The 21st of the month I'll turn 59.
For years now, this has been jokingly referred to as my "If I make it past" year. Very short sighted I know, considering most of us expect to live well into our 80's. But for me,...I gotta get past 59. Ideally, I want to get well past it. There's only one small detail that nags at me..........
25 years ago today my father died of a massive heart attack.
He was 59. He died 16 days before his 60th.
This guy was a career enlisted man in the US Air Force. He enlisted in the early 50's and stayed in for 20. He retired at CMSGT, E-9, as high as you can go in the enlisted ranks. He had been A "Chief" for several years before retiring, and for most of my young life,......... I wanted to be just like him. Even as a know-it-all teenager, I was proud to walk beside him when he was in uniform. Despite the fact that he was 5.7," and I was 6' at the time,....He always seemed like the taller man.
I never knew him that much as I grew up. He was quiet, and it was hard for him to talk to us....He liked to fish, He could do anything with his hands, and he was a car guy. Not the kind we are,....He was more concerned w/ being able to balance a quarter on the air cleaner of a perfectly tuned, running engine, and all I wanted was to remove the freakin air cleaner completely. When I got my 65GT,..I asked him if we could rebuild the tired 289 that it had, and he said that it wouldn't make any difference,...trying to talk me out of it. When I got the Mach 1 he hated it,...btching about how hard that "big assed V8" was to work on.
He had a massive tool collection,...was always in the garage building some crazy assed solution to something because he was too cheap to buy the right stuff.
He smoked like a train the majority of his life, and we all had to endure that habit. I recall vividly the four of us packed into the family 4 door 62 Nova traveling between duty assignments with the windows rolled up while he smoked his Camels. I'm sure everyone of us smelled like we came straight out of a bar when we'd stop for the night at some cheap assed hotel.
He, and my mom had a terrible marriage for the same 20+ years (mostly of his own making) At the end of which he broke down mentally, and had to be hospitalized for a short period. I had to be witness to that. It "damaged" my respect for him dramatically. When he recovered, he left for long periods of time, and traveled the country in a 6 banger powered 73 Nova. I lost track of him for months, sometimes years. When he'd pop back in, he'd want me to go to the bar with him to have a drink,...problem with that was that he'd already been there too long already.
Eventually, he met another woman and remarried. He moved to Arkansas where he'd always wanted to go back to (His first duty assignment was Little Rock AFB, It was a SAC base back then) All the time he was married to my mom, Arkansas was his go-to for retirement. He went there, and he got saved. By this woman, and by God.
I still was never close,...the Woman in his life and her son became priority one,.. He wasn't there for my first wedding, nor was he there for my second. His new wife had him believing that all we wanted him for was money,...all I wanted was the guy that I used to be proud to walk next to.
After I got married the second time, I reached out to him a couple of times, but each time the conversation was forced,...both of us with nothing to say,..waiting on the end so we could hang up and get on with our lives.
At some point he had lung cancer, and had to have part of one of them removed. She didn't let us know about that...I was never called and invited down to see him,...he was never called and invited up to see us.
When I got the news that he died...I took it hard. I cried a little,... and mourned a relationship that never really existed....I traveled to Arkansas, and sat through a Baptist funeral w/ a Military burial detail attached ...... He is buried in a row of white at the Little Rock National Cemetery.
I revisited his gravesite on the tenth year anniversary of his death, and looking down at the small piece of white marble that marks his grave in a row of thousands, the reality hit me even harder that he's gone,.....Even now as I write this, it's very hard to see through tears. You love your family despite everything, hoping for stuff that would've never been,...wishing that you had done more when you could have.
So here's my take away for today,.....5 days from my 59th,.....25 years today from the death of my father, who was 16 days from his 60th....
If your parents are still alive, do what you can to be with them. Forgive them their faults if you can. Find a way to connect even if only by phone...cause most certainly, one day they'll be gone
For years now, this has been jokingly referred to as my "If I make it past" year. Very short sighted I know, considering most of us expect to live well into our 80's. But for me,...I gotta get past 59. Ideally, I want to get well past it. There's only one small detail that nags at me..........
25 years ago today my father died of a massive heart attack.
He was 59. He died 16 days before his 60th.
This guy was a career enlisted man in the US Air Force. He enlisted in the early 50's and stayed in for 20. He retired at CMSGT, E-9, as high as you can go in the enlisted ranks. He had been A "Chief" for several years before retiring, and for most of my young life,......... I wanted to be just like him. Even as a know-it-all teenager, I was proud to walk beside him when he was in uniform. Despite the fact that he was 5.7," and I was 6' at the time,....He always seemed like the taller man.
I never knew him that much as I grew up. He was quiet, and it was hard for him to talk to us....He liked to fish, He could do anything with his hands, and he was a car guy. Not the kind we are,....He was more concerned w/ being able to balance a quarter on the air cleaner of a perfectly tuned, running engine, and all I wanted was to remove the freakin air cleaner completely. When I got my 65GT,..I asked him if we could rebuild the tired 289 that it had, and he said that it wouldn't make any difference,...trying to talk me out of it. When I got the Mach 1 he hated it,...btching about how hard that "big assed V8" was to work on.
He had a massive tool collection,...was always in the garage building some crazy assed solution to something because he was too cheap to buy the right stuff.
He smoked like a train the majority of his life, and we all had to endure that habit. I recall vividly the four of us packed into the family 4 door 62 Nova traveling between duty assignments with the windows rolled up while he smoked his Camels. I'm sure everyone of us smelled like we came straight out of a bar when we'd stop for the night at some cheap assed hotel.
He, and my mom had a terrible marriage for the same 20+ years (mostly of his own making) At the end of which he broke down mentally, and had to be hospitalized for a short period. I had to be witness to that. It "damaged" my respect for him dramatically. When he recovered, he left for long periods of time, and traveled the country in a 6 banger powered 73 Nova. I lost track of him for months, sometimes years. When he'd pop back in, he'd want me to go to the bar with him to have a drink,...problem with that was that he'd already been there too long already.
Eventually, he met another woman and remarried. He moved to Arkansas where he'd always wanted to go back to (His first duty assignment was Little Rock AFB, It was a SAC base back then) All the time he was married to my mom, Arkansas was his go-to for retirement. He went there, and he got saved. By this woman, and by God.
I still was never close,...the Woman in his life and her son became priority one,.. He wasn't there for my first wedding, nor was he there for my second. His new wife had him believing that all we wanted him for was money,...all I wanted was the guy that I used to be proud to walk next to.
After I got married the second time, I reached out to him a couple of times, but each time the conversation was forced,...both of us with nothing to say,..waiting on the end so we could hang up and get on with our lives.
At some point he had lung cancer, and had to have part of one of them removed. She didn't let us know about that...I was never called and invited down to see him,...he was never called and invited up to see us.
When I got the news that he died...I took it hard. I cried a little,... and mourned a relationship that never really existed....I traveled to Arkansas, and sat through a Baptist funeral w/ a Military burial detail attached ...... He is buried in a row of white at the Little Rock National Cemetery.
I revisited his gravesite on the tenth year anniversary of his death, and looking down at the small piece of white marble that marks his grave in a row of thousands, the reality hit me even harder that he's gone,.....Even now as I write this, it's very hard to see through tears. You love your family despite everything, hoping for stuff that would've never been,...wishing that you had done more when you could have.
So here's my take away for today,.....5 days from my 59th,.....25 years today from the death of my father, who was 16 days from his 60th....
If your parents are still alive, do what you can to be with them. Forgive them their faults if you can. Find a way to connect even if only by phone...cause most certainly, one day they'll be gone