My dad always had a thing for bow ties. I think he mainly just thought they were funny. I remember paging through my mom's photo albums from the 70's and seeing him wearing bow ties with his powdered blue suits. As a child, I used to sneak his bow ties out of his dresser drawer to dress up my stuffed animals and make them a bit more dapper. I can't say I remember him wearing them a lot in the 90's+ but they weren't really relevant during those years and were likely still on my dolls.
It was around June of 2007 that I really noticed his obsession with bow ties starting up again. He started asking everyone if they knew where he could buy one and he started calling around to the local suit stores. He never wore the standard tuxedo self-tie version, always bright colors or polka dots or stripes. These were surprisingly difficult to find at the time. I traveled to Vegas that July and I remember my mom telling me to make sure I looked for bow ties while I was there because my dad had been talking nonstop about finding one. I didn't really think a lot about it at first and I did look, but came home empty handed. My dad was so disappointed. At first I thought, What is with the sudden urgency to find a bow tie? Why after all these years does he suddenly need one now? And then it hit me. My dad was never the communicative sort and would never actually say the words aloud but I knew.
It's easy to forget someone is dying when it takes several months for this to happen. You would think that since he was a shell of the man he used to be, his hair had grayed, he had aged 20 years in 6 months and was unrecognizable in every way that it would be a constant thought, and in a way it was, but at some point your mind and body go into survival mode. Your subconscious mind is always aware and that's why you develop anxiety or depression or boils or the inability to handle emotion of any sort but you are still living real life. You still get frustrated and annoyed and find yourself arguing and fighting. And then ridden with guilt afterward. He wasn't in a hospital, he was at home. And he was still ornery and rigid and judgmental. He still yelled and screamed and hated everything. You want to live in this idealistic world where everyone makes concessions for him and has an infinite amount of patience and tolerance for his behavior because you know it's all coming to an end. But there's nothing idealistic about watching your father die and managing just the most basic of emotions and daily tasks become unreachable feats. I was never given a manual. A 'How to properly watch your father die from cancer over a period of 8 months while continuing to live your everyday life and react perfectly to every situation so as to live without any regrets...for the soul'. You just do the best you can. You find a way to get through it. And then you start picking up the pieces. Looking back, I don't think I did everything perfectly. But I know for sure that I did the best I could do in that situation and that's all I could really ever ask of myself. That's all I could really ever ask of anyone.
So, when my dad first started talking about bow ties in June of 2007 I wasn't immediately cognizant of the reason. I brushed it off as yet another silly obsession of his and put forth the absolute bare minimum of effort in helping him in his search. It wasn't until the beginning of August that I realized why he wanted one and by then I had lost so much valuable time. I quickly went online and ordered 5 bow ties in an assortment of colors and patterns and had them shipped to me. The second they arrived at my doorstep I took them over to my dad. By this point, he couldn't really move his body on his own and had lost the ability to eat, drink, piss or shit about a week prior. I will never forget how he looked, laying there. How he smelled. How he sounded. I told him I had a surprise for him. He didn't open his eyes at first and his wrinkled dry lips quietly asked me what it was. I told him I had brought him 5 bow ties and they were spread out on the bed next to him. He mustered up the energy to reach over and briefly pick one of them up and then something happened that had never happened before in my lifetime. My dad closed his eyes and his shriveled grey lips mumbled "Thank you".
I had been waiting my whole life for some form of verbal validation from my dad. I had never heard him say please, thank you, I'm sorry, I love you, etc. - to anyone. Ever. It was a really satisfying and equally heartbreaking moment to hear him say those words. He passed away the following week and even though he was cremated, I made sure the funeral home dressed him in a button up dress shirt and the red bow tie.
