My Dad was a big man, with a big voice that could quiet a room. My Mom called it “holding court”, and that’s what it felt like when you were audience to one of his monologues. He would get fired up about some political or current event and there was no doubt how he felt about it.
Dad was a storyteller. He could weave a story from his childhood, or ours, and hold us captivated, even if we’d heard the story a hundred times. This is one of the images I cherish most about my Dad. Him telling a story and getting that mischievous grin, pausing to keep you guessing whether this was a real story or one he’d enhanced with his own magic.
My Dad was a doctor. A researcher in Epidemiology. A dedicated teacher of Public Health. A fierce advocate for bringing healthcare and resources to the underserved populations along the US/Mexico border.
He told stories about his father’s family migrating from Mexico, his mother’s Apache grandmother, his training with the Public Health Service and delivering babies on Native American reservations.
A great storyteller never tells the same story the exact same way. Dad’s stories changed each time, weaving in information he’d discovered through ancestry research, or personal experiences that added flavor.
Dad died in 2017 from heart failure. I got the call from my sister that I needed to come. I arrived the next day from California and we gathered around Dad’s hospital bed where they’d kept his heart beating until we could say goodbye.
As we awaited his sister Linda’s arrival, Mom asked, “Who’s got a Dad story?” And we all began to share stories about him meeting our boyfriend in his boxer shorts or flicking the porch light on and off to alert us it was time to come inside. We shared stories about his storytelling and how he could hold you captive at the kitchen table (especially the newest members of the family who didn’t know better.) We told stories of him holding our kids as babies in those big arms of his. Endearing, funny, love-filled stories.
My father, who had lifted us up, cheered us on, loved us deeply, was surrounded by the legacy of all he held most dear in the world. And as the monitors were turned off and the life-supporting measures stopped, his big old heart faded, beat by beat, into silence.
I think of Dad now, during the time of the global pandemic. I picture him pacing the floors and speaking in his big booming voice (not the hoarse whisper that remained at the end.) Preaching about what we did wrong as a nation as the virus spread, as more people got sick, as tens of thousands died. Holding me captivated one more time, hanging on every word. Waiting for the wisdom of his 86 years, of a lifetime of dedicated research and service, to shine his light on the pathway back out of this disaster.
It is this image of my Dad that held vigil during my own covid19 infection, as symptoms ramped up and I began to struggle with breathing. As I felt the uncertainty of how bad the symptoms might get. As I was told I should just stay home and wait it out by my primary care doctor, that testing was being withheld for only those with the most life-threatening cases. As I wondered if I would end up as one those cases, isolated in a hospital, dying alone, without family to tell stories about me into the silence.
And now, coming out the other side, it is Dad’s voice that I hear when I see protestors blocking hospitals with their rail-against-the-freedom-infringing-machine cries. When there are still not enough tests to gauge the spread of the virus. When the only thing that seems to have slowed the contagion is the willingness of people to hunker down in their homes. When, once again, the underserved and marginalized people in our country have faced the brunt of the impact, losing income, losing lives, losing any footing they may have had prior to this ordeal.
I will miss the storytelling that would surely come as the world reemerges from their homes, as the science evolves to protect us from this virus. As my family gathers around Mom’s kitchen table once again. As Dad, holding court, would weave all of it into a story that would finally make sense.
Who will do that now?
Carol Holguin is the founder of Body to Soul™, a process of aligning with the body’s innate wisdom for healing and personal growth. She is a Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Trauma Touch Therapist™ with nearly thirty years in practice. Carol works and lives in Wimberley, Texas. Find her at carolholguin.com.
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