Jewels Euliss

Father’s

Most daughters think they have the best Dad’s and I’m no different. Mr. Euliss could have ended up to become a bad bum. You see his start in life was bleak to say the least. His mother dies when he was only two years of age. No memories of her at all and his father was an angry man who worked in a hosiery factory and never had a dime to his name. Now you would think he would go live with his father but this was not to be. He was passed around to family members and given no sense of safety nor love. Two older sisters Bobbie and Shirley were his only family and they had very little to help provide for their baby brother. At the age of twelve his father passed. Things were very hard for him and continued to get harder. My father once told me about digging up onions and hoping someone had bread and mayonnaise so he could eat. Daddy joined the Air Force at 15 years of age just to try and get a shot at some kind of life. Lied about his age to get in. One of the few lies he ever told. The military gave him the tools for living that had lacked in his life up until then. He signed up for four years and did what most of the single military men did on their off time and that was to drink and chase women. He was headed to an empty and lonely life. After the four years he went back to North Carolina and stayed for a total of three days went right back to renelist in the Air Force and never lived anywhere near North Carolina the rest of his life. He eventually became a recuiter and this is how he met my mother. She too came from much disfunction and thought she wanted to join the Air Force. My Dad talked her out of that idea and into a date with him. The rest they say is history. I got to know my parents and their struggles while I took care of them before they both eventually passed away from cancer. It was nine years of Doctors visits and treatments and surgeries but it was also nights of playing cards and 2:00 am bowls of Cheerios or fried egg sandwiches and all those talks. The beautiful exquisite conversations we had. Those times are etched in my memory forever and I will never regret taking care of mom and Dad when they needed me most. Oh the other lie my Dad told, well as a teenager I smoked a bit of weed and at 15 years old I asked my Dad if he saw my pipe. I know the nerve I had. He said no and that was that. But during one of those priceless conversations later in life he said, “Sis I only lied to you once and it was over that pipe.” I just waited and finally he told me he found it and crushed it with his foot. We both broke out in laughter and I thought what a great Dad I have. Today I miss him and Mom so much it hurts but then I remember how lucky I am to have parents that made me feel safe and loved and capable of doing anything I wanted. My older brother and I to this day feel so lucky to have had parents that wanted to be parents. Parents that met and saved each other and created a family full of love and discipline and laughter! Yes we know how lucky we are.