Today is my dad's birthday, exactly two weeks since he passed. He would have been 71, but as the preacher at his funeral said, it's not about the beginning and the end, but what happens in between.
Dad was thoughtful and kind, mean and contrary, he loved hugs, he was sensitive, sentimental, hardworking, talented, stubborn, prideful, creative, sweet, emotional, quiet, funny. In other words, he was human. He was a man who lived many lives, had many interests, and loved his family more than anything.
When I watched the slideshow we put together, I could see his life summed up – music, fishing and family. Music was his main creative outlet, but art in general was a defining factor. He started playing guitar at 14, but also studied pottery in high school. In fact, he said the only reason he went to school his senior year was to attend art class. We have some of his pencil and charcoal drawings of subjects like my mom, Gandalf, my sister, and even a drawing of a spot at Otter Creek Park where my parents went on a date. He painted a portrait of Joe Cocker once with just a few brushstrokes of black watercolor. He took up photography in his 20s, especially when he was stationed in Korea. He took a lot of self-portraits, developing them himself. Later he took up painting, mostly landscapes, and gave away more paintings than he kept.
Dad was someone who needed art in his life, but while he wasn’t loyal to one medium, he was mostly a monogamous artist. He hadn’t drawn in years, probably since before I was born, but one Christmas I decided that I would “strongly encourage” him to start again. I bought a drawing pad, pencils, shaders, everything I thought he might need. And when he opened it, he said “Just because you bought me this doesn’t mean I’ll use it. I need a creative outlet, and right now that’s music.”
Music was always there, though, no matter what else he was doing. I know he wrote a couple of songs, but mostly he rearranged other’s songs to sound how thought they should. He played by ear, which is such a foreign concept to me but one I’ve admired for as long as I can remember.
I’d only heard his version of so many songs up until I was an adult and spotify became a thing. Taxi by Harry Chapin, Mr. Bojangles by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Summertime by Janis Joplin, Seven Spanish Angels by Willie Nelson, Evangeline by Emmylou Harris. I’ve since heard the originals, but they don’t sound quite right. They don’t have his rasp, they don’t have his emotion, and they don’t have his voice. When he taught me guitar, he asked what song I wanted to play because according to him, everyone who picks up guitar has that ONE SONG they want to learn. Mine was Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin. But first, just to get my fingers to learn to play, he taught me Change Partners by Stephen Stills.
Playing music with Dad wasn’t always fun, because I wasn’t nearly good enough, nor dedicated enough. More than once, he winced at a sound I made, either from the guitar or from my voice. It took me a while to realize that that was just him – I think it physically pained him when someone sang off key. He was a perfectionist to the core, and more than once lamented the fact that not everyone he played with felt the same.
He's played bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, dobro, a little piano and mandolin I think, and spent an ill-fated few weeks attempting to play fiddle – a painful experience for all of us. I’m sure there were other instruments, but those are the ones I remember.
Dad was also known for his cooking. Food was important to him, to both my parents, and cooking full dinners – and cooking them well – was the only way to live. Many summer nights we wouldn’t have dinner until after 8 p.m. because they’d come home from work, gone straight to the garden, then cooked a meal after that. His salsa, spaghetti sauce, Korean food, barbecue and – my personal favorite – his bread pudding – were legendary. I haven’t quite wrapped my head around the fact that I won’t have them again. Just in the past couple of months I’d finally felt like I’d earned his respect with my cooking because I made a carrot cake he loved.
From the time I was about 15 or 16, Dad was in and out of hospitals. It felt like we were always there, always visiting him, always watching him decline. I cried myself to sleep more than once my senior year of high school. It was all so heavy. I could compartmentalize during the day – pretend like I was fine, he was fine, everything was fine. But when I was alone in the dark, I couldn’t push it away anymore. He had a liver transplant in January 1999 – probably about as close to death as you could get – and slowly started to improve, but then his kidneys gave out. He spent years on dialysis, driving himself to treatment 30 minutes away from home three times a week because he was too stubborn to let anyone else drive him. One summer, I sat with him during my lunch break to keep him company. I’d crack jokes, because humor is my go-to for sadness or uncomfortable situations. Sometimes we’d just sit quietly or talk about the book he was reading. He would fly through mysteries in less than a week, so I offered up A Tale of Two Cities to give him something meatier. Once he finally finished, he told me never to recommend a book to him ever again because he didn’t like how long it took to read.
It was around this time that I was home from college for the summer and he didn’t have much energy, so we spent the mornings watching Dark Shadows, the most ridiculous of sci-fi soap operas from the ’60s. We’d laugh over the poor quality, the flubbed lines, and the random microphones showing up above the actors’ heads. My dad had a well-known love of cheesy sci-fi movies and shows. He’s watched every Godzilla known to man, he recorded almost all the X-Files episodes on VHS just to have, and he’s the one who showed me the original Night of the Living Dead.
Dad had a kidney transplant in early 2002, and new organs lasted longer than anyone thought – more than 20 years – because he did everything he could to keep himself as healthy as possible, no matter what the doctors told him to do. And when he had his first stroke, he dealt with that, too. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him complain, though if anyone had the right to it was him.
When he had his second stroke a year and a half ago, I knew that time with him was limited. He’d already been looking older and older, and the intense worry creeped back in. When he came home, I said something about how he just keeps going, no matter what is thrown his way. He said “One of these days I’m just going to die.” It was a joke, I think. I responded with “Well, we’re all gonna die,” and laughed because that’s what I do when I’m uncomfortable. The reality of it was hard to take, though. Dad worked hard to regain his language skills better than anyone thought he would. The doctors also said he’d probably never play music again, but he proved them wrong with that, too. He kept mowing his grass, though he had people willing to do it for him, because he wanted to do as much as he could for as long as possible. He gardened, cooked Sunday dinner, told stories, built guitars – including one for Sebastian – and loved his family.
The last few days in the hospital were rough – harking back to years past. But still, he barely complained, and mostly just to my mom, protecting us to the end, I think. He’d had so many years of so much pain and discomfort that I think he was just ready to go.
Dad and I didn’t always see things the same way, but I always knew I was loved. He used to call me Jaimekins and say “I need one” when he wanted a hug because everyone knows my hugs are the best. The last thing Dad said to me was I love you, because I’d said it to him. I don’t know whether he was aware of what he was saying or not, or even that I was there. Even if it was only an involuntary instinct, a natural response to me saying I loved him, I think that says so much more about who he was.
I love you, Dad. I will miss you forever. Happy Birthday.
