Michael, Tamara, Verdell and Megan call him Daddy, Debbie and Tony call him Pops; he's great granddad to Desiree, although she used to call him Daddy until her father got bent and asked her not to. He was Ken to mom and sometimes other names I'm sure when he made her mad, asshole comes to mind mumbled under her breath on occasion. He's many things to many people. Jean, Joan, Vickie, Gary, Me, Kenny, Jimmy and Lisa called him Dadi when we were kids - draw out the "a" real country-like and make it lo00ng. Or maybe it was just the 4 youngest and Vickie that called him that. I think we got it from watching Shirley Temple on Sundays. I'm not sure. Now, I just call him Dad. He was practically super man when I was in high school. Could leap tall buildings and all that. Knew everything about anything, one of the smartest people I knew. I'd tell everybody at school all proud, "My dad works at Fred Meyer, manager of home improvement department. If you need anything at all go to him. He's the only one there who really understands customer service." I think I heard dad say that a time or two. And off they'd go, then report back to me to say I was right. Duh. My dad, they'd say, was a resource of valuable information about anything related to building stuff. Kind of funny when you think about it because although dad could direct a hapless customer down a certain isle for a certain something for a building project, or give you advice on a specific product the store carried, he wasn't much for putting stuff together himself, well...not without a project disability of some sort anyway. I remember certain aspects of the house I grew up in on 51st Avenue East. Let's see, if you turned on the heater in the bathroom it would turn on the heat in my room. The hot water turned on the cold and cold...well hot of course. The house had some serious electrical disorders. It later, many years later, burned to the ground. I seem to recall a rumor about an electrical fire that started in the walls. Not a big surprise. Dad, mom and Allstate had the house rebuilt. Although mom tried really hard to keep him from fixing anything that involved electrical wires and tools, some things were just meant to be. In the newer home, if you talk too loud you can set the door bell off. And we're all rather loud so...well, you know.
My dad epitomizes the skill and art of customer service because he's a people person. This is why he was such a good manager. His world is everything it needs to be when he's socializing with people. You know? Now that mom's gone he spends way too much time by himself and the natural urge to socialize gets all jammed up inside. Not good for a social butterfly. So when he gets a call or his children stop by, this really genuine talker dad of mine just talks...talks about the war, or the old days, or Jennifer Anniston and his opinion on why Brad left her for Angelina Joli, or free range chicken...just mentioning free range will start him down the road to the conversation he had with Jean and how she thinks the chicken at Safeway is free range which is ridiculous, and how when he was a kid that's all they had and how really good it was. Yep, Dad's a talker, as am I and the rest of the family, except Lisa that is. She's a quiet one, the only quiet one in the family.
I tried to come up with the one word, a nice one, to describe my dad and it made me think of a conversation I had one day with my granddaughter. I was sharing custody of her for a weekend with the other grandparents and was driving her back across town after a short visit with dad. She was sitting in the back in her car seat just chatting away about him. She was referring to him as him. Him said this and him said that. Our conversation went something like this, "Diamond, honey, you can call him great granddad." With a puzzled look, she looked back at me with all her cuteness, "Why?" she asked. "Well," I tried to explain patiently being the good Noni that I am, "because he's your dad's granddad, and your great granddad." Again the furrowing of her baby brows. "Why?" she asked. After going around and around and trying to explain the hierarchy of first being a dad, a granddad and then becoming a great granddad, there was silence in the back seat of the car as her little mind struggled to process the information, then she said, "I mean why's he great?" Why's he great? Oh. She was only three at the time. My Diamond is the smartest granddaughter ever. I tell her that all the time. I had to chuckle. Why's he great? "Well, because he's my dad," I told her laughing.
And over the past few weeks, with the frustrations and the moments of feeling completely undone by sadness and a fear that sometimes crushes my heart inside my chest, I think about all that. He's the only Dad I have. And that's mighty great.
Yesterday was a really bad day for my proud and really stubborn father. Today was good I think. No mishaps with the colostomy bag. My uncle made him a really good dinner. He ate it. That's good.
And you know what? He's still superman to me.
God, please just help him get better. I don't want him to suffer, and I don't want him to ever stop talking. Amen.
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