The Last Time I Saw My Father

Be nice at each farewell

Mar 28, 2025

My dad at Masada on a trip to Israel in November 1984, a few months before he died.

A few weeks ago, my siblings and I agreed we'd each write about what our father's sudden death was like for us.

We plan to share our stories with each other on the 40th anniversary of his death, which is coming up this weekend.

While we do talk about our dad, we never really discussed what the experience of his sudden death had been like for each one of us. We went through that tragedy together, but back then (we were 21, 19, and 16 at the time) we were too preoccupied with our own shock and grief that we didn't have space for each other's pain.

Following our mother’s very different death two years ago, we created a book of her life. I have shared some of that process in my post Translating Myself. Creating a book about our dad’s life has been in the back of our minds ever since, and it could just be that writing our stories of his death could be the beginning of that project.

Following is my first installment of that endeavor.

The last time I saw my father was St. Patrick's Day, 1985.

My parents had gotten engaged on St. Patrick's Day. Mom was of Irish-American descent. Thus, St. Patrick's Day was a thing in our family even though we lived in Germany, on the outskirts of Munich, where St. Patrick's Day was decidedly not a thing (still isn’t).

Precisely because it was exotic, I had invited a bunch of friends for a St. Patrick's Day party that evening.

It was a Sunday, so the Google calendar tells me. I still lived at home, as one typically does as a university student in Germany. Having just finished my third semester at the University of Munich, I was about to use the two-month break between semesters for a six-week round-trip through the US. Traveling on my own, I planned to visit friends and family. Previous breaks I had worked odd jobs to save for the trip, carefully budgeting other expenses.

That March 17, my parents were leaving on one of Dad's business trips, on which Mom was accompanying him. Their destination was a conference in Berlin, as I recall. They were driving, sightseeing and visiting friends on the way.

They were also taking their sweet time to leave.

Road trips, after all, have no fixed departure time. I, on the other hand, was getting annoyed. I needed them out of the house to prepare for my party.

My dad in his signature camel-colored suede jacket—this picture is from when he was a PhD student in the US, before he even was my dad.

Dad slept in, then took his customary morning Sunday bath, listening to the radio. Then he was stuffing road maps and his notes on hotel reservations (done by phone in those days) into his briefcase. Mom made sure they had all their toiletries and neatly packed suitcases. Then it was time for lunch, the main meal of the day in Germany.

Thankfully, I had the insight to be agreeable, helpful, and not to shoo them along. “Keep your mouth shut. Be nice,” I told myself. “You're not going to see them for a good six weeks.”

They finally left in the afternoon. There were goodbye hugs as there always were. For a brief second I would have kissed my dad on the cheek, and I would have inhaled his pleasant aftershave Tabac. I see him wearing his camel-colored suede jacket with the knit sleeves, although I am not sure if that's what he wore that day. As younger kids, my brother and I thought that jacket looked like dough, and thus, for a silly while, our nickname for Dad had been "Pappteig" (sticky dough).

It was snowing that St. Patrick's Day afternoon.

I stood in the doorway, waving goodbye, as my dad's teal-green company Mercedes glided down our gravel driveway and turned out of sight.

Dad’s Mercedes in our driveway. He was, rightfully, quite proud to have earned the privilege of driving a company car. The first doorway with the jasmine bush next to it is where I stood waving goodbye.

As it turned out, that was the last time I saw my father.

In the night of March 29/30, 1985, Dad died of a massive heart attack, collapsing at a dinner party at the home of friends.

I have been eternally grateful that I stuck to my best behavior that day I said goodbye to my parents.

“Thank God I was nice to my dad the last day I saw him,” might even have been one of my first thoughts after I got the terrible news.

The Past and the Present

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