The Day Dad Died..

I want to tell you a bit about my dad….

No, not the one that raised me but instead the “old man”…the one who had a hand in my creation…my biological father…Sandy Shaffer.

I got “the call” today. 

Mom called around 1:30pm to tell me that Sandy “my dad” had died.

At first, Teresa took the call and she reiterated that “your dad has passed” and initially I thought of “my DAD” as in Chuck Hansen…the dad who raised me and whom I consider “dad” most of the time…Teresa immediately realized the snafu and corrected by saying “Sandy”…either way it was a bit of a shock…

The confusion aside…which is par for the course when referring to my 2 dads, even I have never been able to figure out the correct monikers to differentiate between them…

I had to set the phone aside and have a good initial cry to release the stress of the moment…shock, grief, all that other stuff in between…yeah it all welled up before I even knew it was coming out…happens that way sometimes…when someone dies.

Still not quite fully reacting to that…Dad (Sandy) has died.

Initially we were under the impression that he had died on the 10th…

Come to find out we have just been alerted (in the last couple of hours) that he actually died around 8am this morning (Vegas time) after suffering several heart attacks over the last few days…needless to say (enter Yogi Berra moment>>>) the last one took him out and they couldn’t revive him.

Been several Yogi Berra moments today (maybe a universal respect to dad in the moment and then maybe he’s been hangin’ out a bit today)...YogiBerra (25 Funny Quotes of Yogi Berra) had talent for stating the obvious and my dad was a fan of Yogi and liked to quote some of the idiotic shit that Berra would say…I suppose at the present moment Sandy is likely quoting Yogi Berra right now with the “It ain’t over till it’s over” line.

My emotions are all over the place…

I’m in a really weird space with it all. Sure I’m sad, I’m mourning…he was my dad after all. However, it’s not so much mourning for the loss of my dad as much as mourning for the loss of a friend. Sandy never really was much for being “Dad”. Our relationship, if you would call it that (last time I saw him, spent time with him I was 15 and it was full summer in Tampa) was more like an older estranged brother than dad from afar. He never chastised me in the time that we spent together (most of which was in social media and via e-mail). He was always comforting and attempting to give good sage advice rather than getting in my shit over whatever he judged as being wrong. Fact is, as far as I was concerned (as I really can’t speak for anyone else) he did not pass judgment. Dad, Sandy, was supportive of my path in all ways…and I suppose I got some of that same nonchalance from him. In that case, well beyond the obvious Shaffer looks/genes, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. 

Nonchalance is/was definitely a Shaffer trait.

That nonchalant nature doesn’t exactly say that we don’t worry…we just simply try not to show it and honestly he likely played that out all the way to the end when he just simply couldn’t anymore.

Earlier today when I initially posted about my dad’s passing I noted that “he wanted me to come to Vegas, but it just wasn’t in the cards”…at the time I had no idea the pun that was included in that and I have to wonder if Sandy hasn’t been sitting on my shoulder for a couple of days now. He would have loved the humor in that Vegas/cards quip.

I have my dad, Sandy, to thank for so many interesting lifelong loves that no one else could have instigated in the way that he did/has; my love for Jazz, specifically his favorite David Sanborn with his alto sax, and a love for German food.

Yesterday, without giving it much thought I made a Chicken Sauerbraten in the crock-pot and the whole time I was eating (well thoroughly enjoying actually) I was thinking about how much dad would love this. Little did I know he was taking his last breaths and in the throws of cardiac arrest…or did I somehow have some clue that his time was coming oh sooo close at hand?

Dad had been having a hard time with his COPD over the last couple of weeks/months and had actually ended up in the hospital for a few days not long back…I had a dream a few days ago that I had asked Teresa to let me bring him here to live nearby in an assisted living home that I didn’t mention to her until today…so I guess I did kinda know things were coming to a close for him…I just didn’t know it was coming this quickly.

Either way…I took it nonchalantly (as dad would do) and hoped for the best…

I loved (and still love) the “old man” despite his misgivings and despite our lack of communication over the years. As Teresa (my dear wife whom I do not deserve most of the time) has stated earlier today “he may not have always been there for you but he was always there at a distance…and now he’s not”…this WILL take some getting used to for sure.

So I leave my father, my dad…the man that shared a spark of my life with my mother to create me into existence…with this final homage…Sandy Shaffer you were truly "One In A Million"…

I LOVE YOU!!!!