I was reflecting recently on changes that had gone on within myself and discovered
that there were two milestones in my life that have stark contrast. It was an
eye-opening moment and I related it to my wife.
Those milestones were the deaths of my parents, my father in 1980, just four
days before he turned 50, and my mother in 1997, after a protracted battle with
cancer. The contrast comes in the way that I handled each of these events, and
it is a contrast that I feel needs to be relayed to others who may be faced
with difficult days, which is, in my opinion, all of us.
Dad was a heavy smoker and drinker all his life. He would go through the occasional
drunk when I was growing up, but I rarely saw him in this condition. He would
stay out late, get snockered, and stagger in at some odd hour. Mom would help
him to bed with some words of comfort. I know this because I am a light sleeper,
and have always been so. I caught glimpses of his return many times.
He was not an ugly drunk. He didn't get drunk except for an occasion such as
being passed over for promotion. He never abused us kids when he was drunk.
In my opinion, he never abused us kids at all, he merely fathered the best he
knew how. I think, given the opportunity, Dad would have been a pretty good
dad. I'm not sure we kids gave him a lot of chance, though.
Dad smoked a lot. He was always taking some type of class
to better himself, mostly in the math area where he seemed to have a great interest.
He had a desk in our living room and would sit there for hours working over
math problems and smoking vast qualities of cigarettes without thinking about
it.
I had a little fun with him one day during one of his study sessions.
He was lost in thought and calculation when I walked by one
afternoon, an I noticed that he had two lit cigarettes on his ash tray. Practical
joker that I was, I decided to run with it.
"Dad, that sure looks complicated," I said looking
at some of his work. "I'll bet it takes a lot of concentration to do that
kind of math. Here," I said picking up his pack of Pall Mall non filters,
his favorite brand for decades, "have a cigarette." I pulled a new
one out of the pack, handed it to him and picked up his lighter. He never looked
up from his problem. I clicked open the Zippo, which incidentally, I loved filling
with lighter fluid for him and Mom, and thumbed the igniter. It jumped to flaming
life and I passed it in front of his face. He leaned slightly forward to extend
the tip of his Pall Mall into the flame and drew a couple of breaths to invigorate
the business end of the cigarette.
He took a couple of puffs on his new cigarette and I slightly
turned the ashtray so the natural place for him to put his newly lit smoke was
unoccupied. It worked. After a couple of drags and some careful thought on his
math, he reached over and jammed the cigarette into one of the indentions in
the ashtray. There were now three lit cigarettes in the queue.
Let me break for a moment and describe Dad's ashtray. It was generally nearly
overflowing with dead butts and ash. It was a glazed ceramic construction nearly
the size of a dinner plate with eight slots equally spaced around its one and
half inch high sides. So, it could comfortably hold somewhere in the neighborhood
of 100 to 150 cigarette butts. Sometimes, it would be so full, that when a freshly-lit
smoke was put in one of the slots, it would ignite other dead soldiers within
the tray.
I picked up the pack a moment later and pulled another out. "Boy, Dad,"
I said with great concern, "that looks tough. I hope someday I'll be able
to do that kind of math. Here, have a cigarette."
I pulled another Pall Mall out, handed it to Dad, and went
through the lighting motions once again. Again, I rotated the ashtray slightly,
and again, the ruse worked. There were now four thin wispy trails of smoke wafting
up into the air.
I turned and walked over to my mother who was sitting on
the couch reading a book. I pointed over to Dad's desk and whispered to her
to look at the ashtray. She did and smiled that "sure-it's-funny-but-your-father-won't-appreciate-your-humor"
smile. I decided to go for the gold.
"Here, Dad. Have a cigarette," I said upon returning
to his mathematical ruminations. I handed him a fresh one, lit it for him, and
turned the ashtray once again.
After a couple of drags, it took up yet another slot and
he now had five lit cigarettes going. The thin wisps of smoke now resembled
a small fire and I think it was even getting to Dad.
He finally reached a stopping point in his problem and sat back to reflect on
his mathematical skills. He reached for a lit cigarette in his ashtray and noticed
that he now had a choice. After about two seconds, realization of what had transpired
hit him and he looked at me and said, "What are you trying to do, kill
me?"
Dad, Mom and myself all had a good laugh.
In truth, I wasn't trying to kill him, but R. J. Reynolds and Philip Morris
were.
Dad died of cancer on March 28, 1980. The doctor that I queried said his type
of cancer was common heavy drinkers and smokers.
I joked around with Mom's smoking too.
I once noticed, as I was paying for something at a counter, that there were
some gag items next to the register. One of those items was cigarette loads,
small pieces of gunpowder compressed into small wedges, that could be inserted
into a cigarette to make it an exploding device. In retrospect, the idea of
a small explosion just a couple of inches from a face sounds horrific, but at
the time, it was a gag I couldn't pass up.
I took the loads home and when Mom wasn't looking, stuffed
one of the loads into one of the cigarettes in her pack. For the next hour,
I didn't go anywhere that I was not in close proximity to Mom so I could monitor
her smoking. Her first cigarette went uneventfully. She pulled the wrong one,
depending on your perspective, out first. Her second was the one. I sat there
calmly. When it went off, both of us jumped. Then I went into hysterics while
Mom looked at the offending cigarette wondering what happened. I told her, once
I had calmed down from my hysteria, that I had loaded her cigarette. She good-naturedly
smiled and said it was funny. I left with a smile on my face and evil in my
heart.
I didn't load another cigarette for weeks even though there were 100 loads in
the small package. I forgot them until one day when I was going through some
stuff and found them again. The evil me kicked in.
I found Mom's freshly opened pack of cigarettes on the table. She was outside
working in the yard.
One of her favorite zen-like things to do was weed. I have since inherited that
trait from her. Once we start weeding, it's like a whole other person takes
over our mind and we can't stop until the job is done. She could weed for hours
without thinking about a cigarette, so this was my chance.
I loaded one, then I decided to load another. Then another
and another and another. I loaded the entire pack except two. Them I left near
the opening so she might get a good one first to stave off any suspicion. It
worked. Her first cigarette was uneventful. I wasn't present for her second,
but I heard it go off.
"Pop!" reported the cigarette from the dining room. I broke out into
maniacal laughter in my bedroom and then walked proudly into the dining room.
Mom had a smile on her face that said, "You got me."
"Gee, Mom. You should be careful. Smoking looks dangerous," I said.
That went on for two or three more cigarettes before she made me remove them
all which is infinitely more time consuming that putting them in.
So now, with all that out of the way, I can move on to the change of heart theme
of this missive.
I had returned to Florida from Utah upon learning that Dad
was critically ill. I had not been close to my father for quite some time, but
I still loved him and wanted to be with him as much as possible. When I first
saw him, the full extent of the ravages of cancer were immediately apparent.
Though not yet 50 years old, Dad looked 80, emaciated, bald from chemotherapy,
and only one tooth, the remainder of a lifetime of not practicing what he preached.
I sat by his bedside for the first day I was there, touching his hands, stroking
his head, and talking incessantly to him. Only once was he able to rise from
his bed when my Uncle Grady helped him to the bathroom. It was sometime during
that expedition that he recognized me and I had all I could do to not break
out in sobs.
While Dad was in the bathroom, two people came to visit. I didn't know them,
but they were introduced to me as a man and wife. They seemed nice. Once Dad
had finished his bathroom visit, he came out of the bathroom and, with Uncle
Grady's help found the closest place to sit which was Uncle Grady's bed, the
closest to the bathroom. Through a great deal of effort, Dad finally conveyed
that he wanted a cigarette and smoked what was to be his last.
While he was still sitting on the bed, the couple went into
the bedroom and closed the door. I stayed in the kitchen with Aunt Nikki and
Uncle Grady, talking about Dad's condition and all sorts of other stuff. I was
concerned about these relative strangers spending so much time with Dad, but
Aunt Nikki said they were friends.
After about 30 minutes, the door opened up and the couple came out professing
that Dad had accepted Jesus as his personal savior. They had big smiles on their
faces. Something about it struck me wrong and I became intensely angry. I didn't
let anyone know and agreed that Dad's acceptance was good. But that's not how
I felt inside. I was angry. How dare these strangers just waltz into my life,
save my father from an eternity somewhere else but Heaven, and then waltz back
out! What kind of nonsense was this and why would my aunt and uncle allow it?
I stayed that day until 9:30 or 10 p.m. Before I left, I leaned down over my
morphine-addled father, kissed him on the forehead and told him that I loved
him. And then I went to my mother's house to sleep.
I remember that evening because Mom had this new TV service called Showtime
and they had a wonderful James Taylor concert on. I watched the whole thing.
It finally went off sometime after midnight.
About 2 a.m. The phone rang. It was Aunt Nikki who told me that Dad had passed
away. I didn't cry. (It hit me six months later when I wanted to talk to him.)
Mom struggled with cancer for six years. It started as an ovarian cancer that
was grapefruit sized and inoperable. The doctor gave her six months. She fought
it with all she had and continued to improve, enough so that she even worked
part time in the computer department at her long-time employer. I was proud
of Mom.
She had several relapses, went on and off chemo several times, but continued
to pursue her dreams for those six years. My sisters Debbie and Susie were her
companions during those final years and I can't say enough about the both of
them. Susie is a rock of stability and Debbie is a font of optimism.
In 1997, Mom was hospitalized because she had had a sever relapse. I, along
with my wife and daughter, flew down to Florida to visit with her at the behest
of my sister Susie. If Susie says something is important, believe it.
While talking to Mom, I discovered that the fight was gone out of her.
I enjoyed letting my daughter Annie visit with her and Annie
was a source of optimism for me. Mom was far more alert during this visit than
the final visit to my Dad. I had some hope that she might find her steely resolve
and pull herself out of her infirmity. But when her pain become strong enough
for her medicine, and the nurse would administer the medication, she would fall
into a somnolence from which she could not be aroused.
We visited for three days. On the third day, we went by the hospital room to
say goodbye to Mom. It was a sad visit for me. Mom looked weaker than she had
the previous two days and was having a hard time staying alert.
When we finally took our leave at about 2 in the afternoon, my wife, daughter
and I said goodbye and began to file out of the room. I held the door for everyone
and started out myself after telling Mom that I loved her.
Then I stopped. I walked back to my mother's bedside, bent over her and kissed
her on the forehead. I softly said, "Mom, you know that Jesus died for
you, don't you?" I remember those words exactly. She looked me in the eyes
and nodded her head weakly. I smiled at her with tears in my eyes. "I love
you, Mom," I said and I turned and walked away.
I have become the enemy of my youth.