Saying Good Bye

This has been the craziest week of my life. Seven days ago, I was feeding Charlie and got the phone call I have been dreading for years now. My father was in the hospital again but he would not be returning home this time. I called Micha who came home right away. We started packing and loading up the car. For several minutes, I walked around in circles asking aloud "Is this crazy? Should we wait?" We were about to embark on a 24 hour journey with a 6 month old at 9 o'clock at night. "This is insane." As we pulled out of the drive, I felt a strange mix of excitement and foreboding. Maybe it wasn't as bad as they said after all, Dad has been in the hospital before. Maybe we would get there and he'd be alright and it would turn out to be a nice Spring Break family vacation. Dad could finally meet Charlie and Micha and I could show them the state where Mumbles' and I were born and where half my heart has always been. Micha drove most of the next 24 hours and just before we reached Billings, I started getting phone calls. Today had not been a good day and we should go straight to the hospital before checking into our hotel. As we reached the Little Belt mountains and the wind farms, I began to cry. This was not a family vacation. We were going to be with my Dad as he lay dying. I tried to prepare myself for what we would see. Guilt crept in. I hadn't spent enough time with him. I'd been selfish when we spoke on the phone and his mood was foul. I'd held onto resentment too long. Fear crept in. Was he in pain? Was he afraid? Did he know that no matter what, I loved him? Had I told him enough?

What I remember about my Dad from my childhood is that he was awesome at playing. He loved sports and played baseball, basketball and was even known to have a pretty good golf swing. He was big and strong because he usually did physically demanding work but he was a softie. I can remember him crying several times. He loved the outdoors and was an avid fisherman. He didn't often hunt but he taught my brother and I to shoot on an old bolt action .22. Our summers were filled with baseball games, bicycle rides and camping trips in the most beautiful state in the union. He also loved history and the old west. Every cowboy, every gun slinger and every hideout, he could recount them all, despite never having been a very good student. As an adult, I know my Dad followed politics closely and was well versed in American History. Most people would've considered him extremely introverted but he loved to tell stories, anecdotes from his childhood and above all he loved to make people laugh. Dad kept his sense of humor to end, making a goofy face at Charlie upon meeting him for the first time. He was a combination of bad decisions and terrible luck but his intentions were always good. Often the people that he called friends, lived in the fringe of society and he too was not what anyone would consider main stream. In a world of technilogical advances and keeping up with the Jones, to say he lived modestly would be an understatement.When asked if there was anything of his I wanted to keep, it was hard to recount any 'thing' that stuck out in my mind, only places and things we did. I took my family to a few of the places I remembered from my summers there. I showed them the house my grandfather built, the place where my father had grown up. I sorted through what little he had, selecting to keep those things that reminded me of him most; a guide to fly tying, old photographs, a rock tumbler. I watched my aunt and grandfather as they scattered his ashes into the Missouri at one of his favorite fishing holes. Everything happened so fast, several times I wanted everything to simply stop. I wanted time to hold still. I wanted my Dad to open his eyes and talk with me for a few moments before he ran out of air or strength or time. Dad was 53 when he passed. It's cliche to say the good die young but in his case, it is the truth.

We're home now and I've had a few moments to reflect on the whirlwind of the last week. I don't think it is a coincidence that the same river that Dad's ashes are in, the river he was so connected to, also runs through the place where I now live. I feel as though I can go there and be with him, something that was hard to do when he was alive. Thinking about his life has made me more resolute about living mine more simply and with more purpose.