My father was a marine. My favorite picture of my dad is one of him in his Dress Blues. He looks so proud in that picture and like someone you can be proud of. He was stationed out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Though I don’t know many of the details, I do know that he was in Guantanamo, Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I heard many stories about his days as a Marine. See my dad loved to tell stories. As a kid, and as an adult, I heard them many, many, many times. More of his stories dealt with his downtime rather than any active duty or actual service. So, I don’t have much to go by other than the fact that he enjoyed spending time with his fellow Marines and they gave him a nickname of suicide… not because he was nuts or did insane stuff in the field. But because he would take a shot of everything on the bar at one time. I think I heard that story the most. Growing up, I enjoyed the stories my dad would tell to a point. Into my teenage years, they got a little stale and I tended to stop listening. I still heard him tell the stories to anyone who would listen, and they never changed.

My dad met my mom through a pen pal program my mom had read about in the local paper. They started writing each other and then chatted on the CB and fell in love. It’s really a great story to hear. They had lots of dreams and aspirations. My dad worked as a carpenter and a police officer as well as several other jobs. They had plans to build their dream house and have a family together. My sister was born in 1968 and I was born 5 years later in 1973. When I was two years old, life took a drastic turn for my family. My dad had a stroke caused by a brain aneurysm. The fact that he survived was probably a miracle. But things would never be the same. It had a devastating affect on his brain and his body. Right after his stroke, he wasn’t able to remember anything. He had to re-learn almost everything. How to walk, how to talk, how to eat. My mother now had 3 children to take care of.

Through a lot of hard work, support from friends and family as well as a lot of prayer, my parents managed to pull through it as best they could. They drove for hours to the only place my dad could get therapy. My mom found work so she could support our family and the hopes and dreams took a back seat to the cold, harsh reality of life. In the end it left my dad with limited mobility on one side of his body, he was unable to drive, he had to wear a leg brace for the rest of his life and he was left with the mind of an 8 year old. After awhile, he regained some of his memory, but was left with a severely damaged short term memory that often led him to forget something he was told just 5 minutes ago. He was also unable to make decisions that involved alot of thinking. So, you see… his memories from growing up and being in the service were all he really had to go on for awhile.

It was tough growing up. But despite all my dad’s limitations, he did the very best he could. He sat through my baseball games, took walks with me, we went camping together as a family and did other things families do. As I got older though, there was the need for something that my dad just didn’t have in him any more. The ability to be a positive male adult role model. Adult being the key word there. It definitely took a toll on me as I went through my teenage years and into adulthood. It also took a toll on our relationship. It became pretty strained. The stories weren’t just stale anymore, they became annoying. I mean hell, what teenager wants to hear the same exact story for the 200th time. I ended up doing less and less with my dad unless it involved yelling at each other. I still got along with my dad, just not nearly on the same level as when I was younger. Fast forward through my teen years and my early twenties. I met a Jersey girl through the internet in the late 90’s. Chat rooms were a great thing. We would spend hours and hours just doing nothing but chatting on a website called LHotel in the gossip. We started dating soon after we met and eventually, we moved into our own place and had a son together in 2001.

When my son was born, I did alot of thinking. About the future, the past and life in general. I made a point of having my parents over for dinner as often as possible and ensuring that my son got to know his grandparents. It was nice. My dad still managed to get around fairly well despite his stroke nearly 30 years earlier. He still had to wear his leg brace and he walked with a cane. But, he would still take walks and run errands around town for my mom like run to the bank or the post office. He enjoyed getting out and talking to people, telling his stories to anyone who would listen. Then, a few years ago my dad stumbled as he was going down the stairs one morning. He fell down the entire flight of stairs and then managed to get himself up somehow.. and as he was trying to regain himself.. ended up falling down the stairs to the basement. My parents lived in an older 3 story house that had stairs going upstairs and downstairs from the main level with one set running somewhat under the other. In any case, it took the fire department to get him out of the house and when it was all said and done, my father had broken several vertebrae and done some other damage as well.

My dad spent a few months in the hospital and a care facility and then my mom took him home. She tried her best to help him take care of himself and get walking again. But, this time she just didn’t have it in her. They didn’t have the financial resources to move into a house that would be easier on my dad and my sister and I were unable to help make that happen. After a few years of trying her best, my mom had to have my dad placed in a nursing home while she focused on some of her own health issues. My dad didn’t ever really recover form that fall and despite the therapy he was getting in the nursing home he started to deteriorate. His heart got week as did his muscles. A few years ago he had to have surgery on his heart because of blockages. During the past few years while my dad was in the nursing home I thought about him alot. Unfortunately I haven’t visited him often. Father’s Day, Christmas and an occasional day in between I took my son and made sure he got to spend some time with his grandpa. But, not nearly enough. Over the years I would often think that I need to get to see dad.. and then something would get in the way and I just wouldn’t get there to see him that day. My dad passed away June 6. I had gone to bed at around 6 AM after a particularly rough night of working on a project for someone. A few hours later my step-daughter woke me up and said that they had to rush my dad to the hospital because his heart stopped. I knew it wasn’t good and my wife and I headed right to the hospital. By the time I got there, my dad had already passed away. It was a surreal scene standing in the emergency room over his body at the side of my mother. A moment I will never forget.

My sister was out of the country for her job, so we put the funeral off for a few weeks until she could get home. During these past couple of weeks I have been trying to keep myself extremely busy so that I could keep my mind occupied. I did alot of work out in the yard and built my wife 2 raised vegetable gardens, got the pool open and a bunch of other things. I also managed to do a good number on my back (more on that later). Despite all of that, I have been doing alot of thinking. Thinking about my dad, his life, my life and the life that I am making for my son.We had the service this past Thursday. My mom wanted to play the Marine Corps Hymn to begin the service. I found a copy on Amazon sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was really moving and it was pretty much at that moment that it really hit me. My dad was gone. My wife tells me that there are only two times she has ever seen me cry. Once when I blew up a computer and thought I lost all of my data and the other when my son was only 4 months old and in the hospital for 4 days. Had she been looking at me during the service, she would have a third time to add to the list.

During the past few days I have done alot more thinking about my dad, about life and about my own mortality. I have often wondered what my dad was like before his stroke. I have asked my mom a few times in the past. But, I just get my moms perspective on it. What I really want is an unfiltered perspective of who my dad was. During the last few days I started wondering something that never really crossed my mind before. In part because I have started thinking about my life now and my own mortality and what I want for my own son out of life. I wondered what my dads hopes and dreams were for me and whether or not I ever came close to achieving any of them. I wonder what he was thinking when he found out my mom was pregnant with me or what thoughts were going through his head on the day I was born. Something else I have been thinking about is how much he liked to tell his stories and how great it would be to hear some of them again. I had years to try and talk to my dad about these things but I never did. I’m not sure I would have gotten the detailed answers I was looking for from him because of what the stroke did to his brain. But, I never really even bothered to try. Just a day or two before his death I was thinking about how Father’s day was coming and I would be taking my son to see him. I thought maybe I would try and get him to talk about some of that stuff. You see, the past few years, he just kind of shut down all of that. He sort of withdrew and stopped talking. He withered away.

Now, I feel guilty, ashamed, sad, unsettled and a host of other feelings. Guilty because I spent the last 20 years, in particular, the last 10 years or so not doing enough with my dad. Not talking to him about life, about the military, about anything. Ashamed because of the way I treated my dad. The man had a stroke in the prime of his life that left him unable to do many things most people take for granted. Yet, in spite of his limitations, my dad did amazing things for me. I haven’t given my dad a real hug in more than 20 years, and now I can’t. I haven’t told my dad that I love him in probably just as long. As a son, I really sucked. Sad, well.. im pretty sure this post points out why I’m sad… and unsettled because now I’m left wondering who my dad was and why I never took the opportunities I had to find out.

The last few days, I have also been wondering who I might have been had I gotten to know the man that was pictured in his Dress Blues. Not because I am not happy with where I am in life. I love my wife and kids dearly and wouldn’t change that for anything in the world. But, I wonder what kind of person I would be, had I been able to spend summers going fishing and camping with the guy in that picture. Doing and talking about things that dads and sons do and talk about as they grow up and grow older. I think about the things I try and do with my son in the hopes that it helps to shape him into a good person and wonder if I had done those things with my dad, where I would be in my life right now. I will always value and treasure the things I did get to do with my dad. Now more than ever. But, I think I will always wonder “what if” as well. Partly because of the stroke that changed who he was and party because I never really took the time to just sit and talk with him about things.

I guess there’s not much left to say. I know that it’s cliche and all that. But honestly, take some time and go hug someone you love. Not the wimpy kind of hug where you just pat them on the back, but a real hug. One where you squeeze them and let them know you really care. Tell them that you love them and really mean it because, tomorrow they might not be there to hug. This weekend, go do something special with your dad. Ask him what his dreams and aspirations were when he was growing up. Ask him what his first thoughts were on the day you were born and what he wanted for you in life. Take some time off and do something special with your kids and let them know they are loved. Get out and live life.

To end this post.. I just want to say something that I haven’t said nearly enough in my life time… Dad, I love you.. and I miss you.

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