Long May You Run

My daddy's sick.  It's his heart.  Last week, he had his third heart attack.  Long story short, his lifestyle of hard living early on combined with the terrible hand of genetic health he's been dealt are all catching up with him.  He is 25 years and 1 day older than me, so that makes him...66.  His own father died from a heart attack when my dad was a young man of 15 or 16.  My father's mother (my GrandMaud) died from congestive heart failure in her 70s, but still, she died from a disease of the heart.  I know my own father is thinking tonight of his life, all those who have gone before him, and of those of us he will leave behind when he leaves us.  My own heart saddens to think of that day, and when it will happen, and I blink back the tears that come to me.  Plain and simple, I am not ready for him to leave me or my kids!  

I do believe I have only ever seen my daddy cry 3 times.  The first was at my mother's funeral.  I was 7.  My dead mother was 28, and he himself was all of 31 years old.  I sat with my Grandpa Gorley, (my mother's father) perched on Grandpa's lap, and my dad sat a few persons away.  He hung his head and just.......bawled.  I mean, I could see his tears as they flowed, too.  His shoulders slumped forward in a way that made me wonder how he could even breathe.  Her casket was closed up front, and on top beside a spray of pathetic flowers sat a framed picture of her beautiful face with that half-smile she had perfected into a smirk.  It was a beautiful silver frame.  I never knew who picked it out, but it was understated and simple in a less-is-more kind of way.  I stared at that picture and tried tried tried hard to memorize her face, her hair, the shape of her cupid's bow lips.  That whole scene is forever burned in my brain, but it was his emotion that day that has connected me to him in more ways than I ever dreamed it would.  I never knew why he cried so hard.  After all, they'd been divorced since '79 or '80, and there it was, late August of '84.  Hot, too.  The events that occurred at the tail end of that summer would both directly and indirectly change the course of both our lives, my dad's and mine.  I guess maybe he wanted to grieve it all before it even played out.  I will never know.  Maybe he was sad for me, that I would grow up, but motherless.  Maybe he was sad that he'd lost his ex-wife, his first real and true love, his prom date, his concert partner, his drinking buddy, his partner in crime and passion.  Maybe he was sad because he knew the only direction he would ever go from my mother would be down.  Maybe he cried because life's a bitch and then you die, even before you get your piece of the pie.  Who.Really.Knows.  But he cried with heavy sobs.  The kind of ugly cry we have where it feels our guts are being wrung out like a thirsty wet wash rag, heavy and soaked entirely. I will never forget how awful it was, nor how beautiful.  

Fast forward a few years.  I believe I was 10.  My cocker spaniel, Muffin, had cancer and she was in a lot of pain, according to Doc Southall.  So, to spare her any suffering, my dad, my GrandMaud, and I together decided it would be the best thing to have her put down.  The morning it was to be done, I caught my daddy with his hands buried in his hands.  Yes, another loss for him.  Not just a loyal family pet, but a constant friend and a highlight of all our lives.  Muffin brought us all a lot of joy.  I still think about that dog and see the picture in my mind on that morning of the euthanasia.  My eyes were puffy and swollen, just like my pink and round cheeks.  I had buried my nose in her neck and breathed her in deeply, trying to nuzzle down into her coat, a safe dwelling.  Perhaps my dad had done the very same thing, earlier.  It is amazing, the things we do to try and stop time...or at least memorize a few seconds in the great expanse that comes with a lifetime.  

Then...just like that...I am 19, and my GrandMaud, my father's mother, passed.  He cried when he broke the news to me.  Sad. It's always so sad when anyone loses a mother, after all, because when we lose our mothers suddenly we are like uncharted boats, just waiting to be batted about and taken out by the wind and the waves.  It matters not how old we are when we lose our mothers, either, for we just become immediately directionless; no longer centered.  Yes.  Whether we are 7 or 44 when that happens, it affects us all the same, because whether we realize it or not, we are no longer rooted with a matriarch to lead us.  Just like the elephants, our mothers have a unique influence over group decision-making and usually get the last, final word.  Except when they're not living.  Then it falls to the rest of us still here, which creates an entirely different dynamic because of course the rest of us aren't prepared to step in as the matriarch, the leader.  

So, yes, my daddy is unwell.  He has lived through a lot of...stuff...but even cats only get 9 lives.  He thinks he will likely be admitted for surgery soon, and I am not sure how I feel about any of it.  I know the time will come when we will lose him, my kids and I.  And then what??  No more texts from him that make me roll my eyes heavenward when I read how ridiculous they are.  No more "I love you" sentences 6 or 7 times a day.  No more cussing because Pizza Hut screwed up his order.  No more seeing his car pull into my driveway and slipping quietly back out after he left a dollar bill on the seat of my van, just because it has an "E" (which coincidentally stands for Elizabeth) in the serial number.  No more text messages asking me about some random historical battle, and right when I'm trying to cook some dinner or give some baths, either!!!  You know, at the most inopportune moments, something to send me right on over the edge.  That's right.  Soon, no more.

I have a lot of good memories with my dad.  A lot of not-so-good memories, too, but we all know the good stuff far outweighs the bad, especially when we consider them all at the end of our lives or at the end of a loved one's life.  There are regrets, plenty of those; and there is this sorrow for things we feel we should have handled differently.  But I think we will all agree with the old adage that we take the good with the bad, and it ain't all bad.  Right?  So, I want to remember the good.  I want my kids to remember the good.  Because when my dad dies, I will be again directionless.  He has always been there for me, even when I did not want him to be.  He has never let me down, not even once, or else not in anything that I care to remember.  I always had food to eat, a roof over my head, and I knew he loved me because he made it known.  He ALWAYS stuck up for me if I needed sticking up for, but he also called me out on a few really crummy stunts I pulled as a younger version of myself, and all I can say now is that I am thankful I learned my lesson.  He couldn't be both a mom and a dad, but he did his very best for me.  His "best"  may not have been another family's best, but it was HIS best, and on some level I always knew that.  I always believed my dad was proud of me.  When he was ashamed of me, it helped me to see the error of my ways and try to set myself upright again.  See?  He did guide me, even in all his dysfunction and clamor for what he thought his life should be about.  When I got lost, it was he who mellowed out and saw to it that I got found.  

I think when we are older and trying to prepare for the end of life, so many, many things must come up to sit and contemplate, to think on.  And we must lay down our heads and say our prayers just as though we were children.  Maybe we pray for another day with our families.  Maybe we pray for God to call us home before it gets "too bad."  Maybe we just give God thanks and that is all, and just fall asleep hoping for the best, hoping to wake up with the next sunrise.  I don't know, because I've never prepared for the end of my life.  What I do know is that when my daddy is gone, the world will be flat and gray for quite a spell.  I will feel numb, and as I am driving my kids around I will feel every bit detached and abuzz with a frequency I haven't felt in so many years.  I will probably smell like grief, like salt, because that is how tears taste.  It has been a long time since I've lost someone who has been a cornerstone in my life, and I'm not sure I know the proper way to respond.  My mom first, at 7.  Great grandpa, great grandma, my GrandMaud, then my Grandpa Gorley, the very man who sat and held me on his lap at the final farewell to my mother.  Only God knows if my dad is next, or if he will be with us for another few weeks, months, or years.  But I know this much is true:  When it happens...when it finally comes and it is time for him to leave this place, I feel that he has been a good father to me.  Not perfect, but then again, none of us ever are perfect.  But, he has been perfect for me, and I am a lot like my dad.  He has taught me so much!  He has taught my kids a few things, too, and thanks in part to him they have lots of books and educational resources, and probably an inherent love of muscle cars and a pretty good aim, too.  If they're lucky, they'll inherit his keen ability to debate politics and remember important historical events.  Mostly, I hope all three of my children are supernaturally willed by my father not to let anybody walk all over them, use them, or make them play second fiddle in the name of love or for the sake of love.  Heck, this is something I hope I eventually can grow into!  Meanwhile, my father is a pretty good dad, and I do believe the time has arrived in my life for me to be able to stand up straight and tall and give thanks that God loves me enough to have let me be his daughter.  Meanwhile, I am going to make peace with the past and enjoy the time we both have left.  

"Long may you run.  With your chrome heart shining in the sun, long may you run..." 
I love you, daddy.