The Patriarch Papa

When great trees fall, 

Our Patriarch Papa, Phil Mudd

rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

I didn’t know what to think of Phil Mudd when I met him in my 20s, or the huge family over which he presided, for that matter. All those siblings seated for hours around a dining room table, bouncing babies on their knees and recounting childhood stories of yore. The time Betsy was a baby and the older kids rolled her under a desk. The time my husband, Chris, mistakenly dyed his teeth green with a mouthful of Chicklets prior to a high school prom date. The time David (or was it Chris?) was told to soap the outside of a pot during a Boy Scout camping trip and soaped the inside instead, making everyone sick. On and on it would go, as I’d rearrange my stemware and take in the scene around me. No raised voices, everyone genuinely happy to be together. Phil, or Dad as we all called him, was clearly the patriarch of them all, grinning through the banter, listening closely and then offering the final analysis of what really happened.  His word was sacrosanct to his family but especially to my husband, making things challenging for a loud, opinionated Italian girl like myself. “What to think about this Patriarch Papa,” I thought to myself as I peered at him through a cloudy wine glass. How would I get along with this man.

A love that lasted 70 years

As George Bernard Shaw once said, youth is wasted on the young. Phil Mudd left this world in the early hours of Friday, July 10, at my sister-in-law Debbie’s home, with her by his side. The days preceding his passing were spent with family who went about in hushed whispers, warm embraces and prayer as the inevitable began to take hold. And when we received the call that it finally did, I thought of Shaw’s words as I considered how little the young woman I once was understood the true patriarch, the man who raised my husband.

When great trees fall in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses 
eroded beyond fear.

But in all honesty, my impression back then was that Dad could be a bit of a pill. Having raised seven well-adjusted, happy human beings, he felt he knew a thing or two about parenting. He believed he knew a lot of things, in fact, and had no problem sharing that knowledge to my benefit. For example, “Children spell love T-I-M-E.” Leave me alone, I’d think, as I juggled a young family and work. “Blood is thicker than water, you know,” when I couldn’t make it to a Mudd gathering due to another commitment. I’d smile through clenched teeth, then hurry off to whatever important commitment was on my calendar. When I wept inconsolably and neglected to wash my hair back when our oldest daughter, Mackenzie, was diagnosed with a rare disease, he said “You know, you need to pull yourself together. Do it for your family.” I stewed on that one for weeks because, in my estimation, what the hell did he know anyway?

Dad holding court with family

In fact, I’d look around from season to season, year to year and wonder what was up with these Mudds, who rarely wallowed, set grievances (of which there were few) aside and refused to obsess over the negative, like Mackenzie not developing cognitively like her peers. I wanted someone to say something about that but all they did was welcome her, love her and include her in photos with four other girl cousins born the same year. “The girls of ’92!” they’d exclaim, as I’d shuffle that good ‘ol stemware around and wonder who I could poke with a fork. Once, obviously coming to her defense in his mind, Dad grumbled “Why don’t you leave that little girl alone,” when I told him how I, the ever-dutiful mother, shared six ways to Sunday about Mackenzie’s disorder to a dance teacher before enrolling her. The nerve of this man, I thought. “Never explain, never complain,” as the British say, but my own loud, Italian family was all about complaining, explaining, laughing, yelling, crying, screaming and then laughing again. This is how we rolled; it’s what I knew and preferred. I was about clutching my chest and shaking a fist to the heavens, and by God, no one was going to tell me otherwise.

Grandma, Grandpa and Minnie Mouse (Karenna)

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity…

Finally, something set me off in my 30s and in a moment of self-righteous indignation I wrote Dad a letter. Yes, a letter, as the written word has always been my go-to and I had a thing or two or three to say. I don’t remember very much about what traveled from my mind to my fingers on the keyboard, other than the result was a three page, single spaced manifesto of how it was time for him to butt out and show me a little respect. He received it, never spoke of it and I felt like crap for writing it.

Mother's Day a few years ago

Then I turned 40. Like a miraculous switch of a light, with 40 came increased wisdom, confidence and an altogether new interest in, say, how someone can raise – with his devoted wife -- seven kids who all turn out pretty well. How he could provide for the needs of a large family on one salary and send all seven of his kids to college, turning out nurses, a doctor and business leaders. How someone can stay happily married through many decades of life and refer, with a twinkle in his eye, to his spouse as his “bride.” I started to watch more closely, appreciate more fully…I guess I was beginning to have a little respect.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

As the years went by, Dad more than earned the title of Patriarch Papa, holding babies to his chest, joining his “bride” Carol at their grandkids’ school plays, donning costumes for our infamous Halloween Boo Bashes and bragging about his grandchildren during many a holiday meal. The family stories continued and he always offered the final word, but I don’t remember further unsolicited advice. Who knows why…maybe he held back, maybe I didn’t care. Life changes things.

One of many special Easter Sundays

One day, when he and I were alone in my den watching my youngest daughter Karenna, then a toddler, play, he looked at me and said “You wrote me a letter once.” I shifted uncomfortably, hoping he’d have forgotten it, but I suppose three-page manifestos are hard to forget. “I just want you to know you were right,” he quietly declared as I looked up. “You and my son needed to make your own choices and decisions, and you’ve done a good job.” I opened my mouth to speak but in typical Mudd fashion, he said “Let’s not discuss it anymore.” That was that, and it was good enough for me.

Dad loved our Boo Bashes!

Fast forward to later seasons, when the very years that increased my understanding of life weakened Dad’s eyesight, and ultimately, his body. I eventually experienced that great, ageless irony, that our parents – in this case, my father in law -- may have been right all along. Children DO spell love T-I-M-E, and although I don’t have regrets, you better believe I choked back tears when our first, and then our second, daughter packed their bags for college. What I’d have done for just one more field trip or school project. And while I’ve been fortunate to have good friends, many have come and gone as the years have passed – yet family, at least loving ones like mine and the Mudds, they never leave you. In time I also realized that parenting a special needs child requires love, strength and patience, and no amount of crying or pulling at your hair will change that but an obsession with the unfairness of it all just might destroy your life as well as your child’s. I recognized that anything ever said in Mackenzie’s defense was out of love – the same love that raised seven children, cherished 22 grandchildren and rejoiced over nine great grandchildren (and counting). The same love, in fact, that made him raise his arms to weakly hug my mother-in-law a few nights ago, even as his body was slowly beginning to shut down.

From Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary
Celebration Cruise

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened…

Last week, in a beautiful act of compassion and selflessness, my sister-in-law moved Dad from his memory care facility to her own home, so my mother-in-law could spend private time with him. Otherwise, Mom was separated from Dad because of COVID-19. We expected more time, but it wasn’t to be. Now finally comfortable and at peace, he received the Last Rites, we prayed the rosary at his bedside, beloved children visited and helped with his care and others who couldn’t be there called to check on him. The last day I saw him, after we said the rosary and spoke quietly as he struggled to breathe, my niece raised her phone to his ear and played recorded, loving messages from his many grandchildren around the world.

Juliette, Grandpa and Karenna

In recent years, since the kids have grown up and my career has started to sunset, I’ve wondered about my purpose. I get lost in thoughts about what I have or haven’t contributed to this world and where I’m headed next. I see younger people writing books, creating companies and moving the dial in life and work in a way I never have.

Grandpa and great grandbaby Jase
The oldest and youngest of the Mudd men

Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

But the day before he died, as I kissed his forehead to say goodbye, I considered a final lesson Dad offered me, and he didn’t even have to say a word: Be steadfast in your purpose, and the best purpose of all is family. Yes, the old saying “there’s nothing more important than family” is a tired cliché, but only if you say it and don’t live it. Phil Mudd didn’t just live it, he breathed it. And by breathing it he left a legacy far greater than what distracts us in this world. He left children who aren’t just related, they’re really good friends. He left a son, my husband, whose loyalty and love of family means he has never considered leaving us although there is a 90% divorce rate among parents of special needs children. He left a wife, his partner for nearly 70 years, who loved him as much or more than the day she married him. I considered the wonder of it all and was grateful for what should have been a heartbreaking moment, because there was joy. Joy, faith and love.

Holidays 2017

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

Holidays 2017

Last night, we brought some food to my sister-in-law’s house and stayed a while to comfort each other, discuss funeral arrangements and welcome the first of far-away family members who came in for this week’s services. My nephew poured me some wine and once again, the family stories started up, from sibling to sibling, around the kitchen table. Once again, I heard the one about Betsy being rolled under the desk, but this time I loved every word of it. And this time, as I balanced the glass on my lap and looked beyond those around me to the leaves on the trees outside, I wondered if Dad would agree that Betsy’s eyes were open under the desk or closed, and if Mom really didn’t know what they had done. He’d surely have had something to say. I miss him.

Yes, youth is wasted on the young, but if we’re lucky enough we will experience a time when we realize we once knew greatness, and we are the better for it. So today I count myself among the lucky ones. I’m blessed, in fact, because I once knew a proud and loyal human being, a wise and wonderful character, a person who understood his purpose and never doubted it. I will always be grateful that I once knew Phil Mudd…our Patriarch Papa.

Circa early '70s

(Poem: When Great Trees Fall, by Maya Angelou)