Twenty years ago tomorrow my dad slipped out life's side door. My brother called me shortly before midnight California time to give me the news. Dad died in Springfield, Illinois not far from the small town of New Holland where he was born. He is buried next to mom in the quiet little cemetery, Richmond Grove, that breaks the monotony of the endless fields of corn and soybeans that stretch to the horizon in central Illinois.
After telling my wife about the not unexpected phone call, I returned to bed knowing I would not sleep. I decided not to forgo work and rose at my usual 3:30 AM to prepare for my morning radio show on KBZT-FM in San Diego. I had considered calling my boss and begging off the day but found I actually craved the distraction of routine. I also thought of it as a sort of "take your dad to work" day. It wasn't difficult to feel like he was riding with me that morning. I told no co-workers and the show went well. When finished at 10 AM I handed an envelope to our receptionist on my way out the door and asked her to give it to the program director after my departure. I explained my situation in a letter and told her I would return in about a week; then headed for the airport.
The last few years of life had been tough on dad. He had diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and severe dementia as a final insult. At 76, an age that doesn't seem that old to me these days, he had gone quietly just a couple of days after being admitted to a nursing home. Mom had nearly killed herself taking care of him by herself and had finally acquiesced to the nursing home when he was no longer able to stand or even remember how to sit in a chair. It was bad. Steve, my brother, told me that the look in dad's eyes the day he was admitted to the home said, "I'm out of here". And, he was.
The funeral was, as funerals go, not too bad. Often, when we were young, dad would say to Steve and me that we "wouldn't have enough friends to bury you" if he thought we had done something unfriendly or anti-social. That one always sounded funny to me as I considered it a problem only for those responsible for the ultimate disposal of my worthless carcass. He, on the other hand, had a ton of friends to see him off. The service was SRO. Many people we had never met told us stories of good times and wonderful gestures they had received from dad. Both of us came away feeling as if we barely knew the man. Like his experiences as a naval aviator in the South Pacific during the Second World War, these were tales he didn't share. Anything that smacked of boasting was an anathema to him. He avoided it and despised it in others.
The Navy Hymn was played before the service. According to mom, that had been his only request. A minister who obviously barely knew him expounded at length on what a great guy "Hubert" was. I wanted to belt the blowhard for referring to him by a name he hated and had not answered to since he was in short pants. He was "Cop" to anyone and everyone who called him friend. If he could have jumped out of the casket and strangled the pious putz his friends and family would have totally understood and maybe even helped. The color guard and 21 gun salute at the cemetery made up for it.
Twenty years is a long time yet I find my dad alive and well and living inside my head these days. His admonitions to: "act like you mean it", "don't do a halfway job", "don't take a lazy man's load", "use your head for something besides a hat rack" and the ever popular "act like a man" resonate far more than when first administered. Maybe it's because sixty years too late I'm finally listening and hoping that somewhere he is comfortable in the knowledge that I am, and will remain, eternally grateful.
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