letters under the door from almost every woman who met him. When he was already in his 50s, I remember I came home from Cornell, and heard that a neighboor who could not find her key jumped in his arms from a wall that was several meters high. She was wearing an evening dress and high heels (she found her key after my mom showed up, and my mom hugged her and welcomed her to our home; it made the situation less akward). Yet he did not want any of them. He wanted my mother, and he wanted a family with her. At some point, my mother suggested he could find a younger wife. His answer: "Are you mad? Another wife? more children? I am not insane." He stood by his family until the end. The winter before he died he updated his will to make sure everything was in order for when he won't be there. I can still hear his words when he talked to the notary to leave everything to my mother: "Dau tot!, "Dau tot!" ("I leave her everything, everything!").
