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My dad


dcell59

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My dad died a month ago. He had terminal cancer, but he was expected to live for a few more months. My fiancee and I were going to go to visit him next month, but he didn't last (neither did she - she died 5 days later, but that's a subject for another post). He died quickly from a bunch of infections that hit him suddenly. I didn't even have time to see him before he died.

 

I have lived on the West Coast for 30 years, and my family lives on the East Coast. So, I only got to see my family every year or two when either I would go there or they would come here. My mom died 19 years ago. It was hard dealing with her death because I was very close to her. She also died suddenly.

 

My dad and I weren't very close as I was growing up. When I was a kid, my dad was the teacher and disciplinarian. I learned lots of stuff from him - mechanics, woodworking, electronics, physics, outdoor lore, and other stuff - but I didn't feel close to him. He tended to come home from work and leave us kids alone unless we had done something wrong. In that case, I got the lecture and sometimes the spanking. I never resented that, but it did make us a little distant. After I left home, I would call home and talk to mom for a long time, and then spend 2-3 minutes on small talk with dad.

 

After my mom died, my sister and I lost touch with our dad. He was very resilient and resourceful, though, and within a couple of years he had found a new partner. They never married - his marriage to my mom had been perfect and his girlfriend's marriage had been terrible. Neither of them wanted to spoil what they had, so they stayed single. My sister and I realized that we were no longer a big part of dad's life. My sister was a little more in touch because of her children - my dad loved his grandchildren and visited when he could. My situation was different. With me living so far away and only visiting occasionally, it was tougher for me to connect with him.

 

So, in the late 1990s, I started calling my dad every Thursday. We rarely missed a Thursday chat. We talked about all kinds of things we had in common - computers, electronics, physics - and just general topics. We enjoyed talking to each other. When we visited in person, we would have similar discussions. We also did a lot of sightseeing together - as he got older and less mobile, we mainly went to places without much walking, but where I live that still means great scenery. The last time he was here, we had lunch in a cloud near the top of a mountain ridge. That place will always be special for me, because I also had lunch there with my late fiancee.

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