When I was born, my Dad was instantly smitten with me, or so I’m told. I have seen pictures of my first moments home and it certainly seems to have been true. My Dad was an avid coin collector whose focus was mainly pennies. On the day I came home from the hospital he took his collection and spelled out my entire name in pennies on their bed and then laid me next to it and snapped several pictures of the announcement that I had arrived. He also named me after himself and his mother. I was truly Daddy’s Little Girl!
It is easier to remember my Dad fondly now since he has passed away. It seems that way with most people, you remember only their good traits, and not their bad, after they have died. The truth is that we didn’t always get along. There were many rough years during the pre-adolescent, adolescent and early adulthood times of my life. Those were wasted years. I can never get them back. I don’t want to waste any more time on them except to acknowledge that I learned to cherish those people that you love and that even though he may not have expressed it in a positive way, my Dad loved me very much, maybe too much and so it was a hard growing time for both of us. It also allowed me to see the relationship that we had in the years before he died as a wonderful period of bonding and regaining of respect and adoration for each other. I cherish the last six weeks of his life, even though they were very painful physically for him and emotionally for the rest of us, because I knew that the time was slipping through our fingers and we wouldn’t have very long.
My Dad had pancreatic cancer. He went to the doctor for the first time on January 1, 2000 and was diagnosed with cancer on January 3, 2000. At first they thought it was pancreatic cancer with multiple metastases on his liver, but on biopsy, it didn’t seem as though the cells looked similar to the cells seen in that type of cancer. They did another biopsy and still were unable to tell so they decided to just treat it as both lymphoma (the other possibility) and pancreatic cancer. It was only after he died, on February 15, 2000, and they performed his autopsy that they were able to determine that it indeed was pancreatic cancer. It was a quick and very painful death. He was in constant pain and for almost the entire last six weeks of his life, he had the hiccups (an oddity they could neither explain nor eliminate). He couldn’t even really effectively use the PCA (patient controlled analgesic), in his case morphine, because for about the last four weeks of his life he was vacillating between lucidity and confusion (much like dementia) due to hepatic encephalopathy (Which sounds like gobbledygook but really just means that his liver wasn’t filtering out the toxins in his blood and so they would collect on his brain.) Someone needed to be in the room with him almost constantly, especially toward the end, because he needed someone to help him stay on top of the pain because he was mentally to weak to do it himself. Also, he would try to rip out his IV’s, escape down the hall, or try to get to the bathroom by himself and he was physically too weak.
I have lots of stories of my Dad’s life that I heard from people in the days, weeks and even months after my Dad died. Some of my favorites are the following.
This story is about my oldest brother. I will call him M. M worked at a garage as a mechanic and one night was staying late to work on his own vehicle. After everyone had gone home, he was under his car when suddenly it rolled off the lift and rested on his chest. M thought that it was surely the end for him since the garage was in an industrial area, it was late and there was no one else around. He could hardly breathe much less speak or yell for help anyway. He lay there for several minutes with the car on his chest, contemplating his options and praying frantically for a solution, when suddenly he heard a car door slam nearby. He mustered up all the strength he could and began yelling for help. With that the door opened and my Dad walked in. This may not seem miraculous, but my Dad lived at least 20 miles away, had never been to see my brother’s workplace before and furthermore, would have had no way of knowing that my brother would still be at work since it was so late at night. I guess that this is really a story about two fathers and a son. My brother’s earthly father, his Heavenly Father and himself. M was saved by his two fathers.
There are two many stories to mention of my Dad acting as the oldest brother of seven children. He was always pulling one of his brothers and/or their friends out of some fight or another. He was protectant of his sisters and often even rescued his Dad from the bar on the corner. He lived his life like an older brother to everyone. When we were growing up, we often had “guests” staying in our home. People who were for whatever reason homeless and/or down on their luck, or in bad family situations, or just in need of a place to stay for a few days, weeks or months. Often they were friends of mine or my brothers. One lived with us for three years and I consider him my foster brother, I will call him J. Often the people Dad brought home were either people who currently worked with him or he got them a job once they lived with us. J was one of those whom my Dad got a job at his place of employment. J told me after Dad died that in those last months of Dad’s life, in working with Dad, he had noticed that my Dad seemed to have a sort of peacefulness about him. He said it was like my Dad seemed to know all the answers about life and he was content with it. Maybe there was some inner knowledge, if not conscious, that he was nearing the end of his life.
During the November before he was diagnosed, my Dad took a hunting trip with my two brothers, M and B. It would be their first and their last. Who would have know that just three months later he would be gone? They were together near the lake (or river, I don’t recall specifically) where there was a big rock and the three of them spent several peaceful moments of solitude there. Now my brothers will go back there, rather than the stone in the cemetery, to be close to my Dad. He mainly lives in our own hearts anyway.
It it is important for us to learn from our mistakes, cherish moments with loved ones, remember happy times and love those around us as if it is the last day we will have with them. It may sound gloomy and morbid, but it is hard for most of us to feel as though we have given our full love to a person during their time with us after they have died, so if we do these aforementioned things, we will perhaps feel less guilt and feel like we have done the best that we could have done.
