Father’s Day Reflections

Father’s Day has been a hard day for me since my Dad, Steve’s, death in 2017, and the difficulty has been compounded since losing Birdie. Before Rosalie died losing my Dad when he was 67 and I was 33 seemed like the most unfair thing in the world. After Birdie’s death, it still seems incredibly unfair, and I now know that there are more tragic things in life than losing a parent.

My Dad was diagnosed with Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer in June 2017. He lived for just under three months from the time he was diagnosed and those three months were an excruciating experience for him and they were painful to watch. He was so miserable by the time that he died that in some ways, it was a relief to see him released from his pain; however, his release from pain marked the start of the brutal process of learning how to live without him.

Many of the people who know me from back home (aka: Southeastern Ohio) knew my Dad. They knew him from his work as a principal, because they were friends of mine, or because he repaired some issue on their car. The most obvious and memorable trait about my Dad was his height. He would tell you that he was 6’10” tall, and some of his friends would tell you that he was actually 7′ tall. Regardless of the difference those two inches made, he was a tall guy. People also remember that despite him being a tall guy he liked to drive little cars. I remember him driving a Chevy Cavalier when we were kids and in his retirement his go to car was Volkswagen Cabriolet Convertible. People would often remark about watching him unfolding himself out of those tiny cars.

Another thing that people remember my Dad for was his generous spirit and his can-do attitude. He was always helping someone with something. For example, he often did auto repairs for people or helped people fix things in their homes. Additionally, he helped many kids learn Algebra and gain the required skills so that they could pass the required Ohio proficiency tests. Before becoming a principal he was an industrial arts teacher, so he was definitely mechanically and he was able to fix nearly anything. Although, I should clarify that just because he fixed something didn’t mean that it was fixed in the conventional sense of the word; I always said that he would “Steve Rig” things and he was the only person who knew how to make an item work after he repaired it.

An example of something that was “Steve Rigged” is the vehicle that I used for my first (of four) attempt(s) at my drivers test. He had installed a remote starter and security system on the vehicle and the system sometimes malfunctioned when it rained. It rained the day of my test and the car alarm was going off and I couldn’t figure out how to make the alarm stop. My Dad had gone to a local cafe for breakfast so he wasn’t able to help me, and I was standing in the rain frantically pushing buttons on the car remote trying to make it stop. By the grace of God, I got the alarm to go off and was able to take my test. I ended up failing the test, but that was a result by my lack of spatial skills and inability to maneuver a vehicle not by the malfunctioning alarm. Another time, while I was in high school, my Dad was out of town on a trip for school. It was in the winter and the electricity had gone out at home. This was before the days when cell phones were ubiquitous, and he was trying to instruct my Mom and I on starting the generator. To make the communication work, he was talking to my Mom on the phone, and then she was relaying what he said over a walkie-talkie to me. It was a rodeo and were never successful in starting the generator, and we ended up going to stay at a hotel that night. The list of these types of stories could go on forever.

Both of my parents worked to instill the values of hard work, doing what is right, and taking care of others in my brother in me. My Dad tells stories from his time as a principal when he made the call to do what was right in the moment, knowing that there might be backlash for the decision. One example is a student who was have an allergic reaction to a bee sting while at school. The school had called 911 but because the district somewhat rural, it was going to take a bit for the ambulance to reach the school. My Dad loaded the student in his personal vehicle and started in the direction of the hospital and met the ambulance en route. Clearly he violated several school policies and put himself at personal risk for the decision, and to this day, that student’s family credits him with saving their child’s life.

There was almost nothing that my Dad loved more than a good deal. He loved finding good sales, shopping at discount stores and flea markets, and buying stuff because it was cheap and because he might use it someday. He wasn’t a hoarder, but he did have a lot of stuff around. In his obituary I described him as an “epic collector of crap” and when the local newspaper wrote an article about him after his death, they used the crap collector quote in the article, I’m sure he was proud.

He also enjoyed the simple things in life. One of his favorite things to do was sit on the deck while listening to music and enjoying a “blue can” (Bud Light) or two. He loved to play tricks or cracking subtle jokes, and he’d get a twinkle in his eye when he thought he was funny. He had one of the largest social groups of any person that I’ve ever know, and somehow knew how to keep up with all of his friends, from various parts of life and various walks of life over a long period of time. I’m even more impressed by these long term friendships since I now know how difficult it can be to sustain friendships as an adult.

There’s enough distance between my Dad’s death and now that I can mostly look back on all of these things and smile. There are days when the tears are still right at the surface, but they’re fewer and further between than they used to be. If I let myself think about it too much I fall down the rabbit hole of thinking about how unfair it is that my Dad never got to meet my children while on Earth and that they will never know the Earthly version of their Papa. I’ve mostly adapted to him now being here, but just the other day, I drove by a camping trailer that was for sale. There was a man looking at the trailer and another man who seemed to be explaining the feature of the trailer. I thought to myself “how would I even know what to look for if we ever bought a camper?” And then I quickly thought, “I would ask my Dad about it”, before realizing that asking him wouldn’t be an option. I hadn’t been caught off guard by my grief over his death like that in a long time.

I remember telling my Dad that I couldn’t really imagine a world without him in it. And even though I’ve lived in that world for a number of years now, I still struggle to wrap my mind around it. He was literally larger than life, and I know that I have a bias, but I don’t think that I could have asked for a better Dad. He taught my brother and me so much about how to live and how to treat people and I’m grateful for the values that he and my Mom instilled in us.

Happy heavenly Father’s Day, Dad. I’m grateful for the years I had with you and I wish I had more. I hope that I’m making you proud. xo