It’s been forty-five years since Dad died.

Ten years ago, I wrote Hard to Believe, But Not Hard to Believe on the thirty-fifth anniversary of his death, the gist of that post being that it was hard to believe that it had actually been 35 years since his death. Now, ten years later, it feels like a lifetime.

For one thing, Mum is gone now too, as are all but one of his siblings, and all but one of his in-laws. I’ve written too many memorials over the past couple of years. But mainly, it’s that a lot has happened now, without him. My siblings married, a couple of them had children, and one of those grandchildren is now a mother herself. I’ve been through five jobs, two of them fairly lengthy, and I’ve now moved. He’s been out of the picture for way too long.

Anytime I think of the grandkids and Dad at the same time, I think of what a shame it was that they never knew him — Dad was great with kids. Before he married, he was a surrogate father to his dead brother’s daughters, and he was great with us, and my cousins and many of the kids in the neighborhood.

I would have loved to have gone picture taking with him. Dad was a great photographer, and not fully appreciated within the family. He would put on the occasional slide show of family pictures, but what I didn’t realize fully until after he was gone was that he had a bunch of pictures he didn’t show, because they weren’t people pictures — but they were really good. Dad started letting me use his cameras when I was in high school, but they were both rangefinders, with fixed lenses. I didn’t get my first SLR until the year after he died. I wish I could have gone shooting with him.

When he had the time, Dad loved to paint pictures of ships. Square riggers, especially, and clipper ships in particular. He would go downstairs late at night, put on the old radio, and paint. He started by taking slides of pictures in books, and then he would project the slide onto the blank canvas and trace the outlines. Sometimes I would wake up late at night, and somehow know he was down there — maybe I heard the radio? — and go downstairs and watch. I remember one night, he showed me how he was painting the roundness of a sail. He showed me how he painted the shadows in the corners of the sail, and the brightness in the belly of the sail. And he knew the history of them; I remember one night, his subject was a Black Ball packet ship, and him telling me about them. I remember him mentioning that the lights in the cellar where he was painting were relatively yellow, and that was why the color palette of his paintings was blueish. I was fairly young during the years when he was doing most of his painting, and the memories have grown blurry, but they’re my favorite memories of him.

Dad was a Boston patrolman, and a good one. When I was going through the papers Mum had saved, I found two separate letters of commendation he had received. He liked to help people, and couldn’t abide cruelty.

Dad loved the outdoors, especially the Blue Hills. There was a short-lived mountain bike rental concession near Trailside Museum, and I tried it out. I remember thinking the whole time, God, Dad would have loved this.

It’s been too long without him.

Forty years ago this morning, I was on my way to start my first day of student teaching. I took the Riverside Line out to Newton Center, and as I passed through the Longwood area, I looked out the window, and got a glimpse of the distinctive Deaconess Hospital garage. I’d been there several times, visiting my father, who was dying of cancer.

I made it to the school, checked in with the secretary, and was just talking with the cooperating teacher before the kids arrived, when the principal came in, pulled me aside, and told me that my Dad was gone. My uncle Kip was on his way to pick me up. I vaguely remember hugging Mum when I got home, and I think there were a couple of officers from the Boston Police there to offer their condolences and pick up his gun and badge.

I still wonder if I was passing by his hospital at the moment he died.

Five years ago, I wrote “Hard to Believe, and Not Hard to Believe“. This anniversary feels different. It has been a long time, and there has been more water over the bridge. Mum had her 80th birthday three years ago, and her stroke a year ago. Dad’s older brother George died this spring, at the age of 94. I still have all the memories of that horrible summer, but they’re more distant somehow.

In any case, when I remember, I prefer to remember the time before. I remember going downstairs to watch him paint. I remember him explaining how he created the roundedness of the ship sails by curving the edges and adding shadows in the corners.

I remember him passing along his love of photography to me. My uncle Tom sent back a set of darkroom equipment from Japan while he was overseas; Dad helped me set it up. In hindsight, I wonder if Tom had sent the equipment to Dad, and Dad gave it to me. Dad taught me how to use his cameras, how to set the aperture and shutter speed; and how to use the rangefinder, and him letting me use his cameras. (I also remember him blowing up at me while he was trying to show me how to use the Polaroid; I had trouble seeing the frame marks at first).

I remember the weenie roasts up in the Blue Hills. He must have set up half a dozen sites over the years before settling on one that he liked by a small brook. The weenie roasts were quintessential Dad, combining his love of the outdoors, how great he was with kids — and it wasn’t just his own kids, there were often neighbors and/or cousins along — and his disregard for rules.

I remember helping him in the garden. For the last decade or so of his life, he was really into vegetable gardening. He dug out a small plot by the porch, and enlarged it a couple of years later. The soil here isn’t great, so he added bags and bags full of cow manure, and took great pride in his tomatoes.

I really wish he had lived to see his grandchildren. Dad was so good with kids.

I wish he had lived long enough to go shooting with me with my cameras. I think using an SLR instead of a rangefinder would have been a revelation for him. And interchangeable lenses! I would have loved to have seen what he could have done with a telephoto. And now digital. A couple of years ago, I was in the hold of HMS Victory, taking pictures with existing light. He would have loved that whole day — the ship visits, the photography, everything.

Two years before he died, he and Mum had their twentieth anniversary, so we decided to have a surprise party for them. I used his camera to take pictures of the party. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the flash, so I had to use existing light and a slow shutter speed. I got a couple of pictures of them opening packages:

It’s hard to believe its been 35 years since the day my Dad died. I remember the summer of 1980 all too well. I remember going to see him at Carney, before his operation, when it was hoped that they would be able to remove the section of his esophagus with the tumor, and I remember coming home from finals to find out that it was inoperable. I didn’t realize then how bad the news was; I foolishly believed the optimistic stories of how effective chemotherapy could be, and wondered why he was getting radiation treatment instead. I didn’t learn until later how intractable esophageal cancer is.

I remember watching him waste away over that summer, in constant pain and fatigue. I remember sitting with my sister in the living room, and hearing him retching in the next room. Should we go try to help? Not much we could do. Would it embarrass him? Probably. We wound up doing nothing.

I remember my uncles and cousin coming to the house to insulate and finish it, and install a wood stove, to make things easier for my mother.

I remember having to explain to my college advisor, after a meeting about not missing any part of student teaching, that my father was very ill, and it was very likely that there would be a problem.

I remember taking the Riverside Line out to the host school the first day of school, and looking up at the distinctive parking garage of the Deaconess Hospital, and thinking that’s where Dad was. And I remember about an hour later, the principal of the school, who surely did not want this job, coming to tell me that my Dad was gone.

I remember the end of that week, after the funeral, walking through the empty house, and feeling how strange it was that he was gone and not coming back, and that this was the new normal.

And yet, it’s not hard at all to believe. Thirty-five years, after all, is a long time, and there’s been a lot of water under the bridge.

His children, who ranged from 21 down to almost 14, are now all grown, and three of them are married. I think he would have liked his sons and daughter in law.

There are now five grandchildren that he never knew, and never got to know him. He’s just a name and a fact and a set of pictures to them, the same way I never knew his father, which is a shame. Dad was great with kids. He would have played with them, and taught them how to do stuff and teased them and explained things to them. He loved having kids around. I remember, still, watching him paint when I was little, and the gentle tone he had as he explained how he created the shading on the sails he was painting.

I think he would have loved to have tagged along on the trip my brothers and my brother’s sons took out to Colorado.

Dad was a great photographer, and in his last couple of years, he was starting to let me use his cameras, and share his interest in photography. I’m not sure he would have gotten into digital photography, but he would have loved SLRs, and being able to compose through the viewfinder and switch lenses and meter automatically. I really wish we could have gone shooting together.

Dad loved the outdoors in general, and the Blue Hills in particular. I remember, about twenty years ago, renting a mountain bike, and riding through the network of paths there, and thinking he would have loved it. I think he would have enjoyed the company of his son-in-law Paul walking through the woods, and perhaps he would have even developed an interest in birding. And often, when I’m kayaking, I think, “Dad would have loved this.”

It’s hard to believe I’m now older than my Dad ever was.

It’s hard to believe my mother has been a widow longer than she’d been a wife.

 I am so grateful that we kids, out of ignorance, set up a twentieth anniversary party for them, because we thought that was the big number, rather than waiting for a twenty-fifth than never came.

It’s hard to believe that had he lived, he’d be 88 this year.

It’s hard to believe his brother has grown children who never knew him.

It’s hard to believe his son has a grown son who never knew him.

But it’s not hard to believe that we still miss him.