On Ruining Mom's Thanksgiving

We come into this world on a schedule that is not our own, in a place that is not our choice, and we build a life and community out of that roll of the cosmic dice. We should all be grateful.

Seventy-three years ago, my father was born.

He used to joke with me as a child that he had, “ruined his mother’s Thanksgiving” that November 23rd back in 1950 when Frank Sarwark was born to Ruth and Roman Sarwark in Phoenix, Arizona.

No baby born could ever ruin a mother’s Thanksgiving. Let alone a mother like Ruth Sarwark (namesake to our eldest daughter and probably the best jazz trombonist of her age in all of New Hampshire).

That’s the joke.

My father loved that kind of absurdist humor.

He shared his favorites with anyone who would listen. He introduced me to Zippy the Pinhead, Kinky Friedman, The Firesign Theater, Penn & Teller, and countless other influences on my life.

It was my father who introduced me to libertarianism, taking me to county meetings in Phoenix when I was just a boy of 11 or 12, meeting people like Ernie Hancock to gather signatures for candidates and try to make Arizona a better place to live.

We owe a lot to our fathers. They make us who we are, sometimes in an attempt to imitate, sometimes as an act of rebellion, to be the opposite, the inverse, the nemesis to the original model.

It’s my father’s birthday today, but I won’t call him.

The last birthday we spoke was in 2018.

My father got early onset Alzheimer’s a year or two before that birthday, in 2018.

It was the year I ran for Mayor of Phoenix. My father was proud of me for carrying the Libertarian banner to more people than he was able to during the time he was active with the party. But some days he was not himself, he was angry or confused about what I was doing, why I was doing it.

This isn’t something I could tell people about at the time. Or the years after. Too much was going on, too many other things.

But it hurts, losing your father to a betraying brain and isolation beyond his control.

It hurts, because you love him a lot, you owe him a lot, you miss him a lot.

I miss him a lot.

But I am so grateful that he ruined his Mom’s Thanksgiving, seventy-three years ago.

Hug the ones you love, tell them how much you are grateful for them.

You never know when your last chance comes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yours truly,

Nick