The End Of August

If you come by here, really even semi-regularly, you know how I feel about August.

As the end of this particular month approached I thought about, well, a couple things actually. I thought about a potential post to mark my tenth anniversary as a blogger and I thought about how the 31st day of this month is the anniversary of Dad’s passing. And I thought about how I’ve never written about him. I put out three pieces after Mom passed away, but never did anything on him. It’s been twenty four years. It’s time.  It was my first real experience with losing a loved one. I still have some vivid recollections of his final weeks. One in particular. He was in the hospital, I think it was after his first stroke. He had started to regain some motility but nowhere near enough to do much of anything for himself. So Mom asked me if I would shave him, since it had been several days. I took his electric razor and cleared the stubble off his face and neck. He smiled when I was done. I have many, many fond memories of Dad, but that one may be the most meaningful for me and I’m not sure I know why.  Maybe because it was so near the end, maybe because it was just some small thing I could do for him to make him feel better albeit briefly.  Yes I had acted as “his” paramedic until I realized I needed to be his son and I was incapable of being both simultaneously.  But for this man, that had done so much for me; this small, simple act, one that gets replayed in my head every time I look in the mirror if I’ve gone several days without shaving myself, is probably the closest I’d ever felt to him.

I don’t mean that as a negative either. I never, for even an instant, doubted my parents loved me. And I’m sure my siblings all feel the same way. I don’t remember hearing Dad say the words “I love you” to me. I always kind of took that as a byproduct of his own upbringing. My grandparents died when my Dad was 9 years old. He, his three surviving sisters (his oldest sister died at the same time as my grandparents) and his brother all grew up in an orphanage in Dundee, IL. So I kind of assumed that had everything to do with it. This picture, courtesy of my sister the Cheesehead, is Dad and his sisters June, Margaret, and Pearl, waiting for the train to take them from their home in California to the orphanage in Dundee. His brother was too young (about 18 months old) for admission when this all went down, so he stayed with a family friend out west (or relative, I forget) until he was old enough. His childhood was not something he and I ever really talked about. I mean, not like it was some deep, dark, secret or taboo, more that, I knew the story, but I never really sat down and made a point of asking him about it, the emotions about it, the touchy-feely kind of stuff I tend to write about vs Dad’s generation which was far more stoic. I know he had a pretty good childhood, all things considered. They all had chores to do, not like child-labor, sweat-shop stuff, but chores they were responsible for. And he and his siblings spent a lot of time together during their years there.

Like so many of his generation, when World War 2 came along, he did his patriotic duty and enlisted in the Army Air Corps, the precursor to the Air Force. Get a load of this handsome guy-

Dad was always unruffled. I think I was 12 years old before I ever heard him swear. A vocabulary skillset my own kids learned from me at a much younger age. My brother had gone to a high school basketball game and I remember he got a flat tire. Dad went to help him change it. In a snowstorm as I recall. I’m not sure why I was there, since I know I was pretty much useless at that point (hold your comments please) but Dad, while digging through the pile of tools in the trunk said “Where’s the damn jack?!?!” I was petrified. I later learned Dad could cuss with the best of them, but I rarely heard it. I think the worst I ever heard from him was an occassional “shit”, certainly never an eff bomb. My brother would work with him sometimes and confirmed that yes, on job sites, Dad could sling those around freely too. But I digress. Kinda.

I was always sorry Diane never really got to know him. We had only been dating for a couple months when Dad died. I think they would’ve have gotten along famously. I can almost hear him making one of his Dad-joke puns and her rolling her eyes, laughing along with him. I may have gotten more of mom’s personality, but I definitely have his sense of humor. Dad loved to laugh. Whether at some terrible joke he told or at some tv show he watched. He laughed freely and often. And it’s a wonderful characteristic. Sometimes it’s the only response worth having. Trying to find humor in some of the hurdles life puts in the way has helped me inumerable times over the course of my life, and I have him to thank for that.

I got my love of sports from him. Dad was a pretty good halfback during his high school football days. Our favorite story was when he ran the wrong way one game. This was, of course, long before anyone knew anything about concussions or their long-term effects. I don’t recall if he scored for the other team or not, but he always laughed about that incident. When my turn to play came around, Mom and Dad were always there. Every football game and every home track meet. Those were a little tougher to get to, since they were both working back then. And they both loved going to the high school basketball games. Especially if Dad’s friend Wally was one of the referees. If Wally made a call Dad disagreed with, he made sure Wally knew about it in no uncertain terms. Reasonably good natured, but Wally knew it if Dad thought he’d blown a call. One Friday night my senior year, we had an indoor track meet a half hour or so away. I didn’t expect much that night, so Mom and Dad went to the basketball game. As it turned out, I’d had a pretty good night. After we got back to school they announced our results during the game. I was in the locker room so I had no clue that happened, didn’t learn about it until years later. But they said he just beamed as people came up to congratulate him.

And it was due in large part to being unable to help Dad in his time of need.

Dad, I miss you each and every day. There are so many times I wish I could meet up with you over a cup of coffee and ask one of the million or so questions I now have for you. It doesn’t seem possible you’ve been gone for 24 years.

On to September.

Peace.