Catholic

I was raised by a member of the CIA; Catholic Irish Alcoholics. My Dad was a thoroughly decent and kind man who was somewhat troubled by shame. He handled most things himself, and did not like the super spiritual. He had nicknames like “Mr. Sincere” for effusive pastors and wondered whether they had a degree in theology. He was probably praying while he stared at his garden and seemed unreachable, but he’d never tell you that. He was impatient with strategic, man-made relief for human problems, being smarter than most therapists. I still don’t know anyone smarter than him. He was like a walking encyclopedia, a military compass and a psychic all mixed together. He predicted events, prevented events, and had an unmistakable air of solid conviction.

Although he could spot a scheister from a mile away, he wasn’t very good at warning me about the ones I attracted in life. I drifted away from him and closer to them. He was a poor immigrant’s kid from the north side of Chicago whose classmates became cops and custodians, but he was a surgeon. How do you go from having somebody bawl in your office with holy gratitude for taking a calculated, courageous risk that saved a child’s life to accepting some feedback from your wife or child in the kitchen? Y’dont. And combined with success in his vocation, being Catholic was his firewall against accountability for troubles in our home. That great person at work wasn’t always in our kitchen. It was harder to be a good man than it was to be a great man.

Once we were on a plane and the flight attendant came over the loudspeaker asking for a doctor. I was a little kid, sitting next to my Dad. He was reading. “Dad!” I exclaimed. “Go!” He put his finger over his mouth and looked down at me, eyes only, without moving his face from his book. “Be quiet. I’m listening to every word.” This was with a particular tone, as in ‘well, obviously, Amy’ as if I was a surgical colleague. (I was 10.) He oversaw the entire drama in the next aisle, from behind a hardcover library book. It turned out to be a mildly panicked old lady without any need for what he would call the “pomp and circumstance of being known as a physician.” However, on another day, in a mood, he would correct a friend at dinner who called him Mister. “That’s Dr. Loftus.” Making his title known. We would roll our eyes, but not at him!! You never knew what you were gonna get. After he died I noticed his Facebook profile had “Father” for occupation, which made me cry.

I liked the version of Dad on the plane, and chose to hunt for him in every interaction. To me, he was an interesting mixed bag. A devout and righteous Catholic, yet a humble and curious Sagittarius who would read aloud our shared horoscope to me, at the kitchen table. His curiosity about astrology reflected the soul of an artist who was utterly uninterested in airs and status. I squinted and found that version of him a lot; sometimes it was like seeing a dandelion out here in LA, growing between two planks of concrete by the freeway, but it was there. Somewhere around age 6 or 7, I realized what it was that made me have to hunt for that version. So by the time Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of the pope on SNL, it was pretty effortless for my brothers to call me Sineamy. Because by then it had been over a decade of trying to free my Dad by silently taking on the Catholic Church. 

In grade school a mean girl was chosen to crown Mary in May, and that got me. I started discussing this stuff with Jesus directly, because the priests in the confessional just talked me out of my observations. Then I found myself disgusted that girls couldn’t be altar servers and my teacher helped me write to the Archdiocese of Chicago. As a result, girls in our parish could be altar servers. My mom delivered the news, assuming I’d be eager to sign up. I said “I don’t want to BE one, I just wanted it to be an option.” Around the same time, an overnight babysitter nonchalantly said something like ‘Jesus was a rebel, a messenger, he stirred things up, he didn’t seal them up! And it was all for love! Unconditional love.’ WHAT?? Those words played like a top 40 pop song in my head. Now THAT was a Jesus I could pray to! That Jesus was showing up for me in the backseat when Dad shouldn’t be driving and was not letting Mom. That Jesus would’ve sat next to Dad on the porch and said, “not cool, dude” and loved him anyway. That Jesus would’ve loved and helped the mean girl that got crowned in May, smiling up at the teachers and snarling at classmates.

When I received the Christian leadership award in 8th grade, I was proud to represent for my Jesus, not a blue eyed, long haired, romance novel depiction from a churchy manicured suburb, but my middle eastern teacher, whose Jewish mother was a teenager when she was searching for a safe place to bring Him into the world, to change it. It amped up my mission to free Dad from the limitations of the church.  But he was not too interested in my Jesus.

And then, I became a teenager. I sat in the bathroom during mass and did my nails, producing the weekly bulletin an hour later as proof I had been there. I started getting cynical. Dad clocked in at church and wouldn’t tell me how he felt about God, so I clocked in too. That would lead to a young adulthood of drifting from seasons of faith into seasons of willful resistance and back again.

One night my Uncle Rob, a soulful, warm Jungian psychologist and Catholic priest, was late to Christmas dinner, as usual. My Dad resentfully held the roast. Once he arrived, my Dad moved Rob’s car. That was to be seen as granting driveway parking, but it was actually to find out if Rob had smoked cigarettes on the way. (He had.) After dinner Rob’s reason for being late was revealed. A teenager in his parish had gotten a sportscar for his 16th birthday and swung by his best friend’s house on a rainy Halloween night to show it off. The best friend was babysitting his two little sisters. In their nightgowns, they jumped in the car, leaving the safety of their beds. A slippery pile of leaves caused a tragic accident that took the lives of everyone but the kid driving the new car. In their grief and pain, many in the parish shunned the kid and his family. When I asked Rob how it went he said, “not much was said, Aim. It’s a tough Christmas. I just sat with them.” In the silence, I looked over at my Dad to find he was still pissed about tardiness and smoking. There was no hope for a spiritual experience that could crack the wall around my Dad’s logical heart. 

It seemed that the more sane I felt about a personal search, the crazier it made my Dad. He once wagged his finger in my normal, individuating, ambitious 22 year old face and said “ I will compel you to return to the one true church”. When I moved in with my boyfriend and refused to lie about it, I found out why my siblings urged me to hide it. He stopped speaking to me for a long time after a phone call that ended with me asking him “so you love me conditionally?” “Yes.” He responded. Click. That gave way to a horrible, crucial time of my life, which my soul required, that I now treasure. He was never able to say sorry, but he made a trip to my home in Nashville after the doomed relationship with the boyfriend had ended. He arrived with a re-purchased framed print from The Art Institute of Chicago, to deliver in person. The first one shattered in the mail. He couldn’t really tell me the story, he was crying too hard. That was enough for me.

I healed by using skills my Dad demonstrated, but never really taught me. I had to learn them from others, which is just how it is sometimes. I also had to search for new ones. I thought everyone had a Dad who was ferociously brilliant, constantly reading, preoccupied with justice for the underdog, extremely hospitable, gracious and reverent of other cultures and religions, helped absolutely everyone he could, and was also impossible about ordinary everyday love. In recovery spaces I often found myself whispering in shared awareness with the adult children of significant figures. I started to realize that I had a pretty remarkable Dad. I took responsibility for carrying out the best of him, no matter how imperfectly, and I have felt that even more in the last two years.

Time marched on and healed what it could, and I became a grown up. Then a miraculous quickening took place. My Dad had a massive stroke to his cerebellum, pulverizing the part of the brain that governs logic and habits. Within a millimeter of losing his life, he temporarily lost the use of his right side, his speech, and the critical side of his personality. He always said my Mom was the best thing that ever happened to him. I called this a close second.

Days after his stroke, I found myself in the hospital elevator with a guru, visiting from India in a sari. His eyes were sparkling like his bindi. I was a yoga teacher at that time, and the guru and I sensed each other’s cultivated inner silence, as yogis do. But I averted my eyes, for fear that talking to him might mean a friendly escort to my Dad’s room. I talked myself out of my inclination to force a big mushy spiritual experience with Dad and the guru. ‘Not today’ I thought. ‘Leave the poor man alone with your probing and your spiritual principles, Amy….the man had a friggin stroke.’ I successfully lost the guru down the hall out of the elevator. Only to enter my Dad’s room and find him energetically overflowing from his wheelchair. (Remember, he could barely talk) “Didja see the guru? Didja geth a blething?? He was here this mowhaning! He gave me a blething!” My Dad and I talked a lot that afternoon. I said that Ram Dass had a stroke and said he got stroked by God. He agreed that he did too. We meditated together. I peeked at him. He looked like a child, eyes squeezed shut and trembling, chin rising up, innocent, and yes, sincere. It still makes me cry just to think about it. So does knowing that upon waking up in the hospital he was shocked all four of his children were on their way. “I didn’t think they’d come” he said to my Mom. Another apology for being so hard on us that no one needed to hear.

I taught him ujaii breathing in the hospital, deep yogic breath. I suggested he continue to paint watercolors, and pray. “My ahhrecovery pieces” he said. 

A few months after my Dad’s massive stroke.

I got 10 years of really knowing my Dad. His ego and critical mind did return as he improved. The mystery of forced surrender in illness doesn’t always take, as most of us know. So he started telling me to go to church again. However, when we talked about the Catholic Church, it was different. There was more room. I could tell him I went just to smell the frankincense and that was enough for him.

I miss our talks terribly. We all manage the certainty of what our heavenly relatives would do or say. We have to admit what we filter through our own flawed memory and perceptions. After they’re gone, and unable to confirm or reject our conclusions, we can’t be sure. But I still feel confident about what my Dad would be calling all this medical madness and political theatre. If, when he passed away in 2017, he was already saying “trash and trivia!” about mainstream news, what would he say now?

Within a year of his death he was declining, and we all knew it. One night he had an evangelical Christian as a substitute caregiver. My Dad pointed out his Bible to the caregiver (always near him by then). This was “to shut him up”. We all laughed about it. It was largely dismissed in a group of relatives that were around. Later that day, I was alone in the kitchen with him. We were at the table overlooking Lake Michigan, having tea. I said “Y’know if that’s not a joke to you, that’s ok. We can all laugh, but you’re the one closest to the door, not us.” We both cried leaky tears and said nothing. He nodded stiffly, and the eye contact was brief, but as bright as the Holy Spirit.

Hospice was only there for two days. He didn’t spend much time in bed during his life or his death. On the last full day of his life, I sang to him all day. I went to bed thinking I’d be singing for weeks, but my angels woke me up and sent me to his bedside at 1:35am. I had frankincense oil with me, to put a drop on his head. I was stunned. He was breathing his last few breaths. I heard myself whisper “There will not ever be anyone like you, ever again.” In the silence I witnessed our last exchange in this world vaporize. I was certain nothing would be left but pure love. 

I wrote the song below and sang it at his funeral. In my grief, I forgot to ask someone to record it in the church, and dang, the acoustics. However, I recorded it for my podcast at that time, so here it is, a close second. “Only Love Remains”.

(if you want to skip the podcast’s intro music starts at 1:05)