My father's motto and mantra for most of my growing-up years was "expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed." I always thought this was such a cop-out. A way to say that you should never strive and make yourself vulnerable to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In a way, I guess I still feel that it's a sad affront to hope.

In his later years, I heard him say this less and less as he opened up his heart more and more. I can still remember being in my early twenties, living near him in Richfield, married with small children. He stood in the doorway of my home, leaving by way of the side door that opened into the garden. He stood there a moment longer than I thought completely necessary before saying, "I love you." I didn't know what to say. I couldn't remember ever having heard him say that before, and I wasn't sure what kind of response to give. It forced me to think...did I love him, too? Could I say it to him? It was too much too fast and I didn't have time to respond.

I wonder now, did he expect nothing? Was he disappointed?

My dad used to tell us girls that he was going to make us a go-kart. He had all the parts, he said, and we would have races. This thing would go eighty on the freeway. I didn't really expect there to be a go-kart, and I was not disappointed when one never appeared. My dad was full of a lot of talk, and per his own motto, we expected very little of it to culminate into anything real. I don't remember ever expecting any of his proclamations of what could be to become anything more than the fantasy that he created. When my kids were little, he started telling them about the go-kart, too. I didn't particularly want my kids racing down the freeway in a homemade go-kart at eighty miles an hour anyway, but I wasn't worried. They, however, did seem a little invested in this dream of his. And while I re-phrased Dad's motto, the gist of it was the same: There will be no go-kart. Expect no go-kart, and you will not be disappointed when there is no go-kart. And it worked because there was no go-kart and the kids didn't expect one. But still, I felt like a kill-joy. Even though I don't remember ever experiencing anything like joy when it would come up. But I have to admit, it did become a source of some humor. I think perhaps that Dad meant it as a joke after a period of time.

But when I think about my relationship with my dad, it really was all about expections and disappointment and learning how to control both. On both sides. When I was a kid, I had hopes that he would be the funny, charming, joking Dad that he COULD be, all of the time. I wanted THAT guy to live with. Instead, I got the moody, sometimes violent Dad that I grew to hate, then tolerate then eventually love. I shed the expectations that he could be that guy all of the time. I actually started to forget that he could EVER be that guy by the time I left home at seventeen. I left and I didn't look back. It was over ten years after that before I heard the story of his childhood, and was able, as a parent, to see the pain that made him who he was when I was a kid. I was in my late twenties when I heard of his abandonment as a baby, the tearing away of his family when he was seven, and the abuse that followed. And not just his abuse, but the pain of everyone involved. Suddenly I understood what he meant. Not that you don't appreciate what you get, but that sometimes the pain of an expectation dashed is greater than thrill of anticipation when you are really believing that it might happen for you.

When you are a child, you can't help but expect things. In fact, it's more than an expectation, it's a demand. "Mine!" "Gimme!" And perhaps when you spend your early life receiving what you want, and then one day you not only lose everything you had, but can never again have it...and you KNOW it. It's not possible that you might have it again...you find that you suffer less if you don't want. Don't expect. Don't hope.

Which is every bit as depressing and sad as I ever thought it was when Dad was telling us "expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed." But perhaps it starts out that way, and transforms into something else. Instead of a way to insulate yourself from your needs and your inability to satisfy them, it becomes a wide-eyed openness to whatever may come.

I learned not to expect the go-kart, but the wonder of what I MIGHT find in that cavernous garage never left. I had no expectations when he would say, "Did I show you what I got last week?" But I certainly wondered. And honestly, there was usually no way to prepare yourself for what you were shown. And disappointed? No, definitely not. Because there was no expectation. I think surprised is always a better description of my reaction to his latest acquisitions.

One day I stopped at his house after work. I don't remember if I had a reason for going or not. Most likely I did. I didn't usually stop by unless I had a reason. I walked into the kitchen and saw a wheelchair. Huh. I thought. He must be having some mobility issues. Though there was hardly enough room to turn around, much less navigate with a wheelchair. But I proceeded through the house and upon entering the hallway saw that in the living room there were two more wheelchairs. Now THIS was something to start to wonder about. In the office was yet another wheelchair. "Dad," I said, as he put on his shoes, "what's with the wheelchairs?" In his deadpan style, he grabbed his cap and headed out the door commenting only, "I'm starting a team."

The real story was that he'd bought a wheel chair, for prices ranging from five to twenty-five dollars, depending on when you asked, and cleaned it up and re-sold it for up to two hundred and fifty dollars - again depending on when you asked. But that was the most common number quoted.

Anyway, that first taste of a successful sale led him to purchase several more wheelchairs. And to be honest, it's definitely contagious. Every time since then that I see a wheelchair at a thrift store, I think about it's condition and price and while I wouldn't say I'm STRONGLY considering getting one. The thought does cross my mind.

At Thanksgiving this past year, we suggested to him that we should bring all these wheelchairs out and have wheelchair races. His initial reluctance (these are SALES pieces after all) gave way to his enthusiasm for souping up anything with wheels. By the time we'd exhausted the conversation, we'd discussed jet packs, flames, safety gear, handicapping (with irony), and every other permutation of wheelchair racing that you can consider. In our minds, we'd done it to death. And I think had Dad's shoulders not been causing him so much pain, we WOULD have done it.

Which brings me to the surgery on January second. Dad was in tremendous pain. I know that not because he ever said it, but because he agreed to have surgery. In my Dad's family, you only went into the hospital if there was no other choice. It was a place to die. And if you did go, the key was to get out as soon as possible. And so, Dad took his Tyrannasaurus arms, as we called them, to have them surgically repaired. He couldn't move his shoulders without great pain, and so could only really maneuver from his elbows up. Thus the moniker.

On Wednesday, they fixed his rotator cuffs and some other tears and things that they found. So nice that he was fully repaired upon going to his grave. Anyway, he wasn't even out of the anesthesia before he was trying to get his shoes on to escape the hospital. So probably too soon he went home.

And the next day he laid down to rest and never got up again.

And we are left to wonder, what did he expect? Really. What DID he expect? I wonder. On one hand I think he expected to recover. Well, in truth, expect is probably too strong of a word. He probably HOPED he would recover. But expectations are a funny thing, because I think he also expected that he would die. He left a list of things he wanted at his funeral. He put money in his bank account. He bought two bananas: one ripe, to eat before the surgery, and one green, to eat when he got back. He didn't want to get more than that because he didn't know what would happen. It's that old joke about not buying green bananas because you could die any minute. And he presented it as a joke to my sister, but I think also he meant it.

So if we assume that his expectation was to die, then he wasn't disappointed. The one time in his life that his motto truly did NOT work, and he wasn't even around to appreciate the irony.

Anyway, the older I've gotten, the more I've thought about those words, "Expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed." There were times in my life when I wholeheartedly agreed. Damn right. Expect nothing because that's exactly what you'll get! Which is one way to look at it.

Another way is the way that I think I prefer: If you have no expectations then you can be surprised by what you get, instead of disappointed when you don't get what you wanted.

I'm not sure that's the lesson Dad was trying to teach - if there was a lesson in it at all - but that's the one I'm going with for today.