Dad's obituary appeared in the paper today

Here is the text, a fairly flat description of who he was...

Riho Vahtel, 66, a resident of The Dalles, died at a local care facility on Oct. 25, 2005. He was born in Nomme, Estonia, on Dec. 2, 1938, the younger of two children to August and Helen Oie (Pallas) Vahtel.
His family moved to Germany in 1944, then to the United States in 1951, where he grew up in Queens, NY. He received a bachelor's degree in English at City College of New York, a bachelor's degree in accounting and his master's of business administration at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He was a captain in the U.S. Army, serving in Korea, two tours in Vietnam and in Germany from 1962 to 1971.
He married Tiiu Kaups on Jan. 4, 1975 in Staten Island, New York. They moved to The Dalles in 1982, where he worked as an accountant for The Dalles Fitness and Court Club.
He was a member of Calvary Baptist Church, enjoyed football, crossword puzzles, and studying the universe. He volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and Community Meals.
He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Tiiu Vahtel, The Dalles; his son, Erik Vahtel, of Denver; his daughter Sandra, Los Angeles; his nephew, Toivo and his family of York Towne, Va.; his niece, Maret and her family of Queens, NY.
He is preceded in death by his parents.

After Laughter Comes Tears

I just read an old comment that my dad left on my New Zealand blog. And I can picture him sitting at the keyboard, hunting and pecking for letters with two fingers.

I miss my dad, for the first time I really feel like I miss him. I got used to him being cancer-ridden, his body frail and stuck in bed. The loss I feel is less in a physical sense, since I didn't interact with him too often in a flesh-and-blood exchange. I'm jealous, in a way, of his friends -- those who got to spend time with him on a daily or weekly basis. I hadn't been able to hang out with my dad for a long time -- even since leaving home seven years ago, and in that time he had gone through something of a softening, a loosening up, if you will.

Sure, I saw him during summers and at Christmas, and often spoke to him on the phone -- yet I still feel like I missed out on something, in a way. I think back to the last communications I had with him, leading up to his diagnosis -- the $400 phone call from Auckland, the four tense days in Denver. I don't want to remember him that way, and I know ultimately I won't.

I miss his humor and his gentleness and his humility and goodheartedness. I miss the way he took delight in good wine and spicy foods, how his lips would lift over his small teeth when he smiled, or his deep, wheezy, belly-shaking laughs. He'd even snort sometimes when he got going.

He knew what was of value in this world, he loved and trusted Jesus, and people loved him. That is simply a fact that bares repeating. And so is this -- cherish those in your lives, let your loved ones know that they're loved, and don't ever take them for granted.

I hate talking about him in the past tense.

The Sweet Hereafter

Dad passed away last night at 8:15pm.

It was really something of a joyous day, in the hours leading up to his departure. Friends would come and go, holding vigil in his nursing home room, telling stories and laughing at the delight that dad took in the world. It was impressed upon me just how many people his life touched -- some of whom I'll never know. He was a man known for his honesty, his integrity, his sense of justice.

I've never seen anyone die before. After 12 hours of shallow, labored breathing, he surrendered his soul in one last silent exhale. It was as if God were pulling a magician's hankerchief out of dad's mouth. Last night, as I layed awake in bed, I kept thinking about what it might have been like to have leaned in close, and gently laid my fingers over his open mouth, waiting for his 21 grams to slip out of his body. Would I have felt his laughter, or would the vibrations of his voice tremble through my hand? 66 years of life, reduced to a whisper.

It's worth it

I am becoming convinced that the true test of love in any relationship, platonic or romantic, is patience.

I used to hate people. They were rude and ignorant and usually arrogant, and I didn't have much use for them. But then I started to learn that we're hard-wired to be with each other -- it's true, people need people -- to learn from and grow from emotionally. As much of a hassle as they are sometimes, the effort is worth it. The times in my life that I remember most fondly are the times when I've been closest to others.

People are imperfect, this is quite obvious. Changing people is impossible, and getting them to do what you want is difficult, as they go about not unlike stroppy cows, doing whatever they damn-well please. But it's not even fair to go about trying to get others to do what you want -- people are free to do what they will.

When you get one of these cows to agree to be your friend, that stubbornness doesn't go away. Friends or lovers can annoy each other, do things the other finds harmful, disturbing, or disgusting. They can just generally drive each other crazy. This is normally refered to as "dysfunctional," but I call it normal (abuse is dysfunctional, but that's an whole different subject). Some have an easy time in their relationships -- communication is clear, yet others have to spend an immense amount of time trying to figure the other out.

Throwing in the towel can seem appealing, probably because it's an easy way out.

But that's where patience comes in. Admittedly, I'm a "fixer" -- it's true, I have a tendency to want to fix people. Recently though, I've been realizing that it's not my responsibility to do that, and it's not fair to the potential "fixee," either. In a friendship, it's my responsibility to be a friend, and that's it. Give love, and receive it in return. I'm not perfect at it, I don't think I could get a Masters of Friendship or anything. I have trouble receiving love from people. It doesn't mean that I can't give love to others, I just know this about myself -- I have a hard time believing that people's affections are genuine, even though they usually are nothing but. I think it stems from the fact that I have a hard time loving myself. It's a shame, I can hear you say, but I'm aware of it, and I'm working on it. True communication and trust can sometimes take years to perfect after an initial connection. And that's love -- valuing a person despite the deficiencies, and having the patience to wait it out.

I'm beginning to think there's only one way to do this -- through encouragement. I'll give you two examples: When my mother was my age, her boyfriend (this was before dad) would always tell her that one day he'd have "a rich, skinny girlfriend." At the time, my mom wasn't making much money, and was not the sveltest girl on the block. But he believed in her, and loved her, and didn't demand that she get a new job or hit the gym. But with his encouragement, over time, he ended up having a rich, skinny girlfriend. It didn't bother him that she wasn't his "ideal" woman, he loved her anyway. Their relationship didn't work out in the end, but the point still stands.

Here's another other one -- I have a good friend who used to suffer from terrible, crippling anxiety. When she started dating her boyfriend, he had a hard time handling it. Instead of threatening to break up with her if she didn't calm down, he encouraged her. It took her nearly a year to work things out in counseling, but she's no longer anxiety ridden, and they're now married.

And that's my point, I think. The idea of irreconcilable differences is nonsense to me. No issue is too large or too complicated for two people to not reach consensus. It's simply how dedicated each party is to coming to an agreement, how much they care about the other and are willing to put aside their modus operandi to accomodate each other. I cannot say I'm perfect at this by any means, but I would hope that my friends accept this about me, as I try to for them -- and in spite of this, we carry on, in love.

And it's worth it.

Nothing much

Yes, I'm still here...

After realizing that my father could be in his current state for quite some time, and deciding that I'll eventually go back to Los Angeles, I've been in something of a state of limbo. Not enough time to get a job here, and enough money to not have to get back to L.A. yet.

So it's been an opportunity. One which I haven't exactly embraced to it's fullest, I sometimes feel. Not an opportunity to get something really important accomplished, but to not have to get anything really important accomplished. Alright, I've been doing exactly that, and I say I haven't embraced that opportunity to it's fullest because I've spent a lot of time feeling guilty for not doing anything, for not feeling useful (though, my mom would be hard pressed to say that I'm not being useful here).

Well, as my good roommate Eliz (lovingly) reamed me out tonight for, it's silly to feel like I always have to be accomplishing something. Accomplishment doesn't dertermine my worth as a human being, and I think it's a lie that our world feeds us -- that we constantly have to be making something of ourselves to be validated, to feel good about ourselves -- we don't allow ourselves enough time to just be.

So, in rebellion to that idea, I will continue (sans the guilt) to do what I've been doing: making my mom dinner, obsessively listening to the new Coldplay record, watching movies with subtitles, reading, going to barbeques, sitting in cafes drinking coffee, taking pictures, enjoying the season of autumn, thinking about my friends, thinking about God, dreaming of traveling to exotic locations like Istanbul and India, writing letters, and going for walks. In short, nothing much.