He could’ve asked about all the missed birthdays and Father’s Days. Instead he gave me a gift

Two years before I started reviewing business books, my dad and I had our one and only father-son talk.

We wound up having two different conversations. I was making big plans while my dad was saying goodbye.

He was in the hospital and I was in denial. My dad had just turned 50. My parents had visited a few weeks earlier. He seemed tired but not sick.

On Monday morning, my dad skipped work and walked into the emergency department. On Saturday afternoon, he was taken off life support in the intensive care unit.

In the middle of that brutal week, my dad asked if we could talk.

I sat on my dad's hospital bed playing the part of prodigal son. I'd already turned in patience-testing performances as the weird kid, sullen teen and self-absorbed twenty-something. To make up for lost time, I promised road trips, ball games and cottage rentals once he got out of the hospital. Take a good look around because we're never coming back here again," I said, repeating something my dad routinely and loudly announced for as long as I could remember.

My dad humoured me. He knew how things would play out. There'd be no Sunday drives and visits to ballparks and cottage country.

As soon as my dad was diagnosed, a doctor showed up and pitched a clinical trial offered only to patients with nothing left to lose. This isn't a miracle cure," said the doctor. At best, this'll buy you some time and most of it will be spent in hospital. Or the treatment could kill you as soon as you start it. Whatever happens, you'll help us find better ways of helping patients like you in the future." My dad agreed to do his part for science.

Another doctor completed the trifecta of things my dad feared most - getting cancer, dying young and going on life support. We need to put you a ventilator," said the doctor. You're fighting for every breath. We need to give your body a rest so we can start treatments as soon as possible." My dad signed up for that as well, knowing he might never regain consciousness so he could get injected with a potentially lethal cocktail of drugs.

Before going on life support, my dad wanted to make sure important things weren't left unsaid between us. He somehow kept it together even though he was overwhelmed, terrified, furious, exhausted and sad. I did not keep it together.

Our talk was my dad's parting gift. He could've asked about all the missed birthdays and Father's Days. Why hadn't I visited, picked up the phone or put a card in the mail? But he didn't go there. He was forgiving, gracious and kind. He said what I'd always known but hadn't acknowledged or said in return. I'd always assumed there'd be more than enough time for me to be a grown up and make amends.

Unlike my dad, I left something important unsaid during our final talk. I never said thank you. My dad had grown up poor and somehow managed to break the cycle. He became the first in his family to go to university. I can remember riding shotgun to campus in his rusted out Volkswagen Beetle and running around the map library in the geography department. He worked his way through school while being a dad in his early twenties and keeping a roof over our heads.

My dad scrimped, saved and sacrificed. All his lunches were brown-bagged. His vacations were staycations. His only impulse purchase was a jumbo-sized rear-projection television. He never drove a new car off a dealer's lot. He stuck it out in a job that was wearing him out.

He did all of that year after year to build a better life for his family, to give us the opportunities and experiences he never got. And he pulled it off.

So a very belated thanks to my dad. You did good, right up to the very end.

Happy Father's Day.

Jay Robb normally writes book reviews for The Spectator. He serves as communications manager for McMaster University's Faculty of Science.