The last conversation with my dad…
On the first Friday in July my family continued a tradition we started in the summer of 2022. That summer, the first since we moved to Israel, we went to a restaurant and talked about the year, the difficulties and the successes and joys. Since then every summer we have set aside time to acknowledge the year that passed: to celebrate living here, to talk about memories, to enjoy the beauty and make space for the pain and to respect the importance of having both.
Each year there have been superlatives both in beauty and in pain and this year was particularly full for my family. My father’s passing, watching our new baby grow, continued war in Gaza, significant academic and vocational accomplishments, war with Iran, a thriving therapy practice and new professional projects. The list goes on and on.
There are a number of different topics I could write about right now that are important to me and would be of value to you but I need to go with my gut here. My father has been powerfully on my mind and heart in the last few days and I will allow that energy to carry this writing.
The last time I spoke with my father was by zoom on Tuesday, December 24th at 8:00pm Israel time. Actually it wasn’t at 8:00pm because I’m late for most things and meeting with my father is no exception though I imagine that if I had known it would be my last time seeing him I might have been more punctual. A look back at my Whatsapp messages with my dad tells a story of his urgency and my tardiness. A missed phone call from my dad at 8:00 sharp, a message at 8:01 asking if we’re meeting, another missed call from him at 8:07, and finally a call that I answered at 8:08. Then we got on zoom and we talked.
The 8:00 time that I had scheduled to meet with him was right in between clients and I am usually 3-4 minutes late to start a session so I make up for it on the back end. I am sharing with you things about myself that are real, not because I am proud or unproud of them but because it is a picture of who I am as a human and a therapist. I was late because I was still in session but I was also late because I was pissed and not looking forward to seeing my father. (My wife once saw a t-shirt that we both agreed was a little too close to home with the line, “Sorry I’m late I got here as soon as I wanted to.”) I was pissed because the week before when we had met he pushed a boundary that I had set and it really upset me. In hindsight I know that he was trying to work through his own stuff and was asking for me to help facilitate that but I didn’t realize it then. Pushing boundaries is something that was painfully familiar in my relationship with my father and I was upset about it.
When we got on zoom he was angry with me too, upset that I was late, but he was more upset than usual. I remember pushing back and reminding him that I’m always late, but he was less tolerant of my tardiness that last evening than usual. My father was seldom a paradigm of punctuality so I was annoyed that he was being so urgent with me.
If my writing had time stamps you could see the places where I stopped writing to cry. It hurts. It’s not a bad hurt but it hurts. It hurts to think that there was some deep knowledge inside him that knew he didn’t have much time with me and he wanted to maximize what he did have. I hear his voice inside me saying, “Ari I knew somehow that this was our last time and I wanted the full amount of time with you.”
He was angry at me and I was angry at him. He told me why he was angry with me and I told him why I was angry with him. I could stop writing here because this is the point. We told each other. We were angry and we told each other about it. Anger in our relationship was not uncommon and my father would not allow this sort of thing to go on without being talked about. As our conversation went on I apologized to him for being late and he apologized to me for pushing my boundaries. Then he said “this is what I value so much about our relationship, that we can talk things through and work things out. That we can be honest with each other and work through it.” I don’t specifically recall but I expect that he ended the call with his usual goodbye saying I love you and I hope I said it back.
I’m not going to jump in to what I think you could or should learn from this. I trust that your body will take what it needs from reading this. If you’re not sure what you should take then I encourage you to take a moment and ask your body what felt most significant as you read. Your body will answer you. If you need help figuring out how to listen to your body, give me a call, I can help with that.