What If I Don't Know?

On learning to let go

The last time I saw my dad alive, back in January, he was wearing a red puffer vest over his bear-like torso, long legs covered in a plaid fleece blanket, leaning back in his pleather La-Z-Boy and nursing a gargantuan plastic cup of Diet Coke.

His pale blue eyes were fixed on a TV show about pool renovations, which he watched, expressionless. 

This was a welcome change from the old days, when he’d rant along with Tucker Carlson and Bill O’Reilly. Now, we watched in companionable silence as a renovation team constructed a natural stone grotto behind a split-ranch house. 

A phone buzzed on the table behind us. My stepmom snatched it up and mouthed “RITA” to me before stepping into the other room. 

Rita. My stepmom’s frenemy, and my dad’s longtime nemesis. Really, though, Rita’s biggest crime was diverting so much of my stepmom’s attention away from him. The mere mention of her name always riled him.

“Who is it?” he asked me.

“It’s Rita,” I said.

“Who else,” he said, shaking his head. He looked like he wanted to say more, though he hadn’t strung more than a few words together in months.

“What do we think of Rita?” I ventured. 

My dad raised his eyebrows, looking pointedly at me, as he always had when I’d asked something obvious. 

“Why would I have an opinion about somebody I know nothing about?” he said. He shook his head again, then turned back to watch a family in Florida, their new waterslide feeding into a lagoon-like pool.

Nobody could hold a grudge like my dad in his day. He was a fierce civil litigator for more than fifty years, priding himself on taking everything personally. Unfortunately, one of his longest-standing grievances was with me.

Near the end of my senior year in college, while swapping childhood stories with my then-girlfriend, she asked me some seemingly obvious questions. Why did my dad leave my little sister and me with a violent, mentally ill mom? Why didn’t he just take us with him? I stayed up all night, burning over this, building a dark, formidable rage against him. 

The next day, I called my dad’s office and told his secretary that he was not welcome at my graduation, that he should cancel his flight. After that, my dad and I didn’t speak for years. 

As I approached my mid-twenties, I was startled by the thought that my dad might die without us reconnecting. I dialed his landline, and my stepmom answered, yelling out excitedly that I was on the line. I heard my dad call from the other room, “Fuck him.” She eventually coaxed him onto the phone, and the old man and I spoke, both of us stiff and guarded. 

Years after that, we talked everything out over a series of 7am breakfasts at a rundown diner, my dad driving us there with his towering frame hunched over the wheel, always in his red puffer vest, swerving indiscriminately and cursing at other drivers. 

We rebuilt our relationship over those breakfasts, though he often circled back to the way I’d cut him out. Much as I tried to explain myself, it seemed I’d hurt and disappointed him in a way that I could never fully apologize for.

All these years later, here he was, in his final days, letting go of a lifetime of agitation. Rita. Me. God knows how many others. Nobody had fucked him over, nobody had said or done anything to hurt him, annoy him, or anger him. We all had a clean slate. 

Those final hours together remind me of a practice called Defenselessness. When we inevitably find our minds landing on conflict, on something upsetting, we can ask ourselves two simple questions: What if I don’t know? What if I’m wrong? 

When I feel stung or misunderstood, when I’m feeling particularly right about anything, I drop those questions in, and there’s often an immediate loosening of whatever I’m contracted around, like dish soap clearing a pan full of grease. 

Though my dad hadn’t necessarily intended to let go of his grudges, his agitation seemed to melt away as his mind faltered. Long-held grievances, simply gone. What was left was this big, sweet guy. Defenseless. Loving.

He and I had spent far more of our lives apart than together. I taught myself how to throw a ball, how to shave, how to fix things around the house. For much of my life, I believed that my dad never taught me anything, except how to hold a grudge. 

What if I don’t know? What if I’m wrong?

Here he was, in his own way, showing me something beautiful, something I could live by. I reached for his arm and held on, feeling almost paternal toward him. 

“Love you, Dad,” I said. 

He turned to me and raised his eyebrows, like I’d said something obvious again. He brought his other hand on top of mine, and patted gently. “I love you too, honey.”