To Dream

Over 5 years ago, on a chilly November night in Putnam County, New York, my father died in his sleep, quiet and alone, while my mother slept in another room. He had suffered from Parkinson disease for many years, and its ravages, accumulating over time, had locked him ever more deeply into a prison of stiffness. The disease created a wall of illness so high and fragile that we could do little but wait with expectant dread for it to topple.

The complexity of a life can never be summarized—it can only be hinted at. He experienced what many other immigrants experienced: war, poverty, chaotic flights across the scarred face of Europe, encounters with a confusion of marauding armies. He came from Lithuania to Harlem just in time for the Great Depression, City College sit-ins, a world war. There was polio and poverty and hunger. He learned English, took dancing lessons using a chair, drove an old Chevy that spun out in an intersection, and once met Woodie Guthrie. My father helped him find a guitar to play at a rally at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.

That was early in life. The father I knew as a child was loving, intelligent, patient, talented and humorous. He was skilled with his hands, a dental technician who took pride in his handiwork. His dexterity was manifest more sublimely in his violin playing, a lifetime love at which he was better than I knew (to me, he was just my dad playing the violin; to a high school friend in orchestra, he was a revelation of musical knowledge and skill). I felt fortunate to have him as my mentor and as my friend, but in his last years it was hard to feel love for him. His increasing confusion often …