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Monday, February 28, 2022

MY FATHER, MY HERO

Daddy at 9 years old

 My father passed away February 28, 1983, at the age of 48.

He was a son, a husband, and a father. He was a grandfather to my children and those of my brothers and sisters and a friend to everyone who knew him. He may not have always been the best at any of those roles, but he was the kindest, most gentle, and most generous man I knew. 

Daddy was a farmer; he oversaw the fields and livestock on my Great Uncle Man’s (Manual Oyer) farm north of Fisher, Illinois. Farming that small 100-acre piece of land didn’t bring in the money we

needed for a family of eight, so Daddy also did what we called “Custom” farming – plowing, planting, and harvesting crops for other landowners who had too much work to complete on their own. He also shelled corn (I’ll have to explain that one to the current generation), baled hay, and ran a snowplow for the state in the winter.

We struggled as a family at times to find enough money to live on, but Daddy always provided, even if things got tight. He was a generous man, much to my mother’s chagrin. She would get upset when he would be “too generous”, like  when he gave $100 to an uncle to buy Christmas presents for his four children, and then handed Mom $20 to take care of their own six. He didn’t do it to slight us; he just couldn’t say no to family, or anyone for that matter. It would frustrate Mom to no end, but she understood Daddy’s heart, and there was no changing that. She said he had a marshmallow center. 

Daddy knew we would be getting gifts from our grandparents on both sides, as well as our great aunt and uncle, and their three daughters who lived next door, so he felt we would have enough. It didn’t bother us; we were happy with what we got.

Dad’s nonchalant attitude when things went wrong frustrated my mother sometimes…well, many times; his patience with people who took so much time to pay him for the work he did or just plain “forgot,”; his quiet way of convincing the children to get their chores done or stop fighting after she’d been yelling at us for an hour or more; him walking out of the room when she got mad at him. “She’ll get glad in the same clothes she got mad in,” he would say, while she would start throwing things at the window as he walked by. One time, she threw the eggs she going to use to make bread – the entire dozen – and then made me clean it up. Same thing with the dishes she knocked out of the cabinet. Thank goodness most of them were plastic!


Mom and Dad
Don’t get me wrong; Mama loved Daddy. She admired him for his patience, his work ethic, and his dedication to completing the task at hand. It was his patience and laissez-faire attitude about life in general that frustrated her. She wanted him to speak up more, to take action when he felt no action was needed. And it "put her out" that he could control the kids when she couldn’t. But she loved him, and she missed him after he passed. She mourned him for 35 years.

I remember a day when two of my male cousins, both teenagers, got into a fight in our front yard. Someone called Dad outside; he sauntered out to the porch and stood there watching and laughing for about ten minutes; the boys were throwing punches right and left, but few of them hit their target.

Finally, Dad had had enough; he walked out to the yard, grabbed both boys by the backs of their heads and slammed them together. As the boys dropped to the ground, moaning and holding their heads, Dad walked slowly back to his chair and his TV show. HE NEVER SPOKE A WORD!

Daddy was pretty quiet. He only spoke when it was absolutely necessary, and then in as few words as possible. I hated asking him what he’d like to drink with his dinner. It was the same routine every time. I would stand there waiting patiently for an answer and wondering if he'd heard me. I was afraid to ask again because to ask Dad the same question more than once could be a bit…awkward. “I heard ya the first time," he'd say. 

 After about five minutes, he’d ask, “Whatcha got?” So, I would name everything: water, coffee, tea, soda. After another five minutes of silence, he would say, “That sounds good.”

So, I’d ask Mom what she thought he would want, and she would tell me, "Give him some tea." Inevitably when I handed him his tea he would say, “I thought you had soda pop!” If I had taken him a soda, he would have wanted coffee.

Family birthday party
Family vacations with Dad were an adventure. We went to California once to visit my Aunt Pat and her family. Daddy didn’t like to stop…anywhere. So, when we had to gas up the car, everybody had better get out and use the facilities, because there wouldn’t be a chance again until the next fill-up.

Unless, of course, there was something Dad wanted to do or see, like stopping on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere so he could climb a small mountain or set up camp in the desert or next to an airport. Mom swore when those jets flew over us, she could see their teeth!

 While reminiscing about Dad with my sister-in-law, Christy, she mentioned a time soon after her oldest daughter was born when Dad showed up at her door and said, "Where is she?" He stood over the baby's crib and looked at her for several minutes, not speaking, and then turned around and walked out the door without another word.

Text Box:A lot of people might have considered that rude behavior, but Christy understood that was just how Dad was. He didn't know how to put his feelings into words.  

Dad with his first grandchild
Even though I knew Dad loved me, the only compliment I ever got from him was when, lying in his hospital bed, he told me he was proud of me for going back to school to get my teaching degree. I always knew he loved me, but I was never really sure before that how he felt about me otherwise. I didn't ever want to disappoint him.
 

Daddy knew he was going to die long before he told any of us. You see, a few years before Daddy passed away, he had to have two surgeries on his eye because a small tumor was growing out of the corner of it. Two times he had to go in and have the tumors removed. Soon after his second surgery, Daddy was wanting to go to Florida more often to visit his mother and convinced Mom they needed to move there. He told her he wanted her to look after his mother because she was getting older.

So, Mom agreed. She got a job at the local clinic in Cape Coral, they rented an apartment, and Daddy would go back and forth between Spring and Fall, coming home to plant the crops, do the custom work he did every year, and then harvest the crops before the snow fell. Then he headed back to Florida for the winter.

He did this for about three years, until the day he had a seizure while sitting with a friend in his truck. His friend drove him to the hospital in Gibson City, Illinois; from there they transferred him to Burnham Hospital in Champaign. He was diagnosed with inoperable brain tumors, three total, and was started on chemo and radiation immediately. He only had a couple of treatments before he put an end to that. He said they were only making him sick and weak, and he knew they weren’t going to work anyway.


How do I know that Daddy knew this was coming so long before we found out? Because the neurosurgeon that was attending him in Champaign said the doctors in Bloomington would have had to tell him that, because of the type of malignancy he had, those tumors in his eye would grow back again, and the next time they might grow back into his brain. I know because it was almost immediately after his last surgery that he pushed for Mom to move to Florida. I

know because he had a few car accidents (one took him over a bridge) that we can now contribute to the same type of seizure he had when he was with his friend.

 He never said a word. But he made sure that Mom and Grandma were together to watch over each other. I don’t know for sure, but I’m convinced he had a hand in my brother buying the farm from my great uncle’s daughters so they wouldn’t be burdened by it, and it would stay in the family.

Mom and Dad were in Florida when he died. I was staying at my great uncle’s house in Illinois. In the early morning of February 28, 1983, I had a dream about my father. He was lying at the bottom of a pool of clear water, with his hands across his chest. He was dressed in a suit and tie. He looked so peaceful and free of pain.

Then the call came. The phone woke me; it was my mom calling to tell me that Daddy was gone. I knew. I already knew.

All that time he knew and never said a word. He knew, and he made sure that everyone was taken care of before he left us. My Daddy was, is, and always will be the greatest man I have ever known. He was my hero, and I miss him.

 

Click on the "Pictures, Videos, etc." link on the right for photos of my dad and our family.

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