Comments on: nine years ago

by: bev

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:50:46 +0000

tf - It took me awhile to get back here, but thanks for posting about your Dad. I know what you mean about your Dad and the “insane work ethic” and am sure that your Dad completely understood about having to get back on the job. Liked the part about the “Go WHERE?!” remark. We had a somewhat similar incident on the day my Dad died. Don came in to sit with Dad and I and Dad looks at him and says, “Spectators not permitted!” Don started to leave, and Dad smiled and Don realized he was just joking.
Another sort of funny anecdote connected to my Dad’s passing, and that has to do with the old “work ethic” thing. When my Dad was first diagnosed with kidney cancer and we didn’t yet know what the eventual outcome might be, I started helping to keep his small manufacturing business going. Gradually, as he became increasingly ill, I took over more and more of the assembly work in his workshop that was below his bedroom. The day before he died, I split the time between caring for him and working in his shop. A couple of times during the day, I came upstairs and asked if he’d prefer if I spent more time with him, but he said “No, I like hearing the drilling and hammering going on down there because it makes things seem normal.” On the morning of the day that he died, UPS came to pick up a shipment of everything I’d assembled for customers the previous day. My Dad was thrilled to hear how much stuff I’d managed to ship out that day. I think he felt sort of happy to know that things were taken care of and he wasn’t leaving any job undone.
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Larry - Thanks!

by: Larry Ayers

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:30:56 +0000

A very well-written and touching essay, Bev!

by: thingfish23

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:04:08 +0000

It’s not the best word, but it’s the only one I can come up with, that I “envy” your time with your father in his last hours. I had to say Goodbye to mine, as he lay in the bed at the VA hospital, knowing I’d not see him alive again. He knew it, too but we didn’t talk about it. He never wanted to talk about it, as was his right.

Still, I knew I wanted to be there at the end - knew it from the time he got really sick. I was pissed that I had no choice but to come back home and go to work.

I take comfort, however, in knowing that Dad understood. My work wasn’t going to wait, unfortunately, and Dad raised me with an insane work ethic, so there you are.

Looking back, though, I can’t help but regret not being able to be there.

One last thing (sorry for the wind here):

When my Mom and sister were holding vigil at Dad’s bedside, they’d pat his hand, or kiss his head, or whatever and tell him that “he could go”. They repeated this phrase often. “You can go, you can go, you can go…” At one point he opened his eyes, sort of vexed-like, and said, “Go WHERE?!”

Makes me smile every time to think of it.

God bless you and your family Bev.

by: bev

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:54:56 +0000

Cathy — Thanks!

by: Cathy Wilson

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:59:06 +0000

I think you are very much your father’s daughter. He was quite a man. And lucky to have you there.