Father's Last Story

This is a story about my father. It’s not really his story, because I don’t know his story. Not really. I only know what I saw of his story. I am a poor reporter of facts unfortunately. My memory, when it functions correctly, is likely to come up with some selective details of his life that I found important that to him might not be important at all. It’s a game of “Telephone” with two players, but player two is blind and deaf. I may arrive at what I think my father’s life was about and it may be nowhere near the message my father was trying to convey. If you could approach my father with these recollections, if such a thing were even possible, he would assure you that I had things all back-to-front and sideways. I’m sure of this.

Yet I feel I have to tell his story, and my mother’s as well, because I need the rest. I don’t sleep well. The weight of losing them lies heavily upon me.

I suppose I should just pick a point, jump in and tell you about my dad. So be it. While there are many stories I could use to begin this, many starting gates I could pick for this tale, the place I choose to begin with is at the ending. His ending, anyway.

Choosing to begin somewhere else is out of the question. If you knew him the way his family and friends knew him, you would feel the same crippling sadness that he was gone that we do. I could tell you about the man my father was in minute detail. Roll out page after page of remembrances of his character and draw out his enduring warmth with each word. Even allow you to catch that brief twinkle in his eye when the evidence of his wit or charm surfaces. But that I cannot do that before laying him to rest. I will not do that to you.

My father passed away two days before Father’s Day on June 18, 1999. He was died on the side of the road under the boiling Texas sun. My mother was  beside him.

He had a blowout while driving Mom’s car and died while changing it. Mom would have been standing with him while he went about setting up the jack, as she always did when he fixed things around the house. No doubt she was peppering him with “Oh Bobby” this and “Be careful” that or standing silently, patiently with her lips pursed. He would allow her to hand him things or hold items, but the lion’s share of the work would be his. Dad grew up in a different era where men took care of things for their wives and women let them. The strain of working the jack in the hot mid-day Texas sun was too much for him. He was overcome by his fourth and final heart attack.

I wasn’t there of course, so all my knowledge of these events came from piecing together the rambling story that my mother told to family, friends and neighbors. It was a hard thing to watch; she struggled greatly to piece the details back together. I heard it many times. It was an impossible thing to hear more than once, but the reward of listening to it was something I desperately needed. This is how my father died.

 
(Continued)