While this isn’t pointless or mudane …
On Wednesday, March 30, 2005, my father passed away, he was 87 years old. He died of pneumonia but the under lying cause was Alzheimer’s disease. He left behind a wife of 54 years, a son, two daughters, 7 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
I wish you could have known our father.
He wasn’t a famous man, but he was our hero. My brother and sister remember when they were growing up, they had a merry-go-round in the yard. All the neighbor kids would come over and my dad would push them around as fast as he could. The neighbor kids nicknamed my father “Superman”, because they thought he was so strong to spin them so fast.
He was that, a super man. There wasn’t a thing he could not fix, and he taught my brother, sister and I how to repair things. I remember once, our sliding glass door was sticking and hard to open, so he took a bar of paraffin and ran it across the track. He told me to try it and I almost slung the door into the next room because it opened so easily. He taught us how to work on our cars, how to unclog a drain the old fashion way; take it apart, and how to do many things around the house. To this day when I need to do home repairs I am reminded of him and how he was always tinkering or fixing something.
He was also a trickster. He loved playing jokes on people. He would get this mysterious little grin on his face and you had to wonder what in the world he was up to. My mom told me he loved shoving candy wrappers down in the toes of her shoes. So when she put her shoes on, she would think there was a bug in them and jump. Dad would also hide mom’s clothes while she was taking a bath, making her think she had not laid anything out.
He was a kind man. When my brother was around 14 my father brought home a lawnmower so my brother could earn some extra spending money mowing the neighbor’s yards. I can remember doing my homework at the kitchen table and dad coming out of the bedroom after cleaning up from mowing the lawn, smelling sweetly of “Old Spice”. He would bend over me, take my hand in his and put it to his cheek and say feel. I would rub his face and he would wink at me and say “smooth as a baby’s behind” and off he went to start preparing dinner for mom. Of course this would cause me to giggle.
He loved travel and adventure. Every year we always went somewhere for vacation. He so loved the sea though. I think he was happiest near the ocean. He taught me how to saltwater fish and crab. I remember when I was around 8 I caught a flounder. Having never seen a flounder before I started crying because the fish on my hook looked like an evil sea monster. He rescued me from the evil creature and mom cooked it for dinner. I remember it was quite tasty.
I really wish you could have known our dad. He wasn’t a powerful man, but he was a mighty one in our eyes.
I am glad he no longer suffers, but he is sorely missed. For those he left behind, I hope we find the peace that he has now.