For years I’ve jokingly told people that Dale Earnhardt and Conway Twitty were my heroes. But the truth is, my Dad has always been my hero.
Dad passed away this past Friday morning after a couple of lengthy stays in the hospital. He had battled heart issues for years but had risen to the challenge each and every time to come out on top. But Father Time is undefeated, and this time his issues came out on top.
Dad had a weak heart valve, so when his heart would squeeze the blood out with each beat, the valve wouldn’t get all of the blood out and it would “regurgitate”. This lead to his other organs not getting the needed blood flow. He had battled this condition for a year, and his heart had weakened to the point that he wouldn’t survive a surgery to repair the valve. Thus, his other organs weakened and eventually started to fail due to the lack of needed blood.
He went into the hospital six weeks ago as he had gotten weak and his kidneys were shutting down. He made a little improvement so he got to go home. But a week later he was back in the hospital for the final time where he spent his last two weeks. Throughout all six weeks, I was almost constantly by his side as he deteriorated. Most of the time he was in a poor mood due to the pain he was enduring, but he kept fighting like the strong, proud, and stubborn man that he was.
But in one of the moments when he wasn’t in a poor mood, just a day before he passed, I took the opportunity to tell him he has always been my hero and why.
I told him about how in awe I was as a kid of him being a fireman. Answering the call at a moment’s notice to run off and risk his life to save another’s. Whether it was running into a burning home to look for people trapped or save some of their precious possessions, or working a car accident to pull someone free before something worse could happen. Even down to the things like recusing dogs and cats from a river or doing a controlled burn of an old house. I would proudly tell everyone at school that my Dad was a fireman and a hero.
I told him about how I’ve always been so impressed that as a middle school dropout he went on to own and operate his own business and build a comfortable life our family. I told him how awesome it was that he built his business to the point that he was able to hire several of his brothers and helped support their families as well. He traveled the country as part of his work, and I thanked him for letting me go with him when I was out of school for the summer every year and letting me see the country at an early age as well. I told him that love of travel that led me to taking a traveling job for a decade was because of trying to be like him in every way.
I thanked Dad for showing us the way when it comes to stepping up and taking care of family and friends. My grandfather was an alcoholic and due to this fact, he let his business decline and my grandmother wasn’t able to survive financially. Dad stepped up and filled in at my grandfather’s business and kept money coming in to support my grandmother. He also didn’t turn his back on his own dad, giving him money as well to keep living on.
I thanked him for instilling a solid work ethic in my brother and I. Our house was right next to my Dad’s business, so we were able to see what a hard day’s work looked like. We saw him get up and go to work every day. Whether is was cold and snowy out in the winter, whether it was blistering hot in the summer, whether he was sick with the flu, or when he was just so tired he could hardly hold his head up, we saw him go to work. And he put each of us to work in our early teens as well. We learned what it was like to have a job, go to work whether you wanted to or not, and how good it felt to have money in our pockets as a result of those hard days of work.
I thanked him for teaching me to be self-reliant. He taught me how to hunt and fish, and how that it’s not just for fun as we didn’t “catch and release”. We consumed what we harvested. He also taught us how to raise a garden. He wanted us to know these things so that when times were hard, we’d know how to survive. We could go out and get our own meat and raise our own vegetables. He also taught me vehicle maintenance. “You might not be able to afford to have someone fix your car for you, so you have to know how to do it yourself.” he said as he taught me how to change tires, check oil, change oil, change brakes, replace spark plugs and belts, and numerous other things. Hell, I was even able to change the transmission in my Mustang myself because of the things he taught me.
I thanked him for teaching me the finer points of gambling. He taught me every card game he knew, which is most that exist. He taught me how to play Poker…not just the mechanics of the game, but how to read people, and how to influence other’s decision making by my own mannerisms. I learned how to watch for the “con” and how to be one step ahead of it. These traits have served me well in all walks of life.
I thanked him for being gentle. In most facets of his life, Dad was a hard man. But when I had two daughters, he flipped the switch and was as gentle, caring, and loving as he could be to the two little girls that were his granddaughters, or as he called them, his “baby dolls”.
I thanked him for being a rebel, as he was never one to do something just because he was told to. You can’t make your own alcohol they said. Watch me he said in return. Dad wasn’t a moonshiner for profit, but he didn’t care to make a small batch for his own personal consumption now and then. Besides, it was a family tradition. When his brother died at home, and the law said he couldn’t go into the house, he told them they better be prepared to use the guns they were carrying and he went in anyway to see his brother. I thanked him for that spirit of independence that still flows through me. I learned from him that you can be your own man and make your own way. You don’t have to conform.
I thanked him for being a husband and a father. Mom and Dad celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary in March. Dad never strayed from marriage, and took the vows seriously. Especially the “in sickness and in health” part. Mom has been in a nursing home for four years now with severe dementia. For most of those four years, Dad went to be with her EVERY day without fail. He’d spend hours there with here. Over the last year with his health in decline, he had to slow down to every other day most weeks. But he spent as much time with her as he could, showing what true love really is. I thanked him for being a dad my whole life. Doing all of the things I’ve already mentioned to show the way. To be there to support us. And to give us as good of a life as he could.
And I thanked him for never telling me what I needed to be or what I needed to do in life. That’s one thing about my Dad. Everyone was free to be their own person…just don’t try to stop him from being his own self either and you were going to be ok in his book. Dad never told us how to live our lives. He just lived his and let us watch.
It may be the best conversation I ever got to have with my Dad. I’m so glad I had it, but wish we would have had it earlier in life. But in that last 48 hours, he was at peace with being at the end, and the conversation made me at peace with the end as well, as I finally told him all of the things I’d kept inside for most of my life. And I hope he enjoyed hearing them. The conversation will probably be a the forefront of my thoughts every time I think of him.
My dad has always been my hero, and he always will be.
– Mickey
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