I remember how my dad used to say “shortest little leggies in the whole wide world” about me when I was a little guy.
I remember going to work with my dad in the middle of the night when he was paged to go the hospital and he couldn’t do anything else with me. It was so cool to be in that grown-up world, and getting to sneak around in a dark hospital.
I remember the long drives to Florida once a year in February, when he was sick and tired of the snow of New York, and getting to play golf with him when we got there.
I remember the look on his face when there was a knock on our front door on January 3rd, 1978. It was a State Trooper telling us that his his 24-year-old son, my oldest brother, Steve, had died that night, riding an oil truck that had lost its brakes sliding down a frozen mountain road, and could he please come and identify the body.
I remember loading into the station wagon and driving out into the country to cut down a Christmas tree every year.
I remember how he tried like hell to quit smoking, and how one time I put little signs all over the basement, reminders for him to not smoke. I also remember that he kept smoking.
I remember how a couple years later, my mother and I came back from a short trip to find him stuck in bed, with a hugely swollen leg. The blood flow was blocked by cancer. He had a few months left.
I remember how days before he died, he walked on crutches and in pain to my high school gym to see me indoctrinated in the high school National Honor Society. When I got home that day there was a piece of yellow legal paper cut into a crude shape of a medal. It had the word “HERO” on it in ballpoint pen.
I have a few tiny bits of yellow paper in my wallet now from that medal. I wish I’d taken better care of it.
I read the whole thing. Sig, but that last part made the tears flow. It don’t matter that you don’t have the “physical” evidence of what he wrote. You have it in your heart, right?
Yeah, it sure is in my heart. I somehow left out the part about how my dad had taped it to my bedroom door. It was just one of those little things he did. I left that thing on my door for a godawfully long time, too. I lived at home while I went through college, and it stayed up there, even though technically it probably looked a little strange to all my friends/girlfriends when they came over. And it was amazing how that one little piece of Scotch tape my dad had stuck it up there with lasted far longer than it should have.
Khadaji, my thoughts go out to you. I know what it’s like to lose a dad. And thank you for allowing me the luxury of remembering:
-My dad and I getting the boat ready to go fishing.
-Dad and I getting up before anyone else to catch ‘the best trout’ at our summer house at Lake Nacimento
-My dad clutching me in his arms when I was 4 years old to take me to the hospital after my brother tore off my nose with a lead pipe
-My mother calling the cops to handcuff and haul off my Dad on Christmas morning (the year they split up.) My dad came to deliver my gifts, and Mom had a bad attitude.
-I will always remember that I was once a little blonde-haired girl with blue eyes; that had a Daddy that adored her and called her “Shoogie”.
My father died 17 years ago, but I will always remember these things. My father lives in my memories, always.