How I Found Happiness Cleaning the Toilet

When your kid comes home from kindergarten with a crayon drawing, they are offering you their greatest treasure. They are excited to give you something of themselves; an act of love that is proudly displayed on the refrigerator.

Age 60+, I still wanted to give my dad something of value, something uniquely me where he could feel the love that it carried.

At 97, my dad played golf several times a week. As a matter of fact, he was the club champ. He was a dentist, and when he was 80 years old, he expanded his practice! Eventually he couldn’t do the dentistry anymore, but he spent his mornings golfing and his afternoons loudly fighting with the dental insurance companies.

He was a powerhouse and had more energy than me. Most of his friends were younger, a lot younger. He had all his marbles. He was married to my mom for 60 years and missed her. However, he still had his joie de vivre and traveled with his younger friends, usually taking along a grandchild.

My dad was always strong and independent. It was hard to give him something and it was hard for him to receive. I think it felt like weakness to him. He was the original tough guy. “I don’t need anybody or anything” was his motto. This made it very difficult for me as his daughter.

A while ago he was a little under the weather. It gave me an opportunity to take care of him. I visited him frequently. I’d do his housekeeping, bring him groceries, cook for him. When he took a shower, I would quickly change his sheets. He pretended not to notice. I said nothing so as to preserve his dignity.

I would clean his bathrooms when he wasn’t looking. A tough independent man didn’t need anyone to clean his toilets! I took such pleasure in that basic act, even though I hate cleaning my own bathrooms.

He showed his gratitude in little ways, like one time when we were eating together.

“It’s so good to have a hot meal,” Dad said. We were sitting on the old black, wrought iron chairs with yellow vinyl padding at the black Formica table. The refrigerator was humming in the background. The smell of hot crispy chicken wings right out of the oven was mouth-watering; the red tomatoes in the salad glowing. (He was a big salad eater.) He was in his beige bathrobe with brown vinyl slippers. I wore my mom’s tattered terry cloth apron and my clothes were ready for the washing machine, but I felt like a million bucks. Grease from the wings was dripping down his chin.

“It is,” I said.

Finally, I had something I could do for him and he was able to receive my love. And so it continued.

When I visited, I would stay the night because I knew it gave him comfort to have someone in the house. He was lonely after my mother died, although, of course, he would never admit to this.

Sometimes I would give him a haircut. He would sit on his bed with the mismatched bedding, an old white tattered towel around him. I was in my pajamas using my mother’s old haircut kit that was stored in a dried-out, cracked leather case. The bright overhead light shone on his half bald head. His medicines on the night table next to him.

He loved being pampered, God forbid he’d admit to it, but I could tell.

I would trim his hair, his sideburns, ear hairs and eyebrows. He sat very still with his eyes closed. A little smile on his face. I could see him enjoying that a loved one was tending to him, loving the physical touch, something I’m sure he missed very much since my mother was gone. He loved being pampered, God forbid he’d admit to it, but I could tell.

Whenever we spoke on the phone, he’d say, “Enjoy your husband.” He never said that when Mom was alive.

A special moment was when I was rubbing his feet. “How’s that?” I said. The house had the musty old people smell. It was dark outside. The soft light on the night table cast a gentle glow. I was sitting on a desk chair at the foot of his bed. My dad’s glasses on the pillow. I’d been giving him a pedicure and had put lotion on his feet and calves and rubbed them hard. As a dentist he had stood on those feet for 65 years; they felt like marble in my hands. “That feels so good,” he said.

It was a rare moment when my father could acknowledge I was giving something to him that he enjoyed. It was a moment when he could let my love for him in. Now that he has passed, I still treasure that moment.

The experience of helping someone has no bounds and can’t be measured. It rewards both the served and the server. And it doesn’t have to be big. You don’t have to find a cure for cancer or feed lepers in India to help change the world. Sometimes you can just clean your dad’s toilet.