Reflecting back upon my father and his life I wonder how I could go for so many years and not know how much poetry my father could quote. That he could remember his friends' names from childhood, even their addresses; could talk animatedly, as if it were just yesterday, of walking to the little corner grocer for a Moon Pie and an RC Cola; of throwing his paper route before school on his bicycle and going up and down every street in Leaksville so many times that he could make those trips in his memory simply by closing his eyes, and did so often, including during his service in the Marines. He told me on several occasions of lying awake during the night, unable to sleep, and walking the streets of his beloved hometown in his memory. Going into the homes of friends and family and remembering specifics. He would say, "It's been said you can't go home again, but I do it all the time. My memories take me home."
My daddy's heart home for the last 53+ years has been with our mother, the love of his life. I don't think in my entire life I've heard my parents quarrel. They just always deferred to each other, thinking nothing important enough to fuel a rift or sustain an argument. Their love produced five children, 14 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren (at this writing there are 8 great-grandchildren). Dad is very sentimental and has kept many of the notes and cards we, as young children, gave him over the years.
I've spent all week just sitting, literally and figuratively, at my father's feet listening. He seems to have so much to say and I have a need to hear it. A need to hear the voice of this man I have heard for 51 years and can't imagine not hearing. It's as if I can't listen fast enough. Time is moving too quickly and there is so much to say. I have to leave soon. I hate that I live 7 hours away. Weeks between trips are going to seem like an eternity when there used to be times, half a year or more, between visits. Time is running out. I wish I could have all those past years back. I wish I had understood then how precious those days and hours with my father were going to become.
I massage daddy's diabetic feet, an act of love, something simple to do. Yet the act becomes more somehow. It becomes a way of connecting to him and of honoring him. It feels like an live electric current between my hands and his warm skin covering his thin bony feet. His feet are so slender - I never realized that before, and soft because he never walked barefooted. There is a slight pigeon-toeing when he walks. I've never seen him cross his legs like many men do with his foot resting on the opposite knee. He always crosses his legs daintily, more like a woman, with his long slender foot toed in. Come to think of it I've never seen daddy sit in that familiar, confident, open-legged posture, typical of men. I pause as I hold his soft foot and we hold a gaze into each other's eyes, not speaking, but speaking volumes. Two sets of brown eyes glistened with tears that don't quite escape their boundaries.
"These feet have taken me a long way." Daddy starts talking again, "all over the streets of Leaksville growing up. Okinawa, Pearl Harbor, Siam, Philippines, Guadalcanal. He said he thanked Adolf Hitler. Strange thing to say I thought, but he went on to explain how if one thing was changed in your history how everything else changes. Thus the ironical gratitude for the war coming along and giving him the opportunity to escape the mill town he loved but didn't want to spend his entire life in, knowing he'd end up like his father working in the mill, drinking, never experiencing anything else. He would have never met mom, the love of his life, and of course would have none of his children or grandchildren. And that's how it was that at the tender age of 17 my dad enlisted in the Marines, after being turned down by the Army because he wore glasses. He had driven to Portsmouth, VA with one of his friends to enlist. When the Army turned him down, someone told him to go to the Marine recruiter, "...because the Marines take anybody!" During boot training it was discovered what a sharp-shooter he was, so for a time he was kept at the base doing rifle-training with other green recruits. Eventually he would leave for the South Pacific theater with a large Browning Machine Gun that weighed about 16 lbs. Dad isn't a big guy, and back then he was 18 years old. The gun was too much for him to haul around on long foot patrols so a nice guy in his platoon voluntarily carried it for him.
My dad is an intellect - unapologetically. His richest most robust world is between his ears. You'd never find him covered with grease in the garage tearing down an engine. It doesn't seem like men today read that much but there actually couldn't be a manlier hobby. Teddy Roosevelt was a voracious reader and so were most of the greatest men in history. Reading allows you to connect with the great thinkers and writers of history and expose you to new ideas. It makes you "go deep" and become more well-rounded, able to talk on a level that the majority of people seem to be too distracted to participate in. Maybe they just have nothing to say - because they don't read enough. I see dad pondering something deeply after reading, and then he begins to extrovert his thoughts over something he read, looking for an exchange of ideas, a meaningful discussion. How I wish I was that kind of person but my thoughts must be shorter, in staccato time and all over the place. It must be lonely for him not feeling he has anyone to talk to on his intellectual level.
Well, daddy just shifted from one subject to another one. I wish I had more days just to sit at his feet and listen. Now, at the end of his days on earth, we are finally saying all the things we feel and want to say and maybe never did. Why does it take pending death to incite us to cherish the precious gift of each day with those we love? It's all over too quickly. Life is a mere breath. I see that now. But then again, there is eternity - time that never ends. Days and days of days and days. I'm so thankful there is a heaven and I'm glad of the assurance that my precious father is going there and that I will once again sit at his feet and listen.
When I'm ready tol eave to drive back to Virginia I go to his bedside to say goodbye, knowing it will probably be the last time. It's hard to let go of his hand. My kiss to his cheek lingers and our tears merge. He whispers, "I love you a bushel and a peck," and I reply, "...and a hug around the neck. " I cross the room slowly and look back. He smiles and whispers, "Drive safe. " Yes, Daddy, I will. You have a nice trip to; I'll see you soon." His eyes are drawn back up to the top right corner of the room, as if he sees something there that he can't take his eyes off of. He's been staring there for days, a half smile teases the corners of his lips up slightly as if he'd seen something nice or perhaps heard something pleasant; it must have been heaven's door opening.