Too Short

Dear Dad,

When I think about our time together, the freshest memories naturally come first. I think of you in the hospital twice because of debilitating strokes. I think of learning about things like left side neglect, edema, and brain cell recruitment. I think of all of us adjusting to new ways of things. I think of the eventual frustration with being unable to use your left arm, unable to continue working at the job you loved so much. I think of endless trips to Walgreen’s and how, try as we might, we could never seem to provide you with enough blue pens. I think of how you never lost your sense of humor, how, when the Girl and I called to tell you that we were engaged, you inevitably said, “I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

But those are just some of the recent things I think of. And those aren’t the things I want to think about. As I pondered what to say here, we were looking through some of your things from high school, and I found a poem you liked so much that you had handwritten a copy of it. I think it’s very fitting:

When I quit this mortal shore.
And mosey ‘round the earth no more,
Don’t weep, don’t sigh, don’t sob;
I may have struck a better job.

Don’t go and buy a large a large bouquet
For which you’ll find it hard to pay;
Don’t mope around and feel all blue –
I may be better off than you.

Don’t tell folks I was a saint,
Or any old thing that I ain’t.
If you have jam like that to spread,
Please hand it out before I’m dead.

If you have carnations, bless your soul,
Just pin one in my button-hole
While I’m alive and well today.
Don’t wait until I’ve gone away.

With that in mind the older memories seemed to come more readily, in rapid fire succession, and I think of so many things from while you were alive and well.

I think of you, me, and my big bro playing catch in the yard for hours on end.

I think of us all wrestling on the family room floor.

I think of games of Charades and Blind Man’s Bluff.

I think of all 3 of us taking road trip vacations to Civil War battlefields, of the sudden outbursts of unexplained laughter from the one of us who happened to be reading a Dave Barry book.

I think of shelves full of books stacked on books surrounded by books. Of books in paper bags and on tables.

I think of breakfast meetings at Bob Evans.

I think of the 3 Abs men meeting in a random college town to take in a football game that none of us really cared about.

I think of watching countless hours sports on TV, of going to Reds, Pacers, and Colts games.

I think of sitting in the bleachers of various high school football fields the big bro was playing on, as you invariably leaned to me sometime in the third quarter and observed, “Third down. Big play, buddy.”

I think of foolishly leaving a message on your home answering machine, not knowing that you wouldn’t ever think to check it. I think of how, from then on, I knew, if I needed to get you on the phone, I could find you most easily at work, even at odd hours.

I think of an endless curiosity that reveled in books with titles like Why Clocks Go Clockwise. Those books taught me not only why clocks go clockwise (they were developed in the Northern hemisphere and were based on sundials), but also why firemen always have Dalmatians (they worked well with horses).

I think of how creativity was valued in the absence of knowledge. At one of those Bob Evans breakfasts, I read something off of one of the cards at the table and wondered what it was talking about. Big bro said, “Hell, I don’t know,” and was ready to move on. But you stopped him: “Hold on. We’re about to make stuff up.”

I think of how home projects are measured not in the time or effort or even money they require, but in how many new tools and trips to the hardware store we needed to complete them.

I think of digging through a road atlas, following your instructions to find us a state highway that went in the general direction of where we were going, just to “get off the interstate and see the country.”

I think of how an argument might have been your favorite kind of discussion.

I think of an abiding love of Hoosier basketball. One time in college, I received a letter from you that made my roommate marvel. It wasn’t just that you had sent a letter with the check I needed, although that was pretty unusual. It was that the letter was two handwritten pages. The first paragraph talked about the business at hand. The other page and three quarters talked about the prospects of the IU’s impending basketball season.

I think of how, even for the last six years, you always paid attention to how the Wabash football team fared.

I think of the benedictions I have to offer:

• May you find a place full of interesting books and time to read them
• May the small secrets of universe reveal themselves in interesting ways
• May you see the Hoosiers and Little Giants find victory regularly

Finally, I think of the short visits we had since I went to college, be they to have a beer, watch a game, or just hang out. At the end of all those visits, we both seemed to have the same sentiment, expressed in various ways: it was way too short, but I’m really glad we were able to get together.

Maybe we could say that about life in general, Dad: it’s way too short, but I’m so incredibly glad that we were able to be here together.

Love always,
Abs