Father Would Turn 57 Years Old Today

If alive, my father would be turning 57 today.

And tomorrow, Friday, would mark three months to the day he died.

I typically have a point or some kind of structure to every blog post I write (even though it may not seem that way!), but I don’t today.  I just want to talk.

That’s something I haven’t done much the last three months:  talk.  I haven’t thought or talked about my father since his passing, with you or even close family members, including my mother. I’ve ignored his death for so long in some kind of “manly” attempt to not be saddened or affected by it — it hasn’t been healthy.  That changed last night as I finally broke down, crying to my mom on the phone, telling her how much I missed him and how I wish I could go back and answer his phone calls and tell him that I love him.

I would give anything to see him call me at the office again.

You don’t really know me.  You don’t know my father, my family, or what it was like having him as a dad.  I don’t think that matters, though.  I know you care.  You and I are connected.  We have a relationship.  I might just be another bookmark on your browser or iPhone or RSS reader and we might have never met, but we’ve spent hundreds if not thousands of hours together.  I have shared a lot with you, now I’ll bare it all in an act of letting it all out.

It’s the healthy thing to do.  Isn’t that what we’re here for?

I remember the phone call from my mother well.  I had taken a day off of work, a Friday, and it was about 8:10 in the morning, 10 minutes after I would normally be arriving at work.  It was a pretty day outside and I was at the computer, about to start the day, sipping a coffee from Starbucks and still getting yawns out my system.  The weekend was ahead and I was excited about going down to Charleston on Saturday to run in a 5k donut run.

Instead, the phone rang.  My mother called to tell me that I would be going to Charleston that weekend for a different reason.

She was sobbing, greeting me by calling and repeating my first name, Shawn, which she repeated several times.  In a brief state of panic I shouted “WHAT” to which she replied…”your father is dead.”  Almost as a jerk reaction I twice asked her if she was serious, which of course she replied to with yes both times.  While she was still sobbing and I was near tears, I demanded to how it happened, as if somehow that would make it better to cope with.

I don’t remember her exact reply as I was pretty much in shock at this stage of the phone call.  I do remember the bullet points, though.  My dad was lying in bed, asleep, resting.  He was waiting for my mother to get dressed to take him to the doctor as he wasn’t feeling well this fateful Friday morning.  It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, however, as he had regularly been in and out of doctor’s offices for the past 10-15 years or so.  He lived with certain vices that he just couldn’t seem to shake, even though he tried so many times.

When my mother got ready, she went to wake my dad up and that’s when the discovery was made.  He wasn’t breathing.  She called her brother Tom, who lives next door, to try to revive him.  Both of their efforts were fruitless and my father passed away that Friday morning, April 23, 2010.

Later we would find out he died from a heart attack.

After I was told “how it happened,” my mom informed me that I would soon have to carry out one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do in this life:  I had to tell my baby sister our dad was dead.  She lives in Columbia near me and was working that Friday morning, with her workplace less than five miles from the house.  I wasn’t about to tell her on the phone;  while that would’ve made my job a lot easier, it wouldn’t have been very brotherly of me.

I had to go and deliver the news in person.

As I was gathering my keys, wallet, bearings, etc., I made a call to my wife to inform her of the bad news.  She’s a teacher and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) I caught her before class started for the day, but after the bell rang with kids started trickling into her classroom.  She wasn’t alone.  I really had no easy way to tell her, logistically speaking, as it was important she find out immediately so she could make preparations to leave and meet me at home.  I just made the split decision to tell her, in her classroom, even as a heard students in the background.

After briefly losing it, she composed herself (she had no choice) and told me she’d tell the school she’s leaving, pickup our daughter from daycare, and meet me at house to start packing to leave for Charleston.  My wife is a very strong individual, someone who loved my father very much.  The first time they met my father brought her perfume that he had bought himself — if you knew him, you’d know that was a very big gesture.

Once off the phone, I started the longest drive of my life to tell my sister.   I had devised a plan as I drove to her work on how I would tell her, something that completely fell apart as I put it into action.  I was able to find her manager first and inform her of our misfortune and arrange for my sister to leave and take time off.  So far, so good, everything was going according to plan.

I wanted to get my sister outside of the store (away from customers) before breaking the news to her.  Not only did I not want customers in the store to feel uncomfortable, but I wanted her to be in private before she let her emotions go.  It didn’t work out that way.

After the brief conversation with my sister’s manager, she proceeded to get her from the back of the store where she was counting stock.   Again, much like the car ride over, this was the longest 30 seconds of my life.  I thought I’d never see the manager again.  Finally, my sister walked through the door in front of me that lead to the back, her face lighting up with a smile.  She was and is always happy to see at work, and today was no exception.

She asked me, inquisitively, not expecting anything bad:  “What’s up?”

“Follow me,” I urged.  She did, reluctantly.  As we turned to start walking to the door I could see at last glance behind us my sister’s manager and a couple of employees huddled.  They were grim, with faces and eyes tilted downward, staring at my sister like she was being led to the guillotine.

Her inquisitive questioning as to why I was there was met with canned replies from me:  “Let’s go outside.  Follow me.  Come with me.”  I tried to fake a smile, but I just couldn’t find one.  Then, I let the cat out of the bag as my lips started to quiver.  Her inquisitive questioning turned into a demand.  About 20 feet from the door she stopped moving, turned to me, and looked into my eyes and pleaded with me to tell her without saying a word.

I told her.  I don’t think it’s necessary to tell you how she reacted or describe in vivid detail how the scene unfolded.  You know what happened.

Once I was finally able to get her outside, she insisted she drove herself home.  While I was obviously reluctant, she convinced me that was coherent enough to drive and we went our separate ways.  We both went home to our separate households, spouses, and children.  We’d all pack up within an hour or so and head down to our childhood home in Charleston to bury our dad.  We arrived around noon to greet our mother and give her all the love we could.

I missed my 5k, as I said earlier, as I was planning a funeral that Saturday.  We had a lot of socializing, junk food, and card games with family and friends that weekend as people visited our home to show their condolences.  The wake was on Sunday, followed by the funeral that Monday afternoon at 3:30.

My wife, daughter, and myself came back up to Columbia that Tuesday and I was back at work a couple of days later.  I haven’t thought much about my father, his death, or the events surrounding it until tonight.  Until now.  It felt really good to let this all out.  It was the healthy thing to do.

And, as I said before, that’s what this is all about.  I really appreciate you reading all of this, even though it may not help you lose weight.  If there’s anything you can take from this, it’s this:

You only have one body.  One life.  One family.  Love all of them.  You never know when one, or all of them, might be taken away.

I love you, dad.