I had never seen so many people in our village church at Christmas or Easter. Dad helped rebuild it and after a couple of years it became the main church in our town.

At the funeral, the two church halls were filled so that people were standing shoulder to shoulder. The children were sent to the second tier balcony, under the dome. There wasn’t enough room anyway, so people stood on the side spiral staircases. They stood in the cold street, in the church shop and in the refectory, from where the service and our voices were broadcast through loudspeakers.

Mom, my sister, and I spoke. Friends, colleagues, patients, neighbors spoke. Our voices echoed through the church, the churchyard and the whole village. It was as if someone was ringing a bell with words.

When the prayers and words were over, my mother and I made our way among the people to the exit. Someone took us by the hand, pulled us to him and hugged us. I had been away so long that I didn’t remember names, only faces. Familiar faces, but from where, I couldn’t remember. I saw people I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. I saw dad’s patients, and I was grateful that they, unashamed of their illnesses, had come so openly to my father.

We were standing with my mom in the street, and familiar and unfamiliar people kept coming up to us. They hugged us, said something. I remember their warmth, their kind words and their tears. When someone started crying, I took them away from my mom, because their tears for my dad made my mom’s grief even worse. She was grieving her own grief and grieving for all these people who had lost my dad.

Their words were stronger than prayer: simple and human, not bookish and universal. Words not for lengthy explanations of the inexplicable and inevitable, words not to offer comfort or to promise miracles… miracles whose foolishness makes one feel empty. 

There was a trace of his life in their voices.

Through other people’s memories, we felt Dad’s quiet presence close by, his understanding gaze, his smile through his graying mustache, and his arms reaching through the darkness for the arms of others to embrace us.

One by one, one by one… A river that flows beneath the ice, hiding behind the frozen surface the shared weight of irrevocable loss. One by one, one by one… 

***

Dad loved everyone. He found in everyone something talented and good, something special and unique, and by pointing it out, he pushed in a person the desire to develop his strong side.

He had a special fondness for strange people, who were endlessly magnetic to him, and whom no one but he could stand for long.

They ate him up from the inside out, and he never pushed them away. They slowly pulled him apart, and he meekly endured, as if that was his purpose and strength. As if someone from above had promised him alchemical knowledge for bearing the burden.

He disliked only two people: the man who had hurt his loved one, and the man who had betrayed him. They were at the funeral-so at ease, as if Dad’s death had absolved them of their sins to him. They approached me. I held back my accumulated camel spit and barbs. Daddy had raised me with dignity. 

Dad collected not only amazing objects, but also everything challenging, contradictory about human nature. That contradictory human nature took a lot out of him. 

I can’t help but think about the causes of Dad’s illness.

***

The sickest thing, so far frozen until the moment I dare to realize it all, is Dad’s pale, thin face after his fifth chemo. He thumbs up, smiles, and prepares a paper for the 54th scientific conference for the scientific institute he created with his own hands.

Sickest of all is his office with its terracotta army, its knife collection, his favorite cacti that bloom in winter… its paintings, its figurines, its antique antiquities. On the table are two museum-quality paintings that I – shhhh – smuggled in my suitcase. Paintings that I, following my dad’s example, dug up in the junk bin. Paintings he didn’t see. 

Antique collections with mercury in old mirrors and barometers, with lead in old metal, tapestries with particles of arsenic… arsenic and cadmium in the rich colors of glazed ceramics.

The chemical flavor of several centuries. Time stopped by poisonous preservatives….

I can’t help but think about the causes of Dad’s illness.

The sickest part is the holes in his future plans. Holes that look like censored sentences in modern books. Without Dad, future itineraries would be empty and all travel would be incomplete.

Sick of not being able to talk about his accomplishments, his children’s accomplishments, and their children’s accomplishments.

Sick – gigabytes of Dad’s photos, as if for posterity neatly organized into folders: nature and animals, sea life and all things aquatic, flowers and cacti, architecture and painting. In the closet are stored different lenses, cameras – from Zenith to GoPro, from the first in the country Kodak to Nikon, also the first, which Dad brought from a business trip to Japan.

It’s a painful and grateful thing to remember how Dad would close himself in the dark bathroom, plug the gap under the door with a towel and develop the film in the holy sacrament. That’s when everyone wanted to go into the bathroom, and Dad would hold the defense with a mysterious “Don’t come in! Get the light!” We developed photos together: a red lamp, blank paper dipped in water, and the magic of the image appearing before our eyes, which, if we hesitated, would turn dark.

Sick and grateful of the antique collections, minerals, and watches he brought back from his trips. We learned the world from his stories and souvenirs. Daddy can’t touch them now. We can, but not him. 

Painful and joyful was the sad stream of people who came to say goodbye to Dad. His vast collection is not of antiques, but of relationships and gratitude, of scientific discoveries and case histories. 

***

The most painful thing is his kind smiling face that looks back at us from the photos. The house is big. There are a lot of pictures.

But the one that hurts the most is Mom. Her anger-filled face and clenched fists, her gray roots growing back three months on her dyed-black hair. 

The house is big. Mom is alone. The house is big and empty. There’s a lot of emptiness. A lot of emptiness…