Daddy – I am Reminded

I wrote the first draft of the following in September 2016, a year after losing Daddy.  Obviously, he is on my mind this week as he is every day.  I mostly wrote as if speaking to him.  Thank you for reading and for indulging me this opportunity to share.

There you are, wrapped in blue satin fluff.  You are exposed from the waist up, all dapper in your navy blue suit and light blue shirt, and a tie (did you have on a tie?).  Your hands are placed one atop the other and rest on the bill of your Chosin Few hat that is sitting mid-chest.

At the funeral home, when the veteran stands in front of you and salutes, my hand goes to my mouth as I try to hold in the sobs that fight to get out.  I keep telling myself, “Hold it together, hold it together.”  My heart hurts, and yet, it all seems unreal, it can’t be true.  Next week you’ll be here to watch the football game with me, won’t you?

Then the blue satin fluff is covered by the blue lid draped with the American flag.  Full military honors at burial.  Taps play and guns fire.

The soldier gives the folded flag and empty shells to Doug, your son.  I am so proud and so sad at the same time.  My soldier hero, my dad hero, my grampa/papa hero. You are all these and you have been for all of us.

Two years earlier I sat with you in this same funeral home, my arm wrapped around yours.  I could feel your heart break as you said goodbye to your wife of thirty plus years as she lay in that same blue satin fluff.  A few years before that, your sister lay there, and I saw you stagger in grief and then lean against the wall.  She was your big sister, your mother figure.  A few years before that lay your brother-in-law – a staple in your life for some sixty plus years.  I saw the sadness in you as you watched your sister bury her husband.  This same room, this same funeral chapel.

What day was it that I realized you were leaving?  Was it Tuesday or Wednesday of that week prior to Saturday, September 12th?  Jenni and Brett said their goodbyes that Wednesday and didn’t go back in the room after that.  Catherine said her goodbye that same night.  It hit me when I walked out on the patio at Katie’s that this was it…you would be leaving us.  And I sobbed, and Katie hugged me because she knew that I finally knew the reality.

Was it Wednesday that I called your granddaughter, Demi and said she should come and she did, along with your grandson, Peter?   They were here by the next evening.  They arrived in time to tell you goodbye and that they loved you.  Katie thought you had maybe a couple more weeks.  Doug felt it would be the coming weekend.   Doug was right.  That Saturday, September 12, 2015 you left us, your legacy.

The doctor told you September 24, 2014 that the spot on your lung was indeed cancer but did not appear aggressive.  Nor was surgery an option.  So you had chemo and radiation. You lost your beautiful hair and had white fuzz for a while and wore a stocking cap to keep your head warm.

When you finished treatment in February, things looked promising.  Then the brain radiation thing, and then by late July/early August you were short of breath and moving slowly (although you did put up several quarts of tomato juice).  You were admitted to the VA hospital August 16 when Rodney brought you from your home in Greenwood.  Somehow I think I missed some things because less than a month later you were gone.  I did not sit in on the conversations with the doctor, and perhaps if I had there would be more clarity but probably not.  I didn’t really want to know.  By September 12, 2015, less than a full year, you were gone.

As we gathered that Friday night, September 11, 2015, at Katie’s house, you in one room, your children and grandchildren in another, we all remembered the times of your life that so profoundly affected ours and the memories you gave us.  Generational differences – Demi and Peter called you “grampa” while Jenni, Dylan, and Catherine called you papa (“pa-paw”).  Interesting how that happened, and I never gave it a thought.  Demi and Peter shared stories of their adventures with you, riding in the back of the truck, seeing a deer gutted and hanging when they came to the farm, how you laughed at most things they said or did.  Dylan and Jenni have their own set of memories, of visiting for a week in the summer, of just having you there.

Your coffee time at 10, 2, and 4 (and all Jenni wanted from your house was that brown coffee mug you drank out of, the one with the hole for your finger).

Catherine, being almost eight years younger than Jenni, also has her own set of memories. Playing dominoes, swimming while you watched. The Chosin Few reunions, the Minnesota vacations that we all shared.  You there for every occasion.

On the one year anniversary of your burial (September 15, 2016), Doug and I found your headstone at the National Cemetery in Fort Smith.  All the white headstones moved me just as they did when Jenni and I visited the Normandy American Cemetery in France.  Pride swelled in me when I saw your place in this Cemetery.  Pride for your life, for your service, for your devotion to your family.  You brought us together and you held us together.

Yet, I still feel like you are here. The denial, but when I see a photo of you the ache in my heart is sharp and real because I know you are not at home in your snug house. You are not working in your garden or mowing your grass or working on someone’s house. You are resting, I hope, and enjoying where you are.

How can I say goodbye, Daddy?  How does one go on after the loss of anyone close?  You saw buried your wife, your grandson, your mother, your sisters and brothers, your friends.  How did you go on?  By being in the lives of your children and grandchildren?  Yes, that is how we go on.  I have my children, and I can’t just quit and not continue to be an example to them, a steady presence in their lives.  That is how we go on.  We remember, we talk, and we live so that your legacy can continue.