Throwing Water at My Feet

Standing next to my dead father—safety at last, forgiveness at last.

The first dead body I ever touched was my fathers’. He’d died a couple days earlier, in his sleep, at the hospital where he was undergoing a battery of tests to figure out why his health was deteriorating so rapidly. The weight loss he’d tried to achieve his whole life was finally happening; too much, too fast.

I’d seen him a few weeks before at his godson Nat’s wedding, another big family shindig; this one in the French wine country. I’d left to go back to LA, very aware of his decline. I kissed him goodbye in the entrance of their Paris apartment. As frail as he was, he came to the door, to perform an old family ritual: When someone left for more than a few days, the one who stayed would throw water at their feet, metaphorically invoking the cycle of waves; what goes away has to come back.

My father had all sorts of superstitions. Maybe from having started his life from a mother who believed he was cursed. He was afraid the “evil eye” would steal his good fortune. Up until the end, if one of us ever spoke enthusiastically about anything, he would shush us into silence, fearing we were inviting bad fortune upon ourselves. At the end of any party where guests marveled at his success, or ours, I watched him run to the kitchen, grab a pinch of coarse salt, gather us in a circle, and rotate it above our heads five times while saying, “May God protect us from the evil eye.” And if that wasn’t weird enough, he would make us spit in the hand holding the salt, run to the bathroom, and throw the salt in the toilet, where whoever needed to pee, had to pee on it.

Leaving my parent’s house was not a simple act. Since my father had no boundaries to speak of, I had to hold mine firm. My options for kissing him goodbye were a lose-lose predicament. I could either play along while he kissed me on the lips [which would trigger my resentment]. Or I could avoid him altogether [which he would see as rejection]. Or, I could push him away [which would cause a scene] — [which would upset mom]. Like I said, lose-lose.

All I wanted was to say goodbye to my father: not be French kissed, or have my breasts brushed against, or have his lips linger on my neck, or my waist grabbed to be brought closer, and certainly not have my arms forced around his neck.

I grew up with these constant mini-invasions of my body. A thousand paper cuts. Not overtly destructive, yet so intrusive. That’s probably where the seed was planted for my profound commitment to be a conscious human. Not intending to hurt people does not mean you don’t hurt them.

The last day of that trip was my last time being in his living presence; I could feel it. He had shuffled his slippers all the way to the sitting area in the entry room. I knelt down in front of the frail shell of what used to be my strong and scary father, resting my forehead on his. I let him kiss me in whatever way he wanted. Well aware of his labored breathing, I helped him up to the door, so he could throw his water at my feet. I kissed him one more time, arms around his neck —he loved that so much — and walked to the elevator more slowly than usual.

“This is my last time seeing him,” I whispered to my man as I pressed the down button.

A few days later, back in LA, I awoke to a message from my mother, somber, composed.

“Papa est mort.”

Dad is dead.

The scream that came out of my throat scared my cats off the bed. There it was: the end. No more attempts to make him understand. No more hope for anything to change. No more opportunities to make things better.

My man was in the kitchen, making breakfast; he knew right away and got us on a plane to Paris hours later. Leah came from NY and met us the next day. There is something about hugging your child the day you bury your parent; an unspoken sense that in the natural order of things, you’re next ­— and we both knew it.

The hospital had a morgue /chapel / lobby for families next to its main building. Neutral enough to handle every holy denomination. We’re Jewish so a Star of David was hung on the wall. I smiled, imagining it was someone’s job to shift the symbol to a cross, or a crescent, or nothing at all — as the case may be — multiple times a day. 

I asked if I could be left alone with him. Rather, I asked if anyone else wanted to be left alone with him. When you’re raised by narcissists, you don’t ask for what you want, you pack it into a request that seems to benefit them — it works better that way.

Everyone agreed. We quietly moved our bodies to form a line, in a weird un-discussed Alpha-dog type of way. First and last positions were most relevant; in between didn’t matter.  My mother first, my brother last. I was in between,  third in line— fitting.

My brother was looking more and more like our father. Today, in this vestibule, where people had mourned their dead for decades, under bleak fluorescent lighting, it struck me again, that in the natural flow of things, he would most likely be the next man to die in my family of origin.

It is not a neutral occurrence, standing next to your dead father. All sorts of unresolved parts of our relationship went spiraling in my head, clashing with the stillness of this moment. Not in any particular order: forgiveness I wished I’d felt; resentments I wished I’d released; things I wished I’d said; absolution I wished I could have given; tenderness I wished I could have mustered. Obviously at this point, none of it was relevant to him.

Standing there, I imagined being five years old, and reshooting the movie of our lives, with all of us less in pain. I didn’t have that luxury. He didn’t either.

My father’s nickname was “Never Enough.” No matter what he did, or we did, it should have been better, bigger, faster, more. In those last moments together, I wondered if our idiosyncrasies stayed with us when we die. I imagined the reaction of whoever welcomed my father on the other side, when he would frown and comment that the sun rising was not all that impressive.

The question of what to say in the presence of your dead father is a deep one. If I decided to say something, I knew for an absolute fact that it would be said with no attempt on my part to have any effect. It would be a shot from my heart, a clean arrow echoing in the vastness with nothing to bounce back from. It would be for me and only me.

I stood next to him alone for a while, wondering if it was selfish to be taking my time. I could feel the tension as others waited their turn to say their last goodbyes. The byproduct of narcissistic up-bringing is to learn the art of not taking up too much space or time. I made an exception, on a day like today; his last instant not in the ground: ‘I will take my time,’ I heard myself say out loud. And that was that.

I leaned in, ready to kiss his forehead, undecided if I would let my lips actually touch the white shroud covering him. Inches closer, I felt the chilling cold emanating from his face.

The temperature at which they keep dead bodies must be below zero. I had passing thoughts of this man — my sun-worshiping father— born in the blazing Algerian heat, who could sit in saunas until his skin peeled off, and felt sad. I couldn’t imagine he would get any pleasure from this temperature. Not for his final hours above ground.

If it’s true that your life flashes before your eyes when you die, it might also be true that your father’s flashes before yours when he does. Images came, not chronologically: his teaching me to negotiate by only giving me what I asked for, if he thought I’d argued well; his driving us in his convertible jeep, culminating with a feast in the Alps of a slow-roasted lamb they cooked for us all night; his joking with waiters, using the few Arabic words he remembered from his days in Algeria; his mentoring friends late into the night, smoking cigars and sipping whiskey – I loved the way he slipped the base of his glass stem into the side of his shoe between sips.

But also, his lingering kisses; heavy handed sexual jokes; relentless comments about my friends’ boobs; his chronic flirting with waitresses in front of my mom.

His complexity was as large as his kindness. He always said he wanted to make an impact on people. He sure ran the gamut; those who loved him, worshipped him, and those he disturbed, couldn’t be in the same room with him.

I often felt both — sometimes at the same time. 

I leaned over for that final kiss; hovered over his forehead, wondering if I had any lipstick on. I smiled at the perfection of sending my father into the afterlife with a red lipstick kiss on his face. I was relieved to see I left no mark when I backed away.

I noticed I felt safe kissing him and how unfamiliar that was.

 “I forgive you,” I heard myself whisper. “I forgive you.”