I'm spending this holiday with 'Superman'



Katharine Lackey Last Christmas, I bought a $3 Superman T-shirt for my dad, knowing full well he would never wear it in public.

But I felt it was a meaningful acknowledgment on my part: You see, my dad is my hero.

Like every hero, though, he has his weakness: My dad has primary lateral sclerosis, a progressive degenerative neurological disease similar to Lou Gehrig's disease -- although, thankfully, not fatal.

He can't control his voice, his laughter and he tends to stutter when he talks.

He has trouble walking and a predisposition to falling.

He was never able to play basketball with me, despite his love of the sport.

He can't go for a run with me or take the dog for a walk.

And he will never be able to walk me down the aisle.

When I came home for Thanksgiving, I was surprised to find that a scar on my dad's forehead from a fall he had earlier in the semester was still quite visible.

In September, my dad fell in a hotel room in North Carolina while on vacation with my mom, scraping his head on the rug and giving new meaning to the term "rug-burn."

He was sent to the hospital for stitches. It was the first time I had not been there for a trip to the emergency room after one of his falls.

When I was younger, my dad crashed through the window in our foyer on New Year's Eve after he lost his footing.

He has fallen down the stairs, up the stairs, in the grass, on concrete, getting out of his car -- you name it.

But despite it all, my dad has always been there for me.

He was at every basketball game I ever played from elementary through high school.

With the greatest excuse in the world to miss one of my night basketball games, as his condition drained both his physical and mental energy, my dad never once complained about driving me to a 9 p.m. game only to return at 10:30 that night.

He could have simply said he was too tired, too exhausted from a hard day at work to take me, but my hero never failed me. He kept the record book. He was in charge of the clock.

He was there for every sprained finger I suffered. He was there when I made 10 points in one game. He was there when we won the community league championship.

When I was home for Thanksgiving, I noticed my dad using his scooter much more often than in the past.

Places we had traveled just a couple of years ago where he would have walked, he now spent the five minutes getting his scooter off from the back of his SUV to drive for two minutes into the theater or hospital.

It hit me: While I've been away at college, my dad has gotten worse. It used to be something I didn't notice because I was there all the time.

Christmas has also changed around the house since I left.

My parents, while they still go to the same Christmas tree farm in the country, no longer cut down a tree. Instead, they pick a pre-cut one, which last year led to a tree riddled with holes.

I used to be responsible for a lot of the holiday activities around the house such as hanging the lights on the bushes outside, a duty that has now passed to my mom.

My dad once told me he knew something was wrong with him when he couldn't control his laughter, aimed at something his charming then-3-year-old daughter was doing.

Maybe my 3-year-old self was onto something.

To this day, nearly 19 years later, my favorite sound is still my dad's uncontrollable laughter.

If there's one thing I'm thankful for this holiday season, it's my dad, who's also a journalism junkie managing a newsroom in Washington, D.C. (Mom, I'm thankful for you, too).

I'm thankful for his laughter, never-ending spirit, enthusiasm and support.

He's footing a major portion of the bill for this expensive out-of-state university. He's buying me an awesome iPod stereo system for Christmas.

And he's always there with advice and Poynter articles as I enter this crazy world of journalism.

He's my Clark Kent.

And more importantly, he's my Superman in disguise.


Katharine Lackey is a junior majoring in journalism and is a nation/world reporter for The Collegian.

Her e-mail is kml5001@psu.edu.
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