Father’s Day: A Story of My Dad

My father died before I was born. Well, technically, before I was conceived. One fateful night, while driving back to the East Coast from Alaska, a pickup truck crossed into his lane and collided head-on with his car. At the hospital he was dead on the table before being resuscitated by the medical staff. My father spent months encased in a body cast, a thousand miles from anyone he knew. Over time, he would heal. He would marry my mother. My sister would be born. A couple of years later, I would be born.

At Thanksgiving in 2015, my father was being politely yet persistently questioned by my wife’s grandmother, Nancy. A believer in the occult and all things that cannot be explained, she wanted to hear more about his death experience. Eavesdropping, I heard a new wrinkle I had never known before.

He explained that in that space between life and death, he spoke to spiritual beings and made a “deal” to stay.

However, the topic changed, and Thanksgiving continued on without further explanation or elaboration. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that “deal.” I’m not entitled to know all of my father’s secrets. It took 33 years to even mention the “deal,” let alone open up about it. But don’t most deals with higher powers throughout history include a firstborn son as payment? Have I been living my entire life thinking I had free will only to be destined to repay the actions of my father?

It had been two years and a day since my dad had mentioned the “deal.” I never brought it up in the meantime but thought about it often. I wanted to know more about the “deal” but was afraid to ask. Just thinking about asking was bone-chilling. What if the “deal” was about me? What if the “deal” was if my dad ever told me about the “deal,” he’d die? Or what if the “deal” was I’d die? Or the “deal” is so mind-blowing it changes my entire worldview?

Is this my Pandora’s box? Should I just leave it shut?

That winter day, my mind raced. I knew if I didn’t ask soon, I never would. I walked down to the dining room table where my father was sitting. The only thing we had to do that day was go get a Christmas tree. I eased into the conversation with a question about his time in the Army, which he had been talking about a lot recently. Then the floodgates opened.

He was drafted in the Army but was sent to Germany instead of Vietnam. This one clerical decision could have been the difference between his life and death. He was stationed in Munich but traveled to patrol the German borders from Russian attacks. He carried a bazooka tube in the 3rd Platoon Charlie Company, 24th Infantry. His ID was US51602699. He had two years of active duty, followed by four years of inactive duty. They called him to Army summer camp which could have been a precursor to getting shipped to Vietnam. He wrote a letter saying he was part owner in his family business, and it would be detrimental if he left, so they let him stay home. Another bullet dodged.

Now that I had him talking, I brought up his time in Alaska because I knew that was close to his death experience.

He pushed past the question and continued on his own timeline. I would have to wait longer to hear about the “deal.”

Once he was out of the Army, he traveled all over the country, often on his motorcycle. He went to Woodstock, Monterey, and the Florida Keys. In 1970 my dad was driving with his girlfriend on Route 17 near the intersection of Route 4 in Northern New Jersey. A car going in the opposite direction crossed into his lane and collided head-on with his car. Witnesses at the scene said that my dad tried to get up and help everyone but he had no recollection of that. His femur, pelvis, and skull were fractured. He was at the hospital for three months before convalescing longer at his childhood home in Paramus.

In 1971 he married the girlfriend from the car accident. The wedding was in a church parking lot. He walked down the aisle with a cane, still nursing his wounds. They bought a home in Goshen, New York, and he commuted 50 miles one way daily to his family’s auto body shop. After four years, they divorced.

At that point in the story, my mom popped in the room and started telling her side of the events. In 1977 my dad used the GI Bill to go to Ramapo College. After telling everyone she was taking a break from dating, my mom saw my dad and hit on him. They started dating, and in the summer of 1978 my father proposed, and she said “no.”

My son Mason, sitting at the table and cooing for attention, could tell we were getting close to the “deal.” My mom picked him up and took him into the living room where Grace was watching the Beat Bugs show on Netflix. The cartoon bugs were signing The Beatles classic, “Magical Mystery Tour.” I asked my mom to turn it down but realized it was the perfect song in that moment.

Now we were at Alaska. My dad wanted to be able to say he had visited every state in the U.S., so he traveled up to Alaska with his friend Roger and stayed there for two and a half months. He bought a 1978 Toyota Land Cruiser in Alaska to drive back to New Jersey. He traveled through the blue glaciers to a ferry set for Vancouver. He got off at Prince Rupert, British Columbia and met two college girls looking for a ride to Boston. They came on board.

I never knew that part of the story. There were other passengers in the car when it crashed.

They were driving on the north side of Lake Superior heading towards Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The two-lane road had a steep mountain wall on one side and guard rails bordering a precipitous cliff drop on the other side. Again, a vehicle going in the opposite direction crossed into his lane and collided head-on with his car. Everyone went to the hospital, but his passengers left unscathed. He would never see them again. It was a 12-14 hour ambulance ride to the nearest hospital. The EMS would later say they didn’t think he was going to make it.

Grace popped into the dining room at that moment. She could tell something interesting was going on. “Daddy, I want to make cookies for Santa!” There was no time for a diversion; we were getting so close to the “deal.” Her mother took her back to the other room.

The hospital tracked my dad’s Alaska driver’s license to Roger. When Roger got the call, he thought my dad had been busted at the border with drugs. From Roger they tracked back to Paramus, New Jersey and let my grandfather and uncle know what had happened. They jumped on a plane and made the long trip up to the hospital.

We had been talking for almost an hour and finally got to the death experience.

My dad continued, “I had the death experience, the near death experience. I was up in the corner of the room while doctors and nurses worked on me. The supreme beings said I gotta go back.” My father’s voice cracked with emotion. “Then I woke up in the hospital, I looked around, and both arms were in traction, my leg was in traction, and I was bandaged up, who knows, I guess you’re not in pain because of morphine and IVs and all that. I thought to myself ‘not this again.’ Then I passed out. And then the next time I remember waking up, and who knows how many days that was or a day later, my father and brother were in the room and that was that.”

I pushed the conversation forward. I could tell I was right at the doorstep of the “deal.”

“Mhmm, so your recollection of the death experience is that it happened, and then you just woke up? Or was it, like, there was time between when it happened and when you woke up?” I was fumbling for the right words but couldn’t summon the courage to come out and ask. Grace was playing loudly in the background with a box of Christmas ornaments.

“What do you mean? It happened before I woke up,” Dad said.

“Right. I guess what I’m saying is, was it like you made the choice to come back and then you woke up? Or you made the choice to come back and …”

“You don’t make the choice.”

“Right.”

“Someone else makes the choice for you.”

“Mhmm.”

Christina stepped into the dining room. “Greg, she’s chomping at the bit, we gotta go get this tree.”

“OK.”

“She keeps pulling everything out of the box and giving it to me. She wants to hang it somewhere. We need to go get that tree,” Christina persisted.

“OK.” I yawned and stretched my arms. Was that it? Was that the end? Would I be stopped on the one yard line?

“You don’t make the choice,” he stated again.

“Mmhm.” I was back in the game!

“If I had to guesstimate … and it’s all too vague without input from my brother who was the one there …. and my father, and he’s dead … and the time frames and all … and they’re the ones who drove out, and that was a whole day trip there and back … they stayed overnight …”

We were dancing around it, and Grace was getting more and more worked up.

“Look at this, daddy! Look at this!” She shook an ornament in my face.

My dad continued, “They drive out to where the accident happened to find the land cruiser and take all those pictures I have.”

Grace was at a ten. “Look, daddy! DADDY!” She shook a bell.

“Whoa, cool bell, honey.”

“Can I see it?” My dad asks.

“Sure!” Grace ran over. The conversation fell silent. Only the patter of Grace’s feet.

“Does it ring? Let’s see,” my Dad says.

“Yes, it does ring!” She exclaimed. “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Santa in the sandbox!” I couldn’t make out Grace’s gibberish as she tailed off.

Oma added, “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.” The conversation was off the rails. How could I bring it back? I could feel time was running out.

With an urgency in my voice often reserved for the cross examination of a hostile witness, I pushed forward. “Alright, so you woke up, then you went back out, then you were worked on, and then you woke back up, and your family was there?”

“Oh, I was worked on, on and off for two and a half months, because they couldn’t do all the operations. That’s why they never fixed any of this.” He pointed to his eye. “This eye was operated on twice. But they had to let things heal on my body and all that.”

“So when did you have the death experience?”

“At the beginning, somewhere along the line in the beginning. But not while I was lying on the side of the road. I was in the hospital being worked on.” His voice cracked. “They said I gotta go back.”

Time was up. I had one chance to close this out.

I summoned the courage and asked, “I remember a couple of Thanksgivings ago you said something about having to make a deal or something. Or, like, there was a discussion with the supreme beings.”

“Right.”

“Is there anything more to that? Or it’s just …” The question hung for a moment. The rest of the family was putting on coats and shoes, preparing to go get our Christmas tree. I waited with bated breath to get the answer which could change the course of my own life.

My dad simply responded, “That’s a whole nother story.”

I laughed. All of the build up. All of the wondering. I repeated his words, “That’s a whole nother story.”

“There’s been enough stories here today.”

“OK.” Somewhere in my heart, I knew that was a fine answer. I didn’t need to push anymore.

“Daddy?” Grace was ready to go.

It was time to get a Christmas tree.