The Value of My Father's Life

How should a life be measured?

I have reflected on the question for the last few days as I ponder the passing of my father. It is easy to focus only on the end of his life and the decisions that led to his isolation and estrangement from his family but I do not think that is fair. My father was a mean and angry man who did mean and angry things, but he did not do only mean and angry things. Like all of us, he was much more complicated than that.

He was a violent man who beat my mother while they were married. When she took their three young children (we were all under 5 years old), he could have abandoned us. He could have ignored his responsibilities and refused to pay child support. He could have, but he didn’t. The checks always came.

When my mother divorced her second husband and became a single mom to three teenage boys she found herself in dire financial straits. She asked my father for more child support. He didn’t have to pay her more as there was no court order compelling him to increase the payments, but he did. As seemingly incapable as he was of giving emotional support he never wavered in his financial support.

As a father, he was often impossible to please. I have vivid memories of being a small child and him harshly criticizing me for the way I pulled on my socks, took off my shirts and even my choice of spoon when I ate my morning cereal. I was a pigeon-toed and awkward child and his biting “humor” found in me an easy target.  He called me "spastic" and when someone else was clumsy he said they had "pulled a Bart." His words were incredibly hurtful and damaging. To this day the memories of his words still bring a sense of fear and anxiety.

As mean as he was this angry man found the time to play with us. He taught us card games, played board games with us and organized football and basketball games with the kids in the neighborhood. He took us to San Diego Padres baseball games and Chargers football games and took us to the beach and taught us how to ride the waves on an inflatable raft. These moments were not idyllic, he was often impatient and critical and some initially pleasant times  degenerated into tears, but he gave us attention. He was inconsistent and unpredictable but there were times when he tried to be a dad.

His struggles with being a parent did not end when I reached adulthood. He struggled with my independence and career choices. He wanted more from me than I did for myself. He appropriately questioned my decision to drop out of college and forcefully encouraged me to re-enroll. When I did, he paid my tuition all the way through medical school. In spite of his financial support he did not have much faith in me. I will never forget his response when I told him of my perfect GPA at the end of my first year at the University of California, Irvine. He said, “I honestly didn’t think you had it in you.”

He was not a man of encouragement. He seldom gave praise and never gave hugs. Growing up I never thought he was proud of me or that he loved me for who I was. He seemed to see every flaw and catch every mistake while missing or minimizing every success. And yet, when I looked into the audience as I walked off the stage with my Medical Diploma in my hands I saw my father head and shoulders above the crowd, standing on his chair and proudly pumping his fist in the air.

For the three years I was in my Family Practice residency he was incredibly supportive of me and my family. Each month a check for $500 came in the mail, (almost $1000 in today's dollars.) He knew my resident’s salary was not enough to support a family and he did not want Lisa to have to work. It is because of him that she was able to stay home with our son.

His generosity had a profound impact on our lives, which made his decision to disown me shortly after graduation so difficult to process. I knew he was angry and had fits of temper, but I had always hoped there was some measure of good underneath. I had heard the horrible stories told by my step-brother and mother, of physical and verbal abuse, but thought that he had softened with age, and that love, especially for his grandson, would win out. It didn't.  His choice to cut off all contact with me and my family for the remaining 24 years of his life proved that anger ultimately won.

So how do I measure his life?

There is no question that his anger and inability to love left marks on me. My battles with anxiety, insecurity and anger are part of his cursed heritage. I struggle every day to overcome the damage he wrought. It is only by the grace of God that I have learned what it means to be a loving husband and father. Although I had no role model in my own family, God blessed me with a father-in-law who modeled goodness and kindness. 

In spite of the damage my father did it does not seem fair to ignore the support he gave me earlier in life. His gifts were tainted and had strings attached but they made a difference nonetheless. They had value. While the good he did is dwarfed by the harm, his warped generosity did help my family through difficult times. He was not a good man, but he was more than just a bad man.

I think this is the reality for all of us. None of us are totally good or totally evil. We are all broken people who fail and succeed to varying degrees. This truth of universal brokenness begs the question- How do we measure a life? Do we pull out a set of scales and divide up a man’s deeds and see where the balance lies? If so, do we give greater weight to more recent harms or blessings?  Many people have done terrible deeds believing in the moment that they were doing the right thing. How do we decide where to draw the line?

I do not believe that I am in a position to answer this question for others. It is not my place to decide. As I think about my father I realize there are pieces of his puzzle that are hidden from me. I have no knowledge of his childhood or of his relationship with his father. I do not know if he was abused or scorned, loved or hated. I do not know his mental history. As an experienced physician I see in his behavior hints of mental illness that were not visible to me when I was young. I do not know if he battled his demons or embraced them. I do not know if he was even capable of love. 

What I do know is that he paid a price for his sins in this life. I have wonderful children who fill the world with love, joy and laughter. My father never knew them. Theirs is a joy he never shared. In my relationship with my father-in-law I experienced the incredibly rich blessing of shared respect between two grown men. I received the wisdom of his years of life experience and he received the joy of seeing his wisdom shape me into a better person. My father never experienced this blessing, the joy of adult friendship with a son. My father lived the pain of loneliness.

Sadly for my father, the pain of this life pales in comparison to the pain that may await. My father rejected faith many years ago. To my knowledge he never turned to God. For the rest of eternity he will give account to His creator for his choice. It is God who will judge.

As it is God who will ultimately judge there is little to be gained expending energy judging my father. My time is better spent judging my own heart. When I turn my gaze inward I see incredible room for improvement. I have more bad in me than can be expunged in one lifetime. While true goodness eludes me I nevertheless intend to spend the rest of my life striving to be a better man.

The success of my self improvement efforts will be measured after I am gone. I often tell others that I have two goals in life, both to be fulfilled when I die. The first is that when I stand before my God I will hear Him say, “Well done.” The second is that my children will tell others on my passing that I was the greatest man they ever knew. I do not know if I will ever achieve these goals but I am certain that they will not be achieved without continuous intentional effort on my part.

I am also certain that the pursuit of these goals will bring peace and joy in this lifetime, and confident hope for the next.

- Bart

Being Thankful for the Right Things

Thanksgiving at my father’s house was never about giving thanks. There was no mention of God, no moment of reflection, no expression of gratitude. It was family and it was turkey dinner and it was football, and nothing more. Unlike Christmas (which while equally secular and devoid of spiritual meaning at least included presents) there was nothing about Thanksgiving in the Barrett household that was particularly joyful.

One year, during one of my mother’s religious phases, she decided to try and change the focus of her sons’ holidays with their father. I do not know what led her to believe it was her place to impact her ex-husband’s family dinner but she went out of her way to encourage me and my brothers to make sure thanks was given.

She took several white envelopes, one for each member of the extended Barrett family and put popcorn kernels inside. She packed the envelopes into my suitcase with instructions to hand them out on Thanksgiving Day. She told us it would be “fun” for each person to take an envelope at the end of the meal and use it as an aid in the giving of thanks. As each kernel was removed from an envelop the kernel holder could say one thing for which they were thankful. In this way each person would get to share. She thought it would be special and wonderful.

My father did not share her popcorn kernel enthusiasm. He thought the envelope idea was dumb. He nevertheless did not want to come across as an ungrateful jerk, so he instead suggested that we could go around the table and ask each person to share one thing for which they were grateful. When mealtime came each person did just that. It was awkward, forced and unnatural, but for the only time in my memory thanks was given on Thanksgiving.

Looking back, I am saddened by how unnatural it was for gratitude to be expressed. I wonder if it was because none of the adults in my family believed that any of their blessings had been bestowed upon them, none of them had been given. My father was of the belief that you earned everything you had in life. Who was he supposed to thank, himself?

I do not share my father’s opinion. While I have achieved significant worldly success professionally and financially, these accomplishments are of minimal importance to me. The things for which I am most grateful are all unearned.

I am grateful for my marriage, a 35-year testimony to the grace of god and the grace of my wife. I did not earn her love by being a perfect or lovable man. In many ways over the years I have at times acted in ways that could have earned her rejection! Too often I have been my father’s son and mirrored some of his worst traits. She loves me anyway, and I cannot be more grateful.

I am grateful for my children, one miraculously conceived and the other miraculously adopted. Years of infertility and futile baby-making efforts confirm the truth that my children are a gift from God, an undeserved and unearned blessing. The love and laughter they bring to the world are gifts beyond description.

I am grateful for the nation in which I live. I did nothing to earn the opportunities that America provides. Even with the intelligence and gifts I possess (also unearned), poverty and despair could have been my fate had I been born in another land.

I am grateful for my faith, the hope that sustains me and the God who is transforming me into a better man. I did nothing to earn or merit God’s favor, but He loves me nonetheless. In my repetitively expressed selfishness and rebellion I earned his anger and punishment, but He instead loved me and gave His Son for me, the greatest gift of all, unearned and yet freely given.

Happy Thanksgiving

Bart

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He Died Alone

He died alone, attended by strangers. There was no one at his bedside to hold his hand, no one to say a prayer, no one to speak words of comfort or to mourn his passing. No one in his family had spoken to him in years and he had no friends. He lived, and died, a solitary man.

He had lost contact with the first of his estranged sons over 30 years ago, when his temper caused him to strike out in anger and assault his son over a minor disagreement. The son was a new dad himself and did not want his children exposed to such outbursts. The uncontrolled anger of their grandfather was not something he would allow to be a part of their lives. The son demanded that his father get help with his anger and deal with his history of rage and abuse. The man refused to change and instead chose to never see this son or grandchildren again.

In spite of this his relationship with his other two sons continued. They were fearful of a potential blow-up and their relationships with their father were uneasy, but the man somehow managed to hold his anger in check. While he was not particularly affectionate or emotionally close, he seemed somewhat reasonable and his sons were reluctant to abandon him. They settled into a dysfunctional peace.

It did not last. Almost 10 years after becoming estranged with the one son he lost his relationship with the second. The son had a little boy and the man was unkind to his grandson in a meanspirited fashion. Concerned for his son, the man’s son brought the unkindness to his father’s attention. The man went into a rage at the criticism. Foul language and personal attacks resulted, and the man disowned this son. For a second time in his life he chose his pride over relationship with a son. In the ensuing 20 years they had only a single brief conversation. The son offered to renew relationship, but the proud man was not interested. The children of this second son have no memory of their grandfather.

The third son, the oldest, was the last to go. As he was single there was no family to offend or abuse and he was able to continue a relationship with his father. He knew his father had wronged his brothers but as he had not yet wronged him he did not feel he could walk away from his dad. When the man fell on hard times this son was there to help. He loved his father and had hope that they could have a good relationship. Then one day the man stole money from his son, an act of betrayal which proved too great for the relationship to survive. The son turned his back on his father, never to speak to him again.

The man was left alone with his wife. Although heartbroken at the loss of relationship with their children and grandchildren she stayed by the man’s side. Her years of loyalty were repaid with physical and verbal abuse. She was constantly demeaned and criticized. It took several years for her to muster the courage to leave him, but once she found the strength she left him. He was alone.

Old, poor and with nowhere else to go, he ended up in a nursing home. Undaunted and unaffected by his lost relationships he found a new outlet for his abuse, the nurses and other nursing home staff. It was so severe the administration of the home threatened to force him to find another facility.

He was ultimately allowed to stay. I do not know if it was because he changed his behavior or if it was out of pity for his plight. His memory had begun to fail and perhaps the staff of the facility decided to be gracious to the demented man and allowed his cognitive decline to be an excuse for his unacceptable behavior. For the next several years he lived in the home. No one ever came to visit and no one called.

His memory faded to the point where he was no longer aware of his circumstances. The staff reported he was living 20 years in the past. His mental capacity had decreased dramatically. Five days ago his mental decline had another consequence. He had become unable to protect his airway when he swallowed and on that day food or fluids dripped into his lungs. The aspiration of stomach contents caused pneumonia. The resultant infection spread through his body, throwing him into shock and stealing what little mental function remained. By the time he was admitted to the intensive care unit he was unable to communicate at all.

Within a few days it was clear that while his lungs might survive the infection his brain would not. Although his lung function and blood tests improved his neurologic function did not. It was clear that even if he did survive it would be in a vegetative state. Believing that it would be unkind to prolong his life in such a severely incapacitated state the doctors decided they wanted to stop aggressive treatment and allow him to pass in peace. Although they believed it to be the right thing to they wanted to talk to his family before making the decision.

They called the nursing home and asked for information on his next of kin. The nursing home director drove to the home of his ex-wife, hoping she would help. Unwilling to assume the burden of making such a grave decision, she gave him the contact information of his sons.

It was the youngest son, the one he had disowned, who was the first to respond. Although he had spoken to his father only a single time in the previous 24 years, and though that conversation had been over 5 years earlier, he realized he could not pass the responsibility on. Someone had to make the decision. Fortunately for him the choice was clear. He had never heard of anyone wishing their life prolonged in a non-responsive state and knew it would be cruel to continue keeping his father alive. He knew it would be best for the doctors to allow him to die. He called his brothers to confirm their agreement and then informed the doctors that they were in one accord. The doctors could place their father on “comfort status” and allow him to pass in peace.

The man died a few hours later. Alone. He died as he had lived, isolated and alienated, friendless and estranged from his family.

The man was my father, and I am the one he disowned 24 years ago. I have spent the day reflecting on the sadness of his passing, still perplexed at the lonely life he chose.

While I do not understand his choice, I am at peace with the truth that it was a choice he consciously made. When I spoke to him 5 years ago I asked if he wanted to see me, if he had an interest in relationship. He did not.

The knowledge that I offered relationship gives me comfort. I chose to forgive, I chose to be kind, I chose to try and rebuild. He chose differently. His choice was loneliness.

I am peace with other choices as well. I have chosen to be different than my father. I spent my father’s last day with my wife. It was my day off and I chose to spend it as I always do, with her. We talked and laughed and delighted in one another’s company. Throughout the day I dialogued via text with my daughter, who I am blessed to see every day. At the end of the day my son called me. We talked about his son, my grandson, who I see nearly every week. I shared my day with my family.

I am truly blessed. Like my father, I have been allowed to choose the type of father and husband I want to be. Unlike my father, I have chosen love and relationship. Unlike my father, I am not alone.

- Bart

Transformed by an Annoying Patient

I did not smile when I saw his name on the schedule. His previous visits had been difficult for me as he had presented with symptoms that defied physiologic explanation. He had vague abdominal pains that came at sporadic intervals and had no relationship to meals or activity. The pains were brief and mild and there were no changes in his bowel function, appetite, weight or ability to exercise. Making the diagnosis even more challenging, he had not experienced the symptoms in the last several weeks before his office visit.

In spite of these facts he was intensely concerned about his pain and almost demanded that I do something about it. I dutifully reviewed his symptoms, performed a physical exam and explained why his symptoms did not mesh with gall bladder disease, liver disease, ulcers, reflux, pancreatitis, cancer or irritable bowel disease. I told him we could be confident that he did not have a serious condition.

He thanked me for my opinion and demanded to see a specialist anyway. I did not think it was necessary or that the specialist would find anything, but I referred him anyway, hoping that his fears would be put to rest. As expected the specialist did multiple tests and found nothing. Predictably, the patient’s fears remained.

While months had passed since I had seen him last he communicated these persistent fears to me soon after I entered the exam room. They weren’t the reason he had given the receptionist when he scheduled the appointment, but they were clearly the reason he was there. He was certain something was wrong with him and that we were missing it.

I reviewed the notes from the specialist and saw that she had been incredibly thorough in her approach. She had left no stone unturned and had gone as far as possible in insuring that the patient did not have any significant illness or disease. Reading her notes the thought went through my mind, “What am I supposed to do now?”

What I wanted to do was scream, to grab the patient by the shoulders and shake him and tell him to get over it, that he was being foolish and he needed to let go of his worry. We had done our jobs and evaluated him thoroughly. There was nothing physically wrong with him. He needed to understand that the problem was in his head and not in his abdomen.

That’s what I wanted to say, but I didn’t say it. I wish I could say it was because I was moved with compassion, that I understood that his sensations were real to him and that his fears were genuine but that would be lying. I didn’t say it because I was afraid he would be offended and complain about me to the insurance or leave a negative review online. It was fear of negative consequences that caused me to take a different approach.

Having failed at a strictly medical approach I turned my attention to his fears and his feelings. I asked him what he was worried about. I listened. I then explained to him the limits of modern medicine, that oftentimes we do a better job telling patients what they don’t have then we do at explaining the cause for their symptoms. I told him that I wanted to help, that I wanted to give him an answer, but that I did not know if I could.

As I focused on him as a person I sensed a change in our interaction. It seemed that by expressing concern about what he was feeling he felt less of a need to get me to believe his complaints. As I made his feelings my focus he became more accepting of my words.

Something changed in me as well. As I focused on his feelings my perceptions were altered. He became a real person with real fears and concerns instead of a complaining intrusion on my day. He became real to me. His discomfort and fears began to matter.

Out of concern for his feelings I sent him to a second specialist. He accepted my warning that we might not find a cause and was grateful that I cared enough to pursue his diagnosis further. He left the office on a positive note.

He left me humbled. I am ashamed to admit it but there was a time, in the old days before the age of online reviews, when I would have dismissed his concerns without fear of repercussions or worry for his feelings. Confident in my diagnosis and the irrationality of his fears I would have sent him on his way. I would have been a jerk, but for the most part I would have gotten away with it.

Our encounter has led me to reflect on a harsh a human nature. We can do bad things and be bad people when we think we can get away with it. While the desire to avoid negative consequences can occasionally lead to good behavior this is not the way I want to live my life. I want to be a person who loves and serves first from my heart.

I want to be the type of person for whom “getting away with it” doesn’t matter because I have no desire to do “it” in the first place.

Bart

Note- as with many posts, some details have been changed to mask the identity of the patient so neither he/she or my office staff can know who it is. 

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A Little Self-Hate Can Go a Long Way

There are things I absolutely hate about myself, aspects of my personality I despise and long to change, inherited tendencies I wish I could kill and bury. While it is possible that focusing too much on my list of faults could lead to poor self-esteem and a life of guilt and shame I am convinced that failing to address these traits would have a worse result. I would be a very bad man. I need to be better.

Among the things I wish I could change-

-          I am not a good listener. Wait, that is too kind. I am a terrible listener. My racing brain causes me to think of responses before some is halfway through a second sentence.

-          I inherited my father’s temper. I have a tendency to lash out and be unkind. I need to slow down more and think of the feelings of others.

-          I am inpatient and intolerant of the faults of others. It is too easy for me to point fingers and criticize. I need more grace.

-          I am a worrier, my anxiety can cause me to be fearful about things that may never happen and seldom do.

-          I have an unhealthy need for affirmation, I can work too hard trying to please others.

There is not room in a blog post for the complete list, so I will stop here. Needless to say, I have a LOT of things I am working on. But to me, that is the point. I am working on the list. I am not content with the person I am, not satisfied with where I am in my personal life. I need to be better.

This desire to be better is not limited to external actions. I need to think better thoughts as well. In the dark reaches of my brain lurk some pretty terrible things, things which if allowed to take hold and grow would result in terrible deeds. I realize what the Apostle Paul meant when he spoke of “taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” I have thoughts that need to be put in jail, rehabilitated when possible and executed when not!

I am not alone in my struggles against and within myself. The need to struggle against the evil within is a universal one. Those who excuse their bad thoughts and behaviors, those who justify their actions instead of working to be better, will ultimately be exposed to the world as the wretches they are.

We are seeing this now on a daily basis. Each morning we wake to new reports of the terrible behavior of some celebrity or person in power. From Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey to Mark Halperin there appears to be an unending stream of immoral behavior flowing from the hearts of powerful men. The natural question arises, “How could they do such terrible things?” As I hear these stories I find myself replying, “This is what happens when you don’t hate the evil inside.”

This is what happens when you make excuses for your perversity, when you consider yourself more important than others, so special and important that your desires deserve to be met. This is what happens when being a good person, being a better, kinder person, does not matter enough. The process is always the same. First we tolerate the evil desire, then we excuse the evil behavior.

If we want to be better people we need to change our priorities as a society. We need to lessen our emphasis on self-esteem and feeling good about ourselves and encourage more balanced self-assessment. When it comes to the evil in our hearts and minds, the world can use some more hate.

- Bart

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