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 Let's Talk
Denise Rolark Barnes
Columnist Page
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page 24
In Memoriam – Remembering My Dad’s Final Days
October 23, 1994. That was the last day I spoke to my father, Dr. Calvin W. Rolark, Sr., who died that evening at Howard University Hospital.
To lose a parent is devastating. No matter whether it is your mom or dad, no matter whether the loss was the result of a long-term illness or a brief or sudden sickness; no length of time can prepare you for the pain of the loss you will inevitably suffer, not will time erase the memories of those last and final moments you shared together.
For me, the emotional reminder of my dad’s untimely demise kicks in every year just days following the Annual Congressional Black Caucus Weekend. For weeks prior, he complained about a nagging pain in his lower back, a condition he thought was caused by an old war injury that occurred during his tenure in the Air Force as a paratrooper serving in the Korean War. He assured me that he had visited his internist and that he was given a clean bill of health, but the pain he was experiencing seemed so debilitating that an act as simple as getting in and out of his car appeared to take all of the strength he had. He attended the CBC Dinner and returned home wishing he hadn’t. He was just that sick.
Then the cough started. It was relentless, lasting all day, and according to my stepmother, all night. He kept a jar close by to dispose of the clear phlegm released by every cough.
The night we rushed him to the hospital, none of us really knew why. It was just time for him to go. And that’s where he remained for the last three weeks of his 67 years on this side.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of my dad’s death. It really doesn’t seem that long. Even in the hospital, while doctors tripped all over themselves trying to determine what had made him so ill, he was taking care of business – other people’s business. Resting as comfortably as he could, his first week there was like being in Union Station with UBF staff members coming in and out to get papers signed, calls coming from everywhere seeking his opinion about civic issues, and friends just dropping by offering small talk about local and national politics.
Interestingly enough, one of his biggest concerns that he shared with me was the health and safety of his long-time friend, Marion Barry, who had just won the democratic primary returning him, once again, to his seat as Mayor of the District of Columbia. If Barry won, the Ward 8 City Council seat he had held for only two years would become vacant, and I was considering throwing my hat into the ring. I wanted to claim the position previously held by my stepmother, Wilhelmina Rolark, who represented Ward 8 for 16 years prior to Barry unseating her. I sat on the side of my father’s hospital bed and asked him what he thought about it. He encouraged me, of course, but his greatest concern was for Mr. Barry. “I just hope someone doesn’t try to take his life,” he said. “I’m just worried about that young man, and what someone might try to do to him if he becomes Mayor, again. They may try to kill him.”
I know how disappointed my Dad was when Barry got busted that night at the Vista Hotel. He called a group of his closest confidants into his downtown office on the fifth floor of 14th and L Streets, N.W., and asked them what they thought he should do. I had never seen him look so disappointed and helpless in my life. He was the last man standing, and when no one else would come to the defense of Marion Barry, accused almost daily in the media of drugging and womanizing, my dad was the constant voice that challenged them to “put up or shut up.” He even appeared on Larry King Live to defend Barry when all of the rest of us knew better.
We surmised that Mr. Barry was a fighter and a survivor; that he most likely would win the race for mayor and that, this time, he would be all right. The question was did my dad still have the fight in him, and would he survive his current health challenge and, for the sake of his family and friends, would he be all right.
Within days, my dad’s condition deteriorated even more. I sat next to him in an intensive care bed one night and realized that he had, in fact, given up the fight. I left his bedside to run home to put my two young children to bed. When I stepped into the house, my brother called and told me to return to the hospital right away. My brother and I stood at my stepmother’s side and cried as we told my father good-bye.
I took my stepmother back home and less than two minutes after walking into her house, the phone rang. I picked it up and a voice told me how sorry he was to hear the news of my dad’s passing and that he wanted to offer his regrets to her, as well. It was Marion Barry.
Gratefully, my father’s life lives on in many of those who knew and loved him. It is what we do with our life that becomes the greatest testament to him. He was a great human being and I am proud that he was my dad! May he continue to rest in peace.
For Denise Rolark Barnes send email to drbarnes@washingtoninformer.com
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