Bill Zuckert
15 December 1915-23 January 1997
23 January
Today is the fifth anniversary of my father's death. It seems at the same time much longer ago than that, and like it couldn't be anything like that long. The day he died is still bright in my mind...no, that's not true, it's the moment that he died that will never ever fade, no matter how many memories flee my appalling memory, that one, seeing my father stop breathing and grow cold, that's never going anywhere.
I remember holding his hand for a long time after he was gone, because I'd never get to again ever ever, and I can feel it without even trying. It's probably the strongest sense memory I have. My father's hands were really big and rough-textured, and covered in bruises towards the end from all of the IVs. He bruised really easily when he got older, you could bruise him with a feather. His father, my Pop, was the same, so I think I have that to look forward to myself.
Every year I write something here, and then at times during the year I do, too, and it never seems as though I can express myself properly. It's not as though I'm the only person ever in history whose father has died, nothing is more certain, everyone's father has or will die, and their mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters--we're all hurtling towards the grave faster than we know, and everyone dies and people are sad and that's the way it is.
And I still don't get why my father died. Wasn't he special enough to live forever? Wasn't he important enough for death to pass by? He was to me, but my opinion doesn't make the world turn, no matter how much I assume that it does (I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, baby!) and he died because he had cancer, because he had pneumonia, because he was old, because it was his time. This is logical, all of these reasons are excellent reasons to die. For everyone who isn't my father.
It will be this way always, I know that, and every year I will write something different in this space, but it all really will be saying the same thing, I miss you, Daddy, please come home.
The first Christmas picture, 1965,
and the last Christmas picture, 1996.
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Last Updated Tues 22 January 18:53:09 2001