Lucky Man

A little over a year ago I stood on a small knoll in the veteran’s cemetery in Boscawen, N.H. to deliver a eulogy for my father. He’d trekked thousands of miles on his bicycle but was done in by a simple fall in the kitchen when he struck his head on the marble counter. It is complex, the tenuous relationship that exists between fathers and sons, one contingent upon a son’s quest for approval from the father, for the father, a mental calculation of merit, and worthiness of a son. The depth of a father’s love is conditional. A mother’s love has no such impediment.

My relationship with my father was complicated, a mixture of love, pride, admiration, impatience, occasional annoyance, and the quest for understanding. Over the last several years, I had become more like him or him, me. We shared interests in cycling, kayaking, politics, Nature, and writing. I have his voice, his walk, his cough and a thousand gestures of which even I am not conscious. So, his memory survives in some part through me, his oldest child, warts, and all. In fact, we are probably less different than similar, even more so as I age. May I tell you who he was with the words with which we buried him?

When something bad happened, to some plan or circumstance, dad would always curse his fortune. “Damned O’Brien luck,” he’d say “Someday, we’re going to get lucky and finally catch a break.” We’d all nod and agree… that next time things would work out. But you know, at some point in the past few years, I realized that John O’Brien was one of the luckiest people I knew. I doubt he’d agree, but let’s look at the facts.

Okay, he started with a miserable childhood, an abusive, alcoholic father and indifferent mother, mean and spiteful siblings, but he survived it. Often, the children of abusive homes are abusers themselves. That never happened. Instead, he married a woman who loved him and took him into her family, the Maloney clan, and there he found acceptance and the kind of love he thought he would never experience.

At 24, he was electrocuted and died on a utility pole, but was brought back to life by a co-worker with CPR and survived. He spent many months in Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh with serious burns, skin grafts and surgeries. Unwilling to stay at West Penn Power in a desk job after the accident, he sought a new career, sales, and found a personal hero, Stan J… at Crescent Tool, who believed in him, mentored him, taught him how to sell and become successful. He had a dream to own a business and move away from Manorville, Pa. childhood memories, to New England, which he loved, and did that. He learned the turf care and tree cutting trade and took that up. He worked all his life, in whatever job he found, in constant search of the next “revenue stream.” For “his bride,” he bought the homes they wanted, which was fine… all they ever needed was that one extra room. Of course, building that one extra room often cost them the house. He seemed to never be satisfied.

As a result of the accident, he lived three quarters of his life with only half a right hand, improvising everything he did to get things done, such as duct taping his hand to a kayak paddle or customizing his bike gearing. Then, he mangled his good hand in a snow blower accident but had the good fortune to be in a hospital where one of the finest hand surgeons in New England was on call and pieced it back together. He took up sailing and survived blustery April days after the ice melted, when no one in his right mind would be in a boat. He took up kayaking, once dumping himself into a swollen spring river in New Hampshire, where he hit a log jam and survived being temporarily trapped in the freezing water.

He took long bicycle rides. On one occasion, he was forced off the road by a car and tumbled down an embankment but survived. On another, he was struck by a car in Maine at a town intersection during a proposed 300-mile ride and survived. Walking his dog, Coal, in a blizzard, he was struck by a snowplow driver, which killed the dog and separated his shoulder, but survived. He had a heart valve replaced during open heart surgery and survived. He had cancerous tumors removed from his bowel and survived. At 81, he rode his bike along the Great Allegheny Passage, 335 miles over five days, sleeping in a tent on the side of the bike trail. Arriving in Washington D.C., he was erroneously directed to the subway, instead of the Amtrak station, where exhausted, he fell riding an escalator with a pack-laden bike. He ended up in George Washington University Hospital for two days being rehydrated and having his blood levels and electrolytes restored, and survived. You tell me… what’s an unlucky man look like?

He lived his life as he wanted to, tried the things which interested him, learned to fly, sailed his boat, rode his bike, paddled his kayak, and always, always took that one extra step too far. That was John O’Brien. He was a dreamer, impractical, stubborn, optimistic to a fault, never considering the worst-case scenario or even the commonsense alternative. And spent more than sixty-two years living with probably the only woman in the world, my mother, who tolerated his ambitions and loved him despite all their misadventures. And she survives.

He began writing stories, his “anecdotes,” late in life to cement his legacy. At our family gathering in Ripley, N.Y. last year, he was happy and robust, moved to tears over a teacher niece’s kindergarten class treatment of a story he wrote, the only time I ever saw him cry. He was so proud.

He was planning his next crazy adventure, riding his bike from Camden, Maine to Key West, Florida along Route One, one of the oldest and busiest highways in America. He told everyone his plans, over raised eyebrows, and objections. That was his way. He’d poll the family, one by one, for our “feedback.” “All right, kids, I’d like everyone’s input on this idea…” whatever foolish notion it was. Then, when we told him what we thought, he’d go ahead and do whatever the hell it was he wanted to do anyway.

He lived his life as he thought he should, held his own counsel, was the bravest man I ever met and the most stubborn, but I’ll never meet another like him. For that, I too, am a lucky man, as are all those whose lives are richer because of his place in them. So today, I honor his memory, one year gone.

Love you, Dad, and miss you.