My Dad, cont'd

I didn't realize that the last time I posted was Sunday, and here it is Thursday already. But, I've been busy. It is late (12:30 am) but I did want to finish my story about Dad, so here goes.

Continuing from my book -

Dad made a couple dozen little chairs for the Baptist church for their Sunday School rooms; he made new station pedestals for the Lodge hall; he made a dozen or more of one kind of sewing cabinet and several of another kind. He made quite a few cedar chests. All but one of them were solid cedar. The last one he made, and gave to my daughter, Georgia, was pine with cedar lining. They were beautiful. Dad gave the one to Georgia for Christmas of 1981, and he passed away in February 1982. He never got to make one for Becky. The one he had made for me for my birthday several years before, he had sold before he got to give it to me, so the one I had, I actually won in a raffle, and when I began living in tiny apartments, etc., I gave it to Becky so she would at least have one that her grandfather had made. Of all the cedar chests he made, he only made two alike - the one he gave Judy and the one he made for me to raffle when I was Grand Matriarch of the Grand Ladies Encampment Auxiliary. Also, he completely redid the cabinetry in the kitchen of their home, as well as redoing the closets in the bedrooms and the hallway. He was an amazing cabinet maker.

A family ritual that went on as long as I an remember, was washing Dad's hand and sweeping him down with the broom. If he had been working out in the field, plowing or harvesting, anything that made a lot of dust, (remember farm equipment did not have air conditioned cabs then), he would stop outside the bak door. One of us would grab the broom and proceed to sweep the dust off him, and sometimes there was a lot of it. One of the things I remember was washing his hand. From the time I was so small I had to stand on a stool to reach the kitchen sink, I remember Mom, my brother, or me, washing Dad's hand before he would eat a meal or maybe get ready to go to town, lodge ot somewhere else. As greasy as he would get, I can't imagine how he would ever have gotten his hand clean without our help. We didn't have running water in the bathroom, so we always washed up at the kitchen sink. This meant drawing a pan of good warm water, rolling Dad's shirt sleeve up (he always wore long sleeved shirts) about midway on his arm, and getting the Lava soap and scrubbing away. His biggest delight was to jerk his hand or twist it around - anything to make it more difficult for us kids to hold his big massive hand and scrub it. Some times, it would be necessary to use a hand brush to get the grease off. But we always managed some way. After washing his hand, we would dump the water out of the pan, draw freash water and he would proceed to wash his face and neck - always the back of his neck. This was such an everyday occurrence in our household that none of us thought anything about it. But one time, long after I was married, I remember a friend of my brother telling me that he had witnessed in our home, one of the greatest demonstrations of love that he had ever seen. I couldn't imagine what in the world he was talking about. Then he mentioned watching us wash Dad's hand and what a feeling of warmth and love he got just from watching us. So, I guess what was just natural to us was really something special to other people.

Dad continued to live alone after Mother went into the hospital and finally a convalescent hospital. Even after her death, he stayed on in the only home they had known together. When his time came, he called to tell me he was having spasms in his right arm. At first I thought it was just reaction to his amputation - these things can haunt a person for years. But when we went to check on him, I found that the spasms or seizures were of such a nature they could not be controlled, so we took him to the doctor. He was admitted to the hospital and a couple of days later the doctor told me there was no hope for him unless someone came up with a brain transplant real soon. He was in the hospital five dayds, then moved to a convalescent home where he lasted another five days. I believe, and I will always believe, he heard Mom calling him. He had made no sign of recognition of anyone, me, the nurses, or anyone else for several days. All of a sudden he sat up in bed, looked all around, and laid back down and he was gone. I believe Mother called him home.

And so ends my story of my Dad. Those are some of my best memories. Of course, there are many things I could tell about him - but this is enough for now. Next, I will introduce you to another special person in my life - my Mother. But for now, I think it is time to say "goodnight".