My father passed away last Sunday. I've been experiencing quite a broad range of emotions as I deal with this loss. My father was, as my brother puts it, a complicated man. He was extremely intelligent; if I ever wanted to know about something or know how to do something, I asked my dad. He was also very generous. His preferred method of showing affection was by providing gifts. But his generosity didn't end there, he always stopped during snow storms to help people who were stuck. He took a job several years ago where the company had hired an indigent gentleman who didn't even know his own last name, whom the company paid under the table. The man was getting older and wasn't working out very well any longer so the owners of the company were just going to throw him out on the street. My dad told them he'd report them if they did that and asked for some time to provide a better solution. (No one ever accused my dad of having too much tact, but you always knew where you stood with him.) He did research on his own time and found the gentleman's history, he had been in a mental institution in Pueblo before he moved to Denver. My dad found his last name and got him set up with social security. He put him on the company's payroll for a time so he could start showing wages earned. He found a home and eventually a new job for this man. He also started picking him up and bringing him to our family holiday celebrations so the man wouldn't be alone.
My dad served two tours in the Army during the Vietnam conflict. He was on a fire rescue crew and had very fond memories of his service (along with PTSD). Because of his military experience he always believed in the 7 Ps: proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance. This was drilled into me as a child and it's the reason I carry such a gigantic purse today. When we went into the hospital room to say goodbye to my dad on Sunday night, my son asked if he could have a clipping of my dad's hair to keep. My mom turned to me and asked if I had a pocket knife with scissors. I of course did, and my sister-in-law said, "he'd be proud that you had that and practiced your 7 Ps."
He loved to read and draw. He worked as a draftsman, an aerospace engineer, and a technical writer. He owned his own businesses twice, once providing police and emergency equipment, and once as a consulting Technical Writer. He was constantly drawing floor plans and garden plans. When we were going through his things after he passed away, we came across countless plans that he'd drawn in every single area of the house. He was going to help me draw the floor plans for a cabin in the mountains someday when I'd saved enough money. I think he had actually already drawn them up, so I'm hoping we find them as we continue to sort through his things since I can't ask him now.
He was also the person I most enjoyed sharing my photography with. My dad and I actually have very similar traits, they just manifested differently in us. So there was a great deal of head butting that occurred between the two of us. But we both loved photography, and it was something we could share. I loved showing him my pictures because I knew he appreciated both the subject and the technical ability. I wrote all about how I got started in photography and how my dad gave me my first real camera in this post.
Those are the wonderful things that I remember about my dad, and now they're all that really matter. But in life he could be very difficult and frustrating at times. He didn't treat my mom very well and was never appreciative of how much she did for him. He said some pretty cutting things to me, especially during my teenage years. And of course he didn't take care of himself, which is why he died at 67 years of age. But I don't know if he was capable of making different choices, at least not without a monumental amount of effort. My grandfather beat my dad terribly the whole time he was growing up. But I think that wasn't even the worst of it, I think my dad could have dealt with that. I think the thing that really messed him up was that he was never good enough for his dad. My paternal grandfather was not a good person. (I've posted about my maternal grandpa here and he was the exact opposite, he was the best person I'd ever known.) My dad's father was also extraordinarily intelligent. There wasn't anything he didn't know about, even when he was older and near death, he just KNEW about everything. But he had no emotional intelligence. He told my dad all the time that he was stupid and wasn't doing things correctly. My parents actually moved to Colorado from Illinois when I was a baby to get away from my dad's parents. But my dad was never able to fully escape. One time when my grandparents came to visit the first words out of my grandfather's mouth to my dad were, "what kind of god damn idiot would put rocks in his yard?" Of course no one did that in Illinois, but Colorado doesn't get the same kind of moisture so it made perfect sense here.
But despite the complicated relationship we all had with my dad, I miss him. He's the one and only dad I ever get. He was hard to get close to, but I'm so grateful now that I made more of an effort as I got older. I hugged my dad more often, he never initiated those hugs, but he always hugged me back when I initiated them and called me "darlin'." He wasn't one to say, "I love you" very often. In fact after he had his heart attack in 1997 and was recovering from bypass surgery, my brother told my dad that he loved him and my dad responded with, "I love you, too." My brother and I looked at each other and said "he's not awake from the anesthesia yet." But he did love me. I've always known that, even when he said mean things. I guess maybe that's why my self-esteem has never suffered the way his did. I wish he had believed in himself more, because there really was a great deal of good there.
Goodbye, Dad. I love you. I miss you. I wish you were still here, complications and all.
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