My Fight / Your Fight (5 page)

He turned to me. “Watch this. They're going to fuck this order up. These idiots can never get a damn order right.” Then he turned to the speaker box and said, “I would like a kids' meal with chicken fingers and a small coffee.”

“Will that be all?” the voice asked.

“Yes, can you repeat that back to me?” my dad asked.

“A chicken fingers kids' meal and a coffee,” the voice said. “Please pull up.”

My dad looked at me and said, “No fucking way they get this order right.”

We pulled up. The guy working the cash register opened the window and held out the bag.

“That's two cheeseburgers and a small fries,” he said.

My dad handed me the bag and gave me an I-told-you-so look.

As we pulled out of the lot, he turned to me, “Ronnie, just remember that. Be grateful you're a sleeper and not fucking stupid.”

I unwrapped a cheeseburger and nodded.

I don't lean on the old wins. I always need a new one, which is why every fight means the world to me.

I forget wins all the time. I forget entire tournaments and countries, but the losses stay with me forever. Every single loss feels like a piece of my soul has died. I'm never the same after a loss.

For me, losing is second only to having a loved one die. When I lose, I mourn a piece of me dying. The only thing worse than that is mourning the death of somebody else.

Dad's spine was disintegrating. The doctor slid the X-ray onto the screen and told my parents that the deterioration was getting worse and that it would keep getting worse. Soon, he wouldn't be able to walk. Then he'd be quadriplegic. Then he would waste away until he died. There was no miracle cure. No cutting-edge operation. Just a couple more years—maybe less—of excruciating pain and paralysis.

Though he hid his pain from us, my dad had been suffering since the accident; his back was deteriorating and the chronic pain was getting worse. My mom got a new job at a small college on the other side of the state, in Jamestown, North Dakota. We all moved back in together—Mom, Dad, Maria, Jennifer, and me.

My dad quit his job, saying the ninety-mile commute each way was too much, but that was only partially true. The reality was that the pain was becoming unbearable and sitting all that time only made it worse. The doctor had prescribed painkillers, which my dad refused to take and that he couldn't have taken while driving anyway. I was just a kid; I didn't question why he was home. I was just happy to have my dad around.

The summer before I started third grade Dad was always there. He sat on the front stoop as we rode our bikes up and down the block, made us snacks, and turned on the sprinkler for us to run through on hot days. While my mom worked, he piled us into the car, trekking us to our various activities and friends' houses. When he was feeling up to it, he headed down to the basement where he had his woodworking tools set up. When I got bored of watching cartoons, I sat on the steps, peering down as the power saw buzzed, sending sawdust floating into beams of sunlight. Some days, when it was just the two of us, he and I would drive to our “special” spot, an out-of-the-way pond where we would skip rocks.

On August 11, 1995, Jennifer and I were home with Dad, watching cartoons on Nickelodeon. It was a summer day that blended into all the others.

Dad called Mom and told her to come home. Then he left.

I like to think he hugged Jennifer and me for longer than normal and told us he loved us and that he was going out, but honestly, I don't remember. For years, I hated myself for having been such a self-absorbed eight-year-old that I had no clue what was happening. I've tried to remember something from the
before
part of that day—what my dad was wearing, what he looked like, what he sounded like. Whether he hugged us that day. I wish I could remember the words he said to me before he walked out our front door. I can't. I just remember what came after.

My mom rushed in the front door.

“Where's your dad?” she asked.

Jennifer and I shrugged. We had no idea how radically our life was about to change. My mom, overcome, sat down at the dining room table.

My dad had walked down the four steps that led to the driveway. He got into the Bronco. He drove to the spot next to the pond where we skipped rocks. It was peaceful there. He parked the car, then took out a hose and put one end in the tailpipe, then brought the other end around to the driver's side window. He got in the car. He rolled up the window. He sat back in his seat. He closed his eyes. He went to sleep.

A few hours later, a policeman showed up at our door. My mom and the officer spoke in hushed voices in the entryway for a few minutes. When my mom came back into the living room, she sat us down on the living room couch. From the look on her face I knew it was something serious. Jen and I glanced at each other, making that silent sibling eye contact that says, “Do you know what this is all about? No, me neither.”

“Dad went to heaven,” my mom said. For the first time in my life, my mother started to cry. I don't know what she said next. The room was spinning too fast.

Everything in my life from those words on is part of the
after
.

I tried to stand up. I wanted to get away. I needed to leave the room, to leave the moment, but I felt my legs collapsing under me. It was as if they couldn't bear my weight. Everything that followed is a haze.

Maria had been out of town visiting family and was rushed home.

In the hours and days that followed, our house was filled with people. Some stayed the night, helping my mom and us. Some just dropped off food. There were so many casseroles and everyone whispered, they seemed to think that was the appropriate thing to do. In a hushed voice, I heard one woman question whether Dad could have a Catholic service even though he committed suicide. The priest never hesitated. “Funerals are about the living,” he said. “The dead are at peace with God.”

The funeral home director was married to my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Lisko. She was with her husband when he came to discuss service and burial details. It was weird seeing her in my house.

I remember sitting with Jennifer and Maria on the stairs and overhearing as he asked my mom what kind of coffin Dad wanted.

“I don't think he cares,” my mom said. “He's dead.”

Mom tried not to cry in front of us kids. She would come out of her bedroom, her eyes red and puffy. Maria and I cried a lot. I cried so hard I felt like I was going to run out of tears. But Jennifer refused to cry. I looked at her and wished that I could stop. I told myself to pretend he was on a long business trip.

The night before the funeral, we sat in the funeral home parlor. The place was nearly empty; most visitors had left for the evening and it was quiet.

A woman I didn't know told my sisters and me that he looked peaceful and walked out.

I looked into the coffin. My dad was lying there, looking like my dad. His eyes were closed, but he didn't look like he was sleeping. His mouth, under his mustache, had been set in such a smile that it looked like he were about to laugh, as though he were playing a trick and the anticipation had become too much and he was about to spring up from the coffin and burst into laughter. I waited. I watched the coffin. I prayed for that moment even after my mom took me by the hand and led me away.

The service was a Catholic mass. The un-air-conditioned church was hot in mid-August. We sat in the front pew. I heard the priest talking at the altar, but was unable to focus on his words. A fly buzzed over the casket. It landed on my dad's nose. I wanted to jump up and shoo it away, but my mom was holding my hand too tightly. I hated that fly.

We rode to the cemetery in a white limousine. Stepping out of the car with its tinted windows, I shielded my eyes in the sunlight. I had never been to a funeral before, but always imagined them occurring on dark rainy days. Instead, it was muggy and the sun was beating down. I stood, sweating, in the black dress that had been bought for his funeral. I tried to fan myself with my hand, as if it would make any difference. It was the kind of day where my dad would have turned on the sprinkler for us to run through. But he was dead.

My dad received a military burial because of his service in the Army. A soldier played taps on a trumpet and guns were fired in the traditional salute. I covered my ears at the noise. As I watched my dad's coffin lowered slowly into the ground and out of sight, I felt empty inside. That feeling would never fully go away. The men folded the American flag that had been draped over my dad's coffin into a perfect triangle and handed it to my mother.

The flag stayed folded for the next thirteen years.

My great-grandmother always said, “God knows what he's doing, even when you don't.” I agree with her. There is nothing in my life that I would go back and change, even the darkest moments. All the successes and greatest joys in my life are a result of the absolute worst things. Every missed opportunity is a blessing in disguise.

A loss leads to a victory. Being fired leads to a dream job. Death leads to a birth. I find comfort in believing that good things can grow out of tragedy. 

The first few months after my dad died, I'd wake up and be surprised that the sun was still rising in the east; that people were still playing and going to school. Nothing seemed to have changed.

I did the best I could just to keep going. Sometimes, it felt like Dad wasn't home from work yet. Like he would walk through the door any minute, snowflakes on his mustache, and bellow, “It is colder than a witch's titty out there.”

Other times, his absence was overwhelming. The sucker punch of stumbling across a half-chewed pack of his Wrigley's spearmint gum lodged in the couch cushions or a receipt with his signature buried in a pile of papers.

But after a while, him not being there started to seem normal. I still missed my dad. I still thought about him every day—I still think about him every day—but I knew not to expect him to walk through the door.

The second winter after my dad died, my mom started dating again. She met Dennis online. Dennis was a rocket scientist. (If you bring that up to him, he will say he wasn't actually a rocket scientist, but that he worked on the radar that was used with rockets—because clearly that's a big difference.) Dennis sent my mom a pink fractal for Valentine's Day. My mom was flattered. I didn't even know what a fractal was.

A few months later, Dennis asked my mom to marry him. My mom was really happy, and it made me happy. We moved back to California and in March 1998, just after my eleventh birthday, my sister Julia was born.

When we moved to Santa Monica, my mom reconnected with some of her old judo buddies in the Los Angeles area. They were guys she had trained with back in the day when she was on the world team. She was the first American to win the world judo championships, but that had been before I was born. Now, one of those friends had started his own club and invited my mom to work out there. One day, I just asked if I could go try it out.

The next Wednesday afternoon, I hopped in the car to head to judo. I didn't expect it to be a life-changing moment.

My dad's death set off a series of events that would not have occurred had he lived. We wouldn't have moved back to California. I wouldn't have a younger sister. I wouldn't have taken up judo. Who knows what I would be doing or how my life would have ended up.

But I wouldn't have ended up here.

My sister Jennifer says we grew up in a family where exceptional was considered average. If you got a report card with all A's and an A-minus, my mom would ask why you didn't get all A's. If I won a tournament, my mom would ask why I didn't win it by all ippons, judo's version of a knockout. She never expected more from us than we were capable of, but she never accepted less.

The very first time I stepped on the judo mat I fell in love with the sport. I was amazed by how complex judo was. How creative you had to be. There are so many little parts and so much thought that goes into every move and technique. I love the problem-solving aspect of fighting. It's about feeling and understanding and breaking down an opponent. It's not just “go faster.”

I had been on a swim team for a couple of years. But after my dad died, I didn't want to swim anymore. Swimming is very introspective. It makes you think about things, and I didn't want to be thinking about my life. Judo was the opposite of swimming. One hundred percent of my focus had to be in the present moment. There was no time for introspection.

We hadn't even pulled out of the parking lot after that first judo practice before I asked my mom when I could go back.

My first judo tournament fell on my eleventh birthday. I had been in judo for about a month at this point. I really only knew one throw and one pin, but it was just a little local tournament.

We walked into the building where the tournament was being held. I followed my mom up to the registration table. The mats set up around the gymnasium seemed so much bigger than they did in practice. My eyes widened. I tugged nervously on the white belt that held my white
gi
top closed.

My mom sensed my hesitation. After she finished checking me in, she pulled me aside. I expected a pep talk about how it wasn't a big deal, about how it was just about doing my best, about how I should just go out and have fun. Instead she looked me straight in the eye and said three life-changing words: “You can win.”

I won the entire tournament by all
ippons
(an instant win). I was euphoric. I had never really won anything before. I liked the way winning felt.

Two weeks later, I lost my second judo tournament. I finished second, losing to a girl named Anastasia. Afterward, her coach congratulated me.