Sunday wasn’t only Easter, it was also the first anniversary of my dad’s passing.  I’m not gong to be morbid, but I can’t let it go completely unnoticed.  I was very much a daddy’s girl when I was little.  We had our problems through my teenage and young adult years and then we found ourselves great friends after he retired. 

My dad was loved by many people.  Many, many people.  If you met him…you loved him.  He had a huge smile…and a little teeny body.  He made you want to put him in your pocket and take him out when you needed a hug.  He was just the best thing since sunshine.  He and mom had five daughters, but the second to the oldest died while being born so there were really just the four of us.  I am the youngest.  I remember riding on the laundry truck with dad in the summers when he was a laundry delivery man.  There was nothing better than that.  I also remember crawling into his lap in the morning when he was drinking his coffee.  He smelled like soap and aftershave and freshly laundered…heavily starched…shirts.  His lap was always ready for a daughter.  It was just a matter of who got there first.  He taught me to fish and told me I had to bait my own hook.  He gave me my first beer.  I hated it.  I still do.  Mom always told us “wait till your dad gets home” like something was going to happen.  It never did. He loved to torment my dates.  He loved to tease me.  He ordered ’possum when we went to restaurants.  He taught each and every one of us to drive.  He loved each and every sport he ever saw and nothing was more fun than college basketball.  He hated any television program I ever wanted to watch while I lived in his house.  It was only after I had moved out of his house that I found out he really didn’t. When I first moved out I couldn’t afford a phone so mom and dad couldn’t check up on me.  It was only much later that dad told me that he drove by my duplex every night to make sure my car was in the driveway. (He said he did it for mom)  One of my fondest memories of dad is on my wedding day.  He smiled all day long.  He couldn’t have been more proud.  There is a picture of him kissing my cheek.  It will always be dear to me.  When I got older, I was pretty sure my dad’s goal in life was to make me miserable.  I imagine he felt the same about me.  I ignored his existence as much as possible.  He reciprocated.  It was only later, after I had a few kids under my belt, that I begin to realize what an amazing thing he and my mother had done.  They had raised 4 daughters to maturity with no prison records and they had done it all without the benefit of antidepressants. 

Dad had a stroke right before he died.  He didn’t know who he was most days.  He knew mom, but not her name.  He usually called her mama, and sometimes he thought she was one of his sisters.  He didn’t know my sisters or me.  It was hard not to take it personally but it was the stroke not dad.  Each day I would go sit with him so mom could go home to shower or run errands, and we would have some fabulous talks.  We discussed things that might or might not have happened.  We talked about jobs he had or hadn’t had.  We talked about where we were when he forgot.  We talked about the Romanov family (he thought he had married Anastasia).  We talked about the birds and squirrels that were in the trees outside his windows in the hospital (which couldn’t be seen).  We talked about a lot of important things…and everyday for about six weeks I got to tell my daddy I love you and every day I heard him say I love you too.

On April 11th of 2008 we moved him to a hospice facility in Springdale.  It really took a lot out of him.  He was really disoriented that day, but he had a lot of company.  He got to see every one of his daughters and almost everyone of his grandchildren, and he was even  able to see the very newest addition to the ever increasing numbers of his great grandchildren.  He was too weak to hold the new baby but someone was able to hold her to him so he could kiss her and smell the new baby smell.  We took pictures of Pa with the newest family member.  Later that night it was just mom and dad and me.  I should have sensed that mom wanted me to stay, but I didn’t.  I waited for her to get ready for bed.  I talked to dad while she brushed her teeth and put on her pajamas.  I told him goodnight and that I would see him tomorrow and just like always I told him I loved him.  When mom was ready for bed she got the same.  In the early hours of April 12th my mother called to ask my husband and I to come back.  Dad’s labored breathing could be heard throughout the room.  I went to his bed and took his hand.  I kissed his brow and told him I would watch out for mom and if he needed to go it was okay.  The room became silent.  I was holding my father’s hand when he passed away.  There was nothing left to say.

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