Memories of My Father

Without a clue, I was awakened with an emotional force telling me that once again the anniversary of my father’s death was hitting me square in the face as always, just before this Country’s celebration of Father’s Day.

            My eyes filled with tears at the loss, but my mind filled with memories of the 34 years I had him as a father.

            He was so proud of the Cherokee blood that was a part of his heritage. His dark good looks were strikingly similar to some Native American ancestor, and it prompted my then soon-to-be husband to comment that my father looked like “the other side of a Buffalo Nickel” upon their first introduction.

            My father chose to be a boy well into his mid-thirties, with pals whose nicknames

included Teb, Yale, Cricket, Lob, Kaiser, Hog, Coon, Hugo, Dub, and Ears. His own nickname was “Lash” after the cowboy actor Lash LaRue. They fished, camped, and hunted together, wildly adventurous, living on the edge with gambling and cockfights.

            Almost always when I think of him, it’s with a book in his hands, looking over the top of it menacingly at my date (how did I ever have another?!), or totally engrossed in the tale, oblivious to his surroundings.

            I see my toddler-self on his shoulders in the middle of the stream while he fishes for trout, or him dashing down the street coatless in the snow, or stopping the car at night on the side of the road for me to hear the far away screams of a mountain lion.

            He never had much money, although he made a good salary. When he saw someone in need, he gave his money away. My mother was brought to tears again and again over it, out of frustration at times, and at times over the kindness of his generosity.

            I remember the look on his face as he burst through the door, snow in his hair, shouting, “Twins!” to my grandfather and me, and neither of us believing my mother had done any such thing, because my father was such a practical joker.

            Ah – Daddy – if your first taste of bad habits had been your last. If instead of walking a mile for those Camels you’d run the other way, my last memories of you wouldn’t be speaking to me with your eyes only, because the respirator had stopped your voice. Of eyes that halted my own rambling speech cold because they said, “Don’t kid yourself, I’m not coming home again. And you know it.” Of my husband sharing later his own conversation with him, Daddy struggling to speak, “Take care of my daughter,” imploring eyes, grasping hands.

            We all make choices in our lives, good and bad. But in the end we have no choice at all.

            We buried him on June 7, 1988. Two years later, on June 7, my daughter, his granddaughter, was born. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision his delight of granddaughters, and I wish I could see it with my eyes as I do with my heart. I grieve the fact that he’s not here to watch her grow, as his father was for me, but she knows about him, and I teach her the pride of her own Cherokee heritage. I watch my child and her sweet daddy together, and I know how precious her memories will be.

            May this Father’s Day bless each of you in some way with precious memories of your own. Ludlow Porch always admonished one to “Call your mama.” But if your father is still of this earth, call your daddy today.