The Prodigal Father

My dad is in Southern California, wrapping up his life there.

The business struggled the last few years while he was in Thailand. The economy, poor decisions by those he’d left in charge, a number of factors, and it is clear the business should fold. The biggest name in building demolition and earth moving in Orange County, California is folding.

So is his marriage, of course. He’s on his third Thai girlfriend now, she on her second Californian boyfriend.

This is all regretable, but simply a part of the way things are.

My father wasn’t a perfect father. There were many choices he made, many actions he took, which were far from ideal.

But in his heart he is a good, though flawed, man.

His divorce papers have been filed, his heavy equipment auctioned. A couple of houses, a zillion personal items, details of outstanding bills and obligations are all that separate him from flying back to southeast asia for good. That, and his heart, which is “in pretty bad shape.”

He doesn’t want to go into a hospital here in the states. He is hanging on to check into a hospital in Bangkok.

I’m flying to Southern California this afternoon.

I’m taking a couple of days personal days and I’ll run whatever errands makes this easier for him. Chauffeur him around, deliver personal items to family members, file papers, pay bills, whatever makes it easier for him.

Faith is a big part of my life. But, unless he wishes to talk about it, I have no plans to talk faith with him.

He knows all that stuff. He went to church every Sunday when I was first entering school, before he had his first affair.

He always lived a little larger than was probably wise. World speed records on motorcycles, adventures dreamt in alcohol-fueled daydreams, or machismatic bravado... he lived a little large.

Cracks me up to think of that ambulance pulling up to him on the Bonneville Salt Flats, expecting to find a corpse but finding my father sitting on his ruined 400 horse power motorcycle, non chalant about dropping it at 165 miles per hour. When they told him to get on the stretcher for the ride in the ambulance he just told them to F off and asked for a cigar though half his teeth were missing.

He never asks for help, never complains about his health. Until now.

Which tells me that this time he is serious, he is facing some serious health issues. He may not make it to Bangkok by the 22nd.

Growing up I wasn't exactly the macho son he wanted. I read too much, drew or painted too much, thought and talked too much.

None of that matters now. I’m 53 now. I’m grown up and the ghosts of parental misadventures no longer haunt me.

All I want now is to help him, and for him to know he is loved.

Of course I am concerned about what eternity he faces, but it isn’t as if he doesn’t know about the elements of my faith, what salvation is. I think he is a believer of sorts, though of recent years he dabbles in buddhism.

No... none of that matters. He knows it all, and I will share of that sort of thing only if he wishes it. I’ll be glad to talk of angels and miracles and wonders of this world, this universe, and the surmises I have about the universes beyond this one, and the mystic imaginings I have cobbled together from reading of faith and science...

But I am more interested in simply being a help, being a loving son, offering what I can. I can’t really tell him anything about faith he doesn’t know, but I can tell him that the way I live my life is well grounded, enough so I am glad to drop everything to come help.

Dad is 72. A well worn 72. When it comes to aging it isn’t the distance traveled that matters, it’s the terrain.

He’s climbed a number of mountains, dangled from tree roots over dusty canyons and swum choppy predator-infested seas.

His exploits are many. He lived a prodigious life.

And prodigal as he is, he is running out of steam... physically, financially. He’ll probably have a half million dollars when this is over... enough to get him whatever he wants for this dusky time.

He went on his adventures, lived that prodigious life, but now I see him reaching toward me (he sent me on that adventure to Asia last summer), and I know that despite his mistakes, despite the fears he instilled in me, I love him.

The Prodigal Father has returned to me, and if I can help him find the Father who is truly prodigious by offering him a little help... Well... that will be quite nice.