My father, Boris, moved out to his own apartment a month before he died of a heart attack in late October 1975. My parents had been in the process of separating, a process I became aware of at the end of that summer.
One night in August I heard them fighting, after which I found my mother, tearful, in their bedroom. “Can you believe it?” she told me angrily, “your father doesn’t want to….” or “your father will only…” I don’t remember the details now, but it was clearly some argument about money and who would pay how much of household expenses and money towards my education and such.
Then I heard my father crying, a first in my experience. I came into the kitchen. He sat at the small round table, where we ate most of our meals—the larger table in the dining room was for when guests came to our house—with his arms resting on the table, his head on his arms, his sobs quite audible. I felt so sad to see him hurting so deeply. Somehow the three of us ended up sitting at the table, I between the two of my parents, holding each of their hands. I realized (though not with surprise for I had know it intuitively for some years) how I was the link between them, the glue that had kept them together in marriage.
And so my father got his own apartment. He found a place quite close to ours, just four blocks away. On the whole, he and my mother were quite amiable during this time. I believe she helped him find furniture. I was glad that his home was so near mine. Still, I was not used to not having him at what I considered “my home.” It was hard to adjust to reality that I had to make a plan to see him as opposed to him just being there, for me to talk to in the evening and mornings, before and after school.
Of my two parents my father was the “morning person.” He would check to make sure I was up in time to get ready for school and would often make breakfast for the two of us. My mother, Madeleine, tended to sleep in (though she did go to work outside the home, first at the jewelry store she started with my father, and after their separation, at a business that she started with a girlfriend.) Boris liked to make eggs sometimes and we would eat the rolls that he had made at home. These were delicious French breads, as our family went through a period of making bread at home, using the Cuisinart mixer, a pizza stone in the oven and other techniques to make bread with a wonderful crispy crust and chewy inside. Those weekend days of baking filled the house with delectable smells, and invariable half of the product was consumed as it came out the over, hot and spread with lots of butter.
I can’t remember what mornings were like during that time when my father lived in his own apartment. Did my mother get up to be with me some of those mornings, or was I on my own to make breakfast? What I recall about that time was a feeling of confusion, resentment and sadness that my familiar familial world had changed.
On the evening that my dad died, my mother and I were watching television together in her bedroom. The door bell to our apartment rang, which surprised us as we were not expecting anyone to visit. We opened the door to find a policeman who courteously explained that Boris had died of a heart attack, that he probably died quite quickly as he was found on the sidewalk, dead, and so, though he was taken to the hospital, he could not be revived. For a long time after that, when I heard an ambulance siren, I would feel a tug at my heart.
After the policeman finished explaining this- all while standing in the doorway of our apartment- he left. My mother turned and hugged me and started to cry. I felt, perhaps for the first time, that I was supporting her, that I needed to be strong for her.
For me, there was a rush of feelings, complete surprise and then, the worry that as I had not seen very much of my father during that month that he lived in his own apartment he had not known that I love him. But that worry passed. I feel he knew, knows, that I love him.
My mother called her friend Norman, who came over to our apartment, then her brother Peter came over as well. I meanwhile, was trying to reach my boyfriend Roger. He was out with other of our friends, getting high and playing Frisbee. News travels fast, and my boyfriend’s mother called my teacher, Mrs. Gordon. Apparently I was to take the PSATs the following day. Mrs. Gordon called and told me I could miss that particular PSAT date and take that exam on a different date. Finally Roger got the message and he came to my house. I was so glad to see him.
The ensuing days are a blur in my memory. My mother asked me if I wanted my father’s coffin, which would be at his funeral, to be open or closed. I was afraid of seeing my father’s body dead, so I said “closed.”
My dear friend Maggie and Roger came to the funeral, a service at a local funeral home and to our apartment for a small gathering afterward. I remember very little of all this, except that when I got a look at myself in a mirror on that day, I was surprised that I looked rather like my usual self, even though I felt so hollow inside.
Boris was cremated, and Norman spread the ashes. He sprinkled them in a few locations in Central Park, and at least some were put on the bike path. Boris, a few years before he died, developed a passion for bike riding. He would go every Sunday, his only day off from work, and bike the long loop in Central Park. At first he had a Peugeot 10 speed. After a while he wanted a better bicycle. He heard about one that was for sale. A woman’s husband had died, and she wanted to sell his bike. It was a Campagnolo frame with all “Campy” parts, very fine, high quality. Boris spent an evening looking over the Campy bike part catalogue, adding up what it would cost if he bought Campy parts and put them on his current Peugeot bike. He realized that buying the bicycle from the woman was a great deal, so he did that.
I remember going riding with him one Sunday. We stopped in at a bike shop and he bought me a pair of bicycling gloves, the ones with only half fingers and padding on the palms. I felt so official, part of the club.
I was, am loved.
—Deirdre Leber