Remembering My Dad

I wrote most of this for my Dad's service. I was asked by the minister to share my relationship with my Dad - in a way only I could as his daughter. I have since gone back and rewritten parts and added to it. My Dad passed away four months ago and this for me is a way of grieving for him -

My dad has always been the one person who I could turn to, ask questions, and tell my troubles. He has never made a verbal judgment nor has he ever discouraged me from venturing into new areas, even though he may have not agreed with my decisions. My dad has always been my one solid link to who I am and who I would become.

Dad was an air traffic controller for thirty eight years. He worked the craziest shifts, from midnight to eight, seven am to three pm and various others during his work week. Due to the nature of his work, his availability to do things with me was limited or one would have thought it would be. I can not remember one time that my dad missed a father daughter banquet or a school play; somehow he was always available to go to these events. I was truly a daddy’s girl.

I was adopted when I was eight days old. My parents had been trying to adopt a baby during the first years of their marriage. They had cleared all the interviews and were cleared to adopt a baby. My mom told me that one day they received a phone call, that the agency had two babies for them to chose from. I do know that this was extremely unusual to have two babies available, so the story always meant a lot to me. They arrived at social services and were escorted into a waiting area. The social worker that was handling their adoption proceedings took them into where the other baby and I were. As Mom told me, the other little girl was blonde and I was the dark haired baby. She told me that I was chosen because I looked like the man who would become my Dad. I remember her telling me that I was special, because I was chosen, and even though as a child I didn’t realize that to be true, I do though as an adult, especially with both of them now gone.

When I was little, my Mom and Grandmother used to dress me like a little doll. This always got my dad in trouble with them, because he would just let me play and not worry about how dirty my clothes got. He would let me make mud pies and then pretend to enjoy them with relish.

I must have been about four years old, when my Mom had surgery. My Dad and Grandmother were taking care of me. Grandma had fixed me dinner and Dad had set up a TV. tray in the downstairs den. He turned on the T.V. and went on back upstairs. The commercial ended and the movie resumed. Pretty soon I was screaming and crying for my Dad, as the movie really scared me. The movie – Phantom of the Opera. Dad came downstairs and changed the channel to the Carol Burnett show. Back upstairs he went. Pretty soon, me being the brave one, I turned the channel back to the movie. Again it didn’t take long for me to start screaming. My Dad came back downstairs, and there he sat with me, telling me that that movie had always scared him. We sat and finished watching the Carol Burnett show.

When I was seven, my dad started taking me on a yearly summer camping/fishing trip. These trips were never far from my grandmother’s home in the mountains, but to me they took place a million miles from nowhere. This was the time I had my dad to myself.

Every year we would pack up his Toyota land cruiser with the bare minimum of supplies. Dad would pack food to eat for the trip, which consisted of Vienna sausages, oatmeal in packets, salt, pepper and cornmeal. I am sure there were other items of food, but those were the things that have hung in my memory all these years. I didn’t like Vienna sausages then, and to this day I still can not fathom the idea of eating them, but they served their purpose.

The first year we went to a place called Zimmerman Lake. It is a small lake just before the top of Cameron pass. We drove in and set up camp underneath the pine trees. I can clearly remember helping Dad string up a tarp for a cover, rather than using a tent. We always took Pepe my Mom’s goofy poodle with us on our camp trips. We would get up and go fishing early in the morning. I remember at Zimmerman there were graylings in the lake and they were fun to catch, because they fought like crazy. Pepe would go into the water and carry the fish to shore, and then he would play with them for a bit before it was into the water again to bring in the next fish. Later that night Dad would fry up fish for all of us, Pepe too. I can’t remember if the fish tasted good, I just remember always having so much fun with my Dad.

The next year Dad took me to Michigan Reservoir for our weekend camp trip. This trip he decided I was going to learn to fly fish. We went to the bottom of the reservoir and Dad had me fishing at the bottom of the spillway. I managed to hook a pretty nice sized fish, and was trying real hard to get the fish into the net. I was so intent on what I was doing I wasn’t paying attention to where I was standing and pretty soon found myself falling off the edge right into the pool at the bottom of the spillway. I didn’t lose the fish in my fall and Dad between laughing and trying to get me out of the water, told me how amazed he was that I kept hold of the fishing pole, the fish and all my gear.

A few years later…I think it was about two years, my Dad decided I needed to know how to learn to drive. We were always camping and jeeping and he was worried that if something happened to him, I needed to know how to drive out. Each weekend we would go up to get firewood and he would teach me to drive the Land Cruiser, always making me promise not to tell my Mom. The next summer we were on one of our camping trips, somewhere near Tin Cup, Colorado. Dad told Mom he was tired of driving and that he was going to let me drive. He told her to get in the back seat, so there would be room for me to drive. She did, and she thought I was just going to sit next to my Dad and steer, little did she know I was going to actually drive. She almost jumped out of the back of the jeep when I got in the drivers seat. My Dad thought it was hysterical that she was so spooked at me driving.

Fast forward a few years. My senior year in high school was not the best year for dating for me. Homecoming was a big deal and I had spent a lot of time making my dress for the homecoming dance. The night of homecoming, my date stood me up; I was devastated to say the least. Dad told me not to change, to just hold on maybe my date was late. He went into the bathroom, showered and changed and then came back to the family room. He said to my Mom – I have a hot date, we will see you later tonight. He then took me to Seattle out to dinner. It was a fun night with my Dad, and probably better than spending it with some silly boy.

Now like I said it wasn’t a good year for boys for me. Prom time…what happens…my boyfriend and I break up three days before Prom. Rather than have me sit home on Prom night, Dad made reservations at the Space Needle and took me out for Prom.

I remember when I got married and Dad was to give me away. We were in the stone church in the mountains, the church where he and mom had been the first ones married and I was the first baby baptized. We were to come out of two different sides of the church on queue to the music, but somehow we missed the queue. Dad would peek out and then lean back, and then I would peek out and lean back, neither of us seeing each other. This probably went on for 3 or 4 minutes, before we had the right timing. As we walked down the aisle, my Dad had tears streaming down his face and that started me crying.

As an adult my Dad and I didn’t get to do much in the way of father daughter type activities. I lived quite a distance away, had my own life and kids. But every time I called on the phone I would get an enthusiastic “Lorie – how’s my girl?” from him.

Mom died in 2005 suddenly, this was really hard on my Dad, as he relied heavily on her. In all the years I can remember he had never really cooked or taken care of the house, which was always Mom’s domain. I worried about him not eating and sure enough he ate very little. He started out taking pretty good care of himself after she was gone, but that slowly faded…He was sad and lonely, so I am sure it was a situation of why bother. This was a man who had had two major leg bypasses, one bypass done between his arms, countless angioplasties and had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure fifteen years ago. I knew that I didn’t have a whole lot of time with him, so I did my best to take advantage of what time I did have.

Finally, in September of 2007 I got a call from Dad telling me that the rehab center is charging him ten thousand dollars a month and could I come get him. My son and I flew to Colorado to get him and take him back to Phoenix with us. We took him to his home in the mountains so we could pack what he wanted to take with him. We were to leave on Sunday the 16th of September to drive back. Saturday night a parade of his friends came to see him off and wish him well. Little did they know it would be the last time they would see him.

Josh and I got Dad packed in the explorer and took off for Phoenix. I kept checking on my Dad as we drove down the Front Range. As we neared Colorado Springs, I noticed he was breathing through his mouth, I told him he needed to breathe through his nose to get the oxygen, he told me he would. A few minutes later he was doing it again and I turned to get his attention, I got no response. I grabbed his hand and told him he needed to breathe through his nose, he squeezed my hand and then he was gone.