Epitaph

Life is a jest, and all things show it. I thought so once, and now I know it.
~ Lines from the poet John Gay, added to his epitaph

Over Memorial Day, my two sisters and I flew to Indiana to meet up with our two brothers and spend time with Dad, as we’ve been doing annually for about 10 years. It was a short visit, but it was similar to all the other visits: we sat around in a garage or in the gravel driveway eating good food and laughing and telling stories. The difference this year was that we met at my brother’s house and Dad drove the 20 miles from Linton, hung out, drove home, and one night he spent the night, sleeping in the loft of my brother’s barn (not a hay loft, not a farmer’s barn). The next morning we sat in the barn, big bay door up, drinking iced tea and talking as we looked out at trees and sky.

Dad: Life’s a joke, Verna.
Me: So you have said many times, Dad.
Dad: No, really. What else could it be?

I flew home that afternoon. The next time I saw him was in early June in a hospital in Terre Haute where he had just had emergency surgery to remove most of his colon. He died eight days later. I was holding his hand.

I don’t think life’s a joke. I think life can be very funny, just as I find it mysterious and serious and sometimes downright silly. But Dad was wrong: it’s not a joke. One evening during that last visit over Memorial Day, I looked around at all of us and I looked at my thin, frail father holding court while leaning on a cane that he used for effect - he didn’t need help walking. Five of his kids were there and a slew of his grandkids. We made a crowd, this family that he started when he married my mother in 1944. They were 18.

 

Our family is grieving for the man my father was over a a lifetime that (in terms of what he loved most) started with the Model A Ford and ended with the Hummer. We’re grieving for our individual losses of the father he was to each of us and the father we wished he could have been. My greatest grief for him was that he never let himself see how much we loved him, these seven kids who heard his stories and who created our own to pass on to our children.

My brother was with him the night he went into the hospital, and they talked while they waited for the surgeon. That night Dad was not calling life a joke. He was saying things to my brother that - I’m guessing - he probably wished he had said to all of us when he still had time. The  jokester was gone, the cranky old man left far behind. He must have known that he may not have another chance to speak those words of appreciation that came from deep within the folds of a life that had not been a joke at all but an accomplishment of love that eluded him and anointed us: his five remaining children are very close.

Tonight I’m thinking about something that never occurred to me before: Dad’s seven children watched him and our mother grow up. He was 19 when I was born and only 33 when my youngest sister was born. We knew his childhood from his stories, but we knew his adulthood from ours. And as time passes, our stories will change with our own passages through however many years are left to us.

Next Memorial Day, we’ll meet at my brother’s house and we’ll each bring Dad with us. We’ll tell stories and we’ll laugh and we’ll cry and we’ll move on. What else could life be?

Comments

[Anne]

This is beautiful, Verna. My heart goes out to you and your family. And thank you for sharing so much of your dad's last years with us in this blog. I feel like I knew him.

[Rosemary Carstens]

What a wonderful photo, Verna! They were KIDS--even if it was common for people to marry at that age in those days. I have a similarly wonderful photo of my mother, father, and me. I am three, my mother 20 and my father 22. They were 17 and 19 when I was born. They were 16 and 18 when they were married. I remember that when my own son was born when I was 17, I was shocked when my mother didn't want to be called "Grandma"--later, I was shocked again when I realized that of COURSE she didn't--she was only 34!

[Robin Song]

Hi V,
It is always a shock when we become adult orphans. We think we are independent of our folks, but it is amazing how we cling to the words they do not speak and the looks that can fill a library. We hold them in our daily memory and sometimes reach out to phone them, then realize they are not there.

Your stories of your dad have filled a small hole in my heart that I did not know was there. So often I was laughing out loud at his crazy sense of humour. Please keep telling the stories. Know that your loss is shared and I am holding you from a distance, but close to my heart.

I remember your dad as a young man and with lots of fun and "pranksterness" about him. I envied you your young father. Mine was 50 years old when I was born - a grandfather and not so fun - more serious and sometimes bitter. But our last exchange before he died went something like this: Dad - (coming up out of a coma) He squeezed my hand and said "Honey, I love you."
Me - "I know daddy, I love you too." Dad - "How could you know, I've never told you." Me - "You don't have to tell me, you show me all the time you love me." (He fell back into a coma and died the next day.) It was amazing to me that that one exchange drew him so close to me. Facing death, I wonder if one needs to speak the truth before they can go on. I only hope all my truths will be spoken before then.

Here is one truth I can speak. You mean the world to me - my longest and closest friend. When I think of you Love is always there.
Robin

[Karen]

Verna,
It's been too long since I visited here. You've been in my thoughts lately, and suddenly, on a wet Sunday morning, I find myself here. Only to be stunned by your news. I am so saddened to hear of your loss.

I am new to grief, four months new, and with that rawness comes tears for you. And prayers. Sending you much love across the oceans and the miles...

Kxx