A FanPost
I am seven or so, and we are strolling around the campus of Notre Dame, learning the “Victory March”. My father, (ND ‘53), has six daughters and no sons. Notre Dame is not yet co ed. But he is sharing his passion with us. He is teaching us the words to the fight song, and it will change our lives.
I am in High School and I get to go on the 2 day road trip to South Bend. It is just Dad and me. When the Irish beat the Trojans of USC, my dad is transformed. This serious, uber-accomplished pediatric pathologist, who runs 2 departments at a premier Children’s Hospital, is shouting after the game at USC merch vendors, advising them to discount their wares.
I am arriving for my freshman year at Farley Hall. My bed is literally in an alcove that frames the golden dome. It turns out I needed that nightlight several times that year, and am astonished at how much it matters when the lights on it were turned out during a historic winter storm.
I am working in North Dining Hall. It is my first of many experiences at managing people. And I often work during the football team’s “training table” so I managed one year to screw up my nerve and ask the head coach to sign a birthday card for my dad. Not to date myself, but one of the guys in the cafeteria line back then was Joe Montana.
I am a mother of two, and Dad has fallen at the Y and broken his hip. I rush to the hospital, and we chat as we wait for surgery. Dad will not be lucid again for months. After surgery, he aspirates and we do not trust the local hospital to save him. One of his daughters is a lawyer (ND ’81) and another is a Nurse Practitioner. They persuade the attending physician to airlift him during a lightning storm to The University of Pennsylvania Hospital, where he taught medical students.
I am taking my turn sitting with Dad. We try to “cover” him everyday with 2 separate visits. When he awakens from the coma, he has become agitated and confused, angry and sad. He knows us, but not a lot more. Over months his lucidity begins to improve, but his body has atrophied and he will be discharged to a nursing home rather than a rehab facility unless he participates in physical therapy. I play the “Victory March” to get him to try.
I am visiting Dad in the evening at the rehab and he has turned off the game. My sister (ND’85) calls and tells me to turn the game back on. We all know he will have turned it off because the Irish are losing and time is dwindling. Manti Te’o and the team are making a comeback. We win. Dad makes it home in time to watch ND beat USC with his family. The Irish are 12-0.
We got 2 more years with Dad— lucid and walking with a walker. It was enough time to help him and Mom sell their house and relocate to adult living, where Mom doesn’t feel as alone and no longer tends a 100 year old house or mows the lawn. But Dad is in the nursing facility there by the time of the move, and I have a brilliant image of his smile when on one of my visits Dad is wearing the “student shirt” for that year, and I ask him if he is a student at Notre Dame. He gets the joke.
Dad is gone now, and I am struck by my feeling during this surprising (and yet always expected) season for ND football. Although I do not follow the high school recruiting, nor grade the coach on his skills as Dad always did, I keep my eye on the team. When I hear the “Victory March”, I am transported to a fall day, trotting to make “step off”, where the students accompany the marching band from the steps of the Administration building to the stadium for home games.
I can be anywhere. But when the “Victory March” plays, I am not yet 10. And anything is possible. And everything is ahead of me. So lately I have been playing the “Victory March” and trying not to get ahead of myself as I imagine the National Champion Irish. Whatever happens this season, I am reminded to be grateful to a man who shared his passions with his girls, and if the impossible happens, I plan to celebrate with him.
Claire Witzleben (ND ’81)