I am his future

Part 1



I don't know how many parts or when they will come, but I need to get some things off my chest!! Read or don't, it's real life and death, and it's all we have...Stories and memories and other stuff. Try and read u wont's regret it one day, here we go.



My eyes burned from crying, and my nose for other reasons, the clock on the wall read 1:12pm, and my world stopped. We have to start in the middle, which was really the end, to the man I knew as my pap. I'll talk about after, and more unknown details about that day later, but for now let's go backwards.



Three months before, on a drive to Walmart for more lights for the seven graves my pap took pride in taking care of. That was my first clue later about who he really was as a man. Always taking care of people, young or old, married with kids, or dead for over 20 years, he wanted to do it all. Now mind you he did complain about it but that was just a fasaude. We were off. Three years I drove him around to all the graves. Pulling the weeds, watering, fixing solar lights, and making sure every grave had at least one, but most had two. That time at Walmart three months prior to his passing, he didn't even get out of the van. I knew what it meant, he was slowly turning his dreams into mine. I learned so many things that have some to light for me in the past six months. None harder to bare than watching a strong old man fading away, into to his next life before he was even done with this one. The preparing really began that summer for he died in September. It broke my heart getting out of the van, and looking back at him. We all look back, just sometimes it comes a little to late, and what was behind you is far gone. When I got back to the van he broke into tears, and it broke me. I started to pay a lot more attention to details and words, not just the words, but the way my pap used them when he was trying to teach me through conversations. Teach me about what? I'm still working on it. As I started the van, he said to me, “I just can't do it anymore Half-Pint, and when I'm gone the graves will all go to shit because no one else will even think to take time out of their lives to think about the people who are gone. The people who cared for them, and nursed their wounds, the ones who loved their faults, and helped them grow. (Something about kids and chicken Pox, but he was crying by now I couldn't make it all out.) They won't even care about me.” I promised I would do it every year starting May 24th my grandma's birthday. I would not forget and I will respect, that these people some I knew others who just knew me. In one way or another these people (his parents, grandma's parents) are the reason I am here, if not for them there is no me. This is when he asked me to take him on one last ride. It was our longest, almost three hours on back roads going no where, talking about nothing, or so I thought. It all makes sense now. The details he wanted to make sure I knew, stories, roads, and life, it was all here this day.



Part 2

I'm not going to tell you exactly where the roads came or went from, they are all around you, take a drive. I never even knew some of them even existed. Like loved ones passed they are in part forgotten, or less traveled, but still there on someone's map, to be drove and passed on to the next. I learned on this ride, of hidden ponds, and my paps childhood. He talked about friends, and I made many promises that day. The most important one was not to forget one detail of our ride, the words spoken, or the way it made me feel to be honored with these secrets. Someone told me that I should remember these are moments in time, that no one can take from me. Memories that will live on forever, but the truth is, time has its effect on everything, and memory fades, details as minuet as they are disappear everyday, as new ones fill their place.



When we ran out of oxygen, which only took four hours to do, I took him home. We sat in the parking lot for some time. At the time he was just mentioning some things around the house he really needed done. “Those weeds needs sprayed, and grandma's roses need trimmed back and weeded. The new grass needs watered, and my bed needs flipped, but you can't do that.” I hurt my back bad that day, but I don't remember the pain. I remember how I felt when I was getting all these small chores done, for a man I loved so much. Yes, he paid me every time, but I tried to refuse. He said it's a service and should be paid, for I took time away from my family doing it. What was he talking about, he was my family, my beginning. I had my very first bath in his kitchen sink. I now know he did it to make sure I was okay. with money.



As I sit here today, I can read a little more into sitting in the van, oxygen gone, and him just wishing he could do all these chores himself. He could barely breathe, or walk by this point in time already. He legs had been weak for sometime now, and he sat there telling me these things because he really couldn't get out of the van just then. Three months before his passing was the first time I really felt the weight of his hand on my shoulder as I walked with him to the porch. His cane in the other hand. The helpless look in his eyes said it all. I was his legs and would be for the next three months. I had his hand on my shoulder for almost a year total, but this day, it just felt final.

Three months later it would be.



I must say I took pride even when I locked his keys on the kitchen table and he through his cane off the porch, and yelled and cursed at me a month before passing. I was his legs, and he knew it. It was very hot that day. If you know anyone with breathing problems. Heat makes them feel like they are not getting enough air. I took him to the doctors that day the month before he died for blood. He told the nurse of our fight, and I saw a tear, when he apologized in front of her. Not to me, but the tear said enough. It was all we needed.



Part 3

When he placed his hand on my shoulder to walk out of the doctors office, I felt a small squeeze. Nothing else was said. We got back to his house and I walked him to the porch. When we got back in the house and pap leaned hard into the wall with his back. He started complaining about having to tighten his belt again, but by this point after locking the keys in the house, and him standing on porch waiting on his grandson Jason to come save us from the heat. Then going to get blood drawn, and then making it back into the house, the strength in his hands and legs just wouldn't let him tighten his own belt. As he sat at the kitchen table he cried again, a bit softer this time. Softer than in Walmart's parking lot, softer than I have ever seen. It was almost a peaceful cry, like he knew. I tightened his belt, and started being his hands as well as his legs for the next month. His mind was sharp. His body on the other hand was overall getting weak. He wasn't feeling that well. Off and on for those last three months we made a few trips to the hospital. His breathing got really bad. This month I should have seen the signs of not really giving up, but giving in.



This is all I have for now, It's a work in progress. Hope you enjoyed, feedback welcome!!