Thinking About Dad

On April 30, 1985, my Dad passed away after a brief battle with lung cancer.  He was 59 years old.  There's not a day goes by that I don't miss him.  It's as if there is a hole torn in the quilt of our family and it can never be made whole again or mended.

My Dad was born into extreme poverty.  His parents lived on a rented farm and more or less share-cropped to make their living.  My Dad began to work both inside and outside as soon as he could walk.  All was not doom and gloom on the farm, however.  Even though they didn't have much in the way of luxury, they had church and school.  There were many church programs to participate in and school functions.


At age eight my Dad's Grandfather, a ne'er-do-well who had abandoned my Dad's Father as a child, came to visit the family at the farm.  He knew there was a violin orchestra starting at my Dad's little country school.  He gave my Dad his violin, the one which he'd played at barn raisings, square dances and country hoe-downs.  For my Dad it was a dream come true.  He loved learning the violin and he learned to play quickly.  A couple of years later, my Dad's father came to him and told him that it was necessary to sell the violin.  The vet had looked at the family's little herd of cattle.  They needed medicine to survive the winter, and the family had no cash.  So my Dad's Dad took the violin to the larger city of Sedalia, Missouri and sold it for enough money to buy medicine for the cattle.

A few years later, the family moved to Kansas City because things were just getting worse and worse on the farm.  My Grandfather got a job on the street crews in the big city.  My Dad went to a large high school, the only school he'd ever known except his one room country school.  There at the large high school he had a chance to play the violin again.  His parents rented an instrument for him and then bought it.  I have that violin hanging on my dining room wall.  Unlike my Dad, I have no rhythm or ear for music, so it is just an ornament in this house.  I like to touch the strings and think of the music he could coax out with his bow:  everything from Turkey in the Straw to classical, haunting tunes.  He also learned to play the guitar.  I have it also.  Once after squirrel hunting, my Dad was cleaning his rifle and accidentally shot his guitar, propped in the corner.  The bullet holes make for a conversation piece.  Although I was never talented in making music on an instrument, I love music and I love to sing.  I inherited that from both parents.  There wasn't a day go by in our home without music.

My Dad fell in love with my Mom when they were 14.  She hated him for the first year he was in her classes.  Being a boy and not knowing how to get her attention, he called her "Red," because of her flaming hair.  She hated that and couldn't stand to be around him.  Sometime when they were 16 she started seeing him in a different light.  They were each other's first dates and they never went out with anyone else.

My Dad quit high school during his senior year.  He was afraid  World War II would be over before he had his chance to get in it.  He had his chance... the draft notice came within days of his last day at school.  He was sent to Belgium just in time to participate in The Battle of the Bulge.

After my Dad's return from Europe, my parents married in a small ceremony and lived happily ever after, until cancer came calling.  They raised my sister and me, and not bragging, but they never had much trouble with us.  They saved money to travel and saw just about everything there is to see west of the Mississippi River and many things east.

Their first grandchild was born on my Mom's 40th birthday.  Their oldest great-grandchild just graduated from U of MO suma cum laude in Archaeology.  She's going to Arizona for her post graduate degrees.

My Dad made me take his hand just before he died and promise him that I would always take care of Mom.  His biggest concern about dying was the he was ruining the rest of her life.  58 is pretty young to be a widow.  Of course, I gave him my solemn promise.  That's partly why my Mom is here in my house and not in a nursing home or assisted living.  This is the right thing to do, and this is what Dad wanted.

I think of my Dad every day, but this anniversary of his death brings back some of the unhappy memories, such as seeing the strongest man in the world in a hospital bed, pale and frightened.  All of us tried to pretend that the chemotherapy was going to work although deep in our hearts we knew the truth.  Of course, I will never forget the phone call telling me he was gone.  I remember it word for word. It's so hard to believe he's been gone 23 years.