Thank you to Pat Taylor for suggesting this writing activity at a dinner party last night, which (sorry to all my friends) I will most definitely be applying again at many future dinner parties. The prompt originally was “write 25 things about a character”: they can be simple, straightforward, physical attributes, don’t think too hard about it. Pat’s writing group organically began to write things about someone they knew, or had been thinking about, or themselves. It morphed from a fictional writing exercise into a more personal one.
As I have been struggling lately with revisiting some of the painful and confusing memories of my father’s untimely death, Pat and Lee had offered to host a small, personal wake for him. So that I could have an opportunity to express more about him, and they could get to know him better. Ryan Edward Johnson. We lit a candle for Ryan and opened the night with Pat’s ingenious adaptation of the aforementioned writing prompt. Myself, Fred, and Monika, who I have been living with on and off since the spring of last year, were tasked with constructing our own lists of things about Ryan. Though neither Fred nor Monika ever met him, I have been openly processing my grief with them quite often (kudos to them for always supporting me in my tearful babbling), and so they formed their own ideas of what he was like based on how I had spoken of him. First Monika read hers, then Fred read his, then I read mine. Each of their lists contained important pieces of my Dad that I had somehow overlooked in my own. I felt lucky that he had grown into a real person in their minds from my recollections of him.
As the night continued, I kept darting back to the folded piece of paper I had scrawled my 25 things onto, stuffed into my jacket pocket, quickly adding small little notes of qualities or events that I had forgotten. Later on in the evening over dinner, I began sharing verbally some more of the real hard truths about my relationship with my father, some of the painful things or things that I never felt we truly resolved while he was alive. I realized that in physically writing down a list of things about this hugely important person in my life, I had subconsciously fallen into the trope of “don’t speak ill of the dead”. Wanting to represent the best version of him.
My journey with grief since he died (2 years ago on April 12th) has been the most powerful and affirming when I have truly been able to reckon with the past, our past, while understanding and accepting the flaws, the parts of both of us, that are so deeply human. So below I have expanded upon that list of 25 things into a list of 50 things, trying to capture some of the wonderful things about my Dad alongside the less wonderful things, moments and memories that shaped our relationship and shape the way I move through the world now. I have found great comfort in the fact that, though he left way too early, I never would have had the opportunity to process our past in as much depth, searching for understanding, if he hadn’t have died. It feels like despite the fact that we didn’t have enough time to sort things out between us, perhaps we never would have been able to. I might have left it until much later in life, all of this processing of our relationship. Him leaving this life early has made me a more considerate person, more thoughtful, connected, and grounded than I was before. More empathetic. More understanding. More in tune with what I want for myself and my future children. And all of us will be better for knowing him, including the not-so-shiny parts.
He had cancer. He was diagnosed on Marsh 25th, 2020. He died on April 12th, 2020, less than 3 weeks later. He knew it was very serious from the beginning, but we wanted to believe he would be the miracle. He wasn’t, and it was perhaps all the more crushing that leading up to his departure it felt like everyone was telling me that we had to stay positive and believe that he would be.
As he was dying, he was quite stoic and calm about it. Repeatedly said that he had a good life, he had no regrets, it was his generation that was the next to go, this was how it was supposed to be, the right order, that he was happy to be surrounded by people he loved. I wonder whether he really felt that way fully and completely. I never asked him. Now, maybe I think that it was the way he really felt, but it wasn’t the way I really felt.
He went so fast that we didn’t have time to talk about the things that I wanted to talk about. The things he wanted to talk about felt silly to me at the time, so unimportant. He was still upset that I had smoked cigarettes for a brief time almost 10 years prior! But I knew that I had to let him say what he needed to say.
I asked whether I could record him after he was diagnosed, as I had read that often people who have lost loved ones frantically try to download old voicemails to have a piece of their voice after they die, and I wanted to be prepared. He said that I could as long as he didn’t know I was recording, because he was shy about it. I only had time to make two recordings. I haven’t listened to them yet. I also still ended up scrambling in a panic to try to save all his voicemails. I only have eight of them. I haven’t listened to them yet either.
He had a very deep voice; people would often tell him he should be on the radio.
He would always answer the phone at work the same way, in that voice, booming: “Afternoon, Machen.”
Machen (pronounced mah like in mom, kin like family) Manufacturing was (is) his company. He built up a delightful hodgepodge of business endeavours using his many specialized talents over the years, and eventually developed it enough so that it could support his beloved hobby – fast German automobiles. He created a second business, Barbarian Motor Works, where he rebuilt Porsches, Audis, BMWs. Fine German engineering, as he always used to say.
I used to tell my friends my Dad had split personalities. There was the funny, goofy, charismatic, smart Dad that I was very proud of, I had the best Dad! And then there was the angry, scary, we always had to be walking on eggshells Dad that I constantly tried to avoid aggravating, or sharing with people.
He was often stressed and angry about work. For that reason I hated his work as a kid and have always said that I would never own my own business because of it. I now own 1/3 of his.
He was quick to anger. I have a few particularly vivid memories of him screaming in my face things that probably shouldn’t be screamed at children. I don’t feel angry or upset about those things anymore, though. I have a lot of emotions that I have trouble keeping inside sometimes as well, and I know I have hurt people with them. As he aged he was less angry. I think he just wanted to leave that part of himself behind.
Sometimes I feel resentful that he “became his best self” when I wasn’t around as much to really experience it and take it all in. Perhaps I just wasn’t an easy target anymore? I do believe that he did settle down and find more happiness later in life though. I do feel very grateful for that.
He was a very hard worker. It was one of his most core personality traits – doggedly determined, addicted to work, constantly productive. Something that I always strived towards but felt like I never quite measured up.
He was sensitive. I saw him cry a number of times. I was (am) very sensitive. He wasn’t sure how to deal with that. No one in my life really knew how to deal with it, though.
I think that I embodied a lot of the parts of himself that he was uncomfortable with. The tendency towards depression and anxiety. The intense emotions. The mismanagement of those intense emotions. He dealt with them in a far more traditionally “masculine” way than I ever could. He just put his head down and kept working through it. I always felt like I wasn’t good enough to be like him, but now I know that being able to confront and work through intense feelings is a strength that he was never willing or able to channel for himself.
He didn’t really understand women, as evidenced through his bewilderment over my ways of expressing my feelings and his tumultuous marriage to my mother. He always did his best to support me though. I was (am, forever will be) Daddy’s little girl.
When he was a young man, he was in a major car accident. He got into a car with a friend who was drunk. Dad broke his pelvis, and the other passenger in the car died. The driver walked away. The driver continued to drink and drive.
Dad never really drank in excess. In my whole life, I maybe saw him drunk a handful of times. He always would have a beer after work, though. Budweiser when I was a kid. Sleeman Honey Brown when I was a teen. I think he added some different brands later in life, but I don’t remember them as much. We saw each other in person a lot less then.
Control was very important to him.
When he was young, he had a dark black, thick moustache and a long dark ponytail tied at the nape of his neck. As he got older, the crown of his head got a little thinner and grey started to creep in. Once the moustache was really turning grey, he shaved it off.
He was never really that comfortable with getting “old”. He always said that he still felt like a 25-year-old inside.
Now he never will get “old”. Sometimes I wonder if it was better this way. Wondering about that hurts a lot.
He didn’t want kids, but he was very proud of my brother and me.
I never wanted kids, and he told me I might change my mind. I resented that. I did change my mind, slowly, but didn’t make my final decision until after he died. I had several moments of clarity where I felt an intense, deep, aching sadness that he will never meet my kids. I still feel that sometimes.
Dad was a great grandfather (Papa Ryan) to his step-grandchildren. His first grandchild, my brother’s daughter, was conceived the same year he died. Her due date was on Dad’s birthday (July 13th), but she couldn’t wait and came a few days early. She is wonderful. He would have absolutely doted on her, just like he doted on me.
Dad hated camping. I have a love-hate relationship with camping, which is tending more towards love as I get older. I feel much more comfortable in the wilderness than he ever did. I think I get that from my Mom.
Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the outdoors, he would still take us camping as kids… begrudgingly. He also endured some of the more uncomfortable parts of the outdoors (e.g., the insane bugs) to come to visit me during my first season of fieldwork in 2019 near Bella Coola, BC. Despite the amazingly beautiful scenery surrounding us, the only photo that we got of us together was in a restaurant with white blinds blocking the view behind us. I was very upset about this after he died, but now I just kind of sigh and think, typical Dad.
Dad loved space and physics and engineering.
He loved metal machines of all kinds. Lathes, flywheel grinders, cars, airplanes, motorcycles, dirtbikes, everything. His brain just worked that way. He could figure out any machine with a little time and patience.
He hated Donald Trump and unfortunately didn’t live to see him leave office. He loved calling me up whenever Trump did something particularly insane and we would rant together about the crazy things he would say.
We went on many long road trips together. We would often have extended conversations about life while driving. I wish I remembered the details of those trips better.
Dad loved to suntan. He would refer to his optimal colour as “golden honey bronze”. He would often end up with tiger stripes on his stomach of white, where the folds of his skin would hide from sun exposure when he was relaxed in a beach chair. I inherited his short-waistedness, and often have lines across my stomach whenever I am sitting down. I pretend like they are abs sometimes. That was probably something that Dad would have pretended as well.
He was very funny. We have a very similar sense of humour.
He had a great laugh. Deep, booming, loud, infectious. People have occasionally told me I have a “unique” laugh. Not sure how I should take that… hahaha.
He loved to embarrass us as kids. He had one particularly goofy Dad dance, in a bit of a crouch with flat hands pointed upwards, jutting out from elbows perched just above his hips, moving in and out asynchronously to the beat in his head. I inherited these dance skills, regretfully.
He loved waterskiing. He was good at it too! Always an expert at dropping a ski.
Dad hated winter and snow. He didn’t mind snow sports, though, and was exceptionally good at skiing moguls. I learned how to snowboard, and he tried with me for a while, but decided he preferred limiting how many times he hit the ground as he got older and switched back to skiing.
Dad had a particular way of doing things, and there was not much room for negotiation around that. Very independent. Occasionally it came across in harsher terms, like stubborn, hard-headed, self-righteous. Me, too, unfortunately.
He was a staunch atheist his entire life. While he was sick, he would loudly proclaim, “Still not religious!” to anyone who would listen. We all did, and we all laughed. It made it particularly bittersweet that he ended up dying on Easter Sunday. As I wrote in his obituary, his one last Dad joke.
He was tall, 6’1. I am not tall, 5’5.
He was strong. Definitely 100% dad strength.
He was generous. To a fault. He would give away money, time, the shirt off his back to help people. Sometimes those gifts came with strings attached, for me. I think sometimes they came with strings attached for others too. But it was how he showed his love, and love can be complicated.
He loved the city, with all the different types of people and food and things to do. I don’t think I will ever live in a city again. But when I visit, I will remember everything he liked about them.
He loved going to the movie theatre. Primarily for popcorn! And also the movie, but it didn’t really matter what the movie was. We saw many great and terrible movies together.
He only ever cooked if it was on the barbecue. He loved going to restaurants and would almost always insist on paying. He was the type to sneak up to the register before the meal was done so no one else would have the chance. I inherited his lack of cooking skills, as well as a penchant to spend too much money on restaurant food… though I use delivery services a lot more than he ever did.
He loved running and keeping fit. When he was young, he considered himself to be overweight and felt he was judged and bullied for it. All his life after that he took pride in being a runner and staying healthy. He was never the fastest, and we never really ran together because it was a very individual thing for him. We would often join fun races together though, and run at our own pace and meet up at the end. The first one we ever did was for Father’s Day. None of us ever expected that slim, fit, healthy Ryan would be one of the first to go.
He was very smart, but never had a formal education past high school. He always felt this was a big piece missing in his life, and so he lived vicariously through me, the perpetual academic. This led to a few spans of us fighting and not speaking for extended periods of time, because he demanded that I continue school when I felt I couldn’t do it because I got *gasp* a dreaded C+. I still kept going, though. Mostly for him, honestly. I have to keep going for myself now. That’s been… complicated.
He always knew I would be successful, especially when I wasn’t sure.
I was and still am devastated that he won’t see me complete my PhD. The last day he was lucid during his quick cancer deterioration, I was able to conduct my candidacy exam over the living room television. We pretended it was my defense, and I captured him telling me how proud he was of me in one of the secret recordings. Perhaps I won’t listen to it until I finally do complete my PhD.
We are so very similar. The good parts and the not so good parts. I hope to draw on the strength of my Dad to continue to build a path forward in my own life without him, hopefully avoiding some of the things he did that I perceived as mistakes… to of course make many new, wild, and wonderful mistakes of my own. However, I will forever embrace his honesty, generosity, persistence, humour, thoughtfulness, and fierce tenacity.
Miss you Dad.