Tales of Dad

My dad was the best, most people say that about their dad, but it was true for mine. My dad passed away on March 26th, 2022. I was with my mom and grandma going to a plant nursery. On our way there, I saw a red-tailed hawk, I swear it winked at me, and then it felt like all of my insides had been taken away. I was hollow, there was nothing inside of me anymore. I was empty.

While picking out my plants, all I could repeat in my head was "my dad is dead," over and over and over. I would occasionally shake that thought out of my head, but it never left. Hours later, I got the phone call. My dad was brain dead. I told the doctor that when the last person comes to say goodbye, to unplug him.

I think some people are pissed that I didn't go see him, but I knew that I couldn't. I didn't want to remember him like that, and more importantly, he didn't want me to see him like that. We knew where we stood with one another, and if we didn't, I talk to him every day. It's a different way than I used to talk to him every day, but I talk to him every day regardless. Numerous times a day.

I am not a religious person. My dad would always leave the house and say "Lord, watch over the house." I leave the house and say "Dad, watch over the house, please." My dad and I lived two and a half hours away from one another, and he didn't drive. I would text him pictures of my house and he would say that someday he would come and visit. I know that my dad now knows what my house looks like, he loves the green office, and despite it not being clean, he says that the house looks wonderful.

My dad can't tell me to clean the house, as pack ratting runs in the family. I know that he says that the condition of my house is way better than my room ever was growing up and that alone, is good enough for either of us.

My parents were never married. They lived together for maybe two years. They moved away from each other on, probably, mutual terms. They were always friends and they always loved one another, just not in that way. For most of my life, they lived 10 minutes away from one another. I spent every weekend with my dad, and every day after school with him as well. We had some crazy adventures on our property.

We lived on my great uncle's property, acres of woodland with some ponds, and trails. He didn't have cable, but we watched so many VHS tapes, and eventually DVDs. Most of the movies I watched had to be "dad-friendly", which means that I knew every word of Tommy Boy by the age of 7. I can also recite Shrek word for word. We ate popcorn for every movie viewing and snack pack pudding cups for every pajama party.

Most of our meals were "all meat meals" where he would get out a package of deer meat, that he killed, we skinned, and I packaged, on Thursday and marinate it with soy sauce and "BAM!" which was just siracha, and other seasonings. After the soaking, typically a one-day soak, but occasionally a three-day, we would grill. It always tasted delicious, and leftovers would be put in my King Bahuck Bahuck omelet that my dad learned from Paw Paw and Paw Paw learned from King Bahuck Bahuck.

Paw Paw traveled all over the world when he was in the Navy and learned so many things, such as the omelet from King Bahuck Bahuck himself. Paw Paw taught it to his kids, and it was their job to teach it to their kids. King Bahuck Bahuck's omelets contained monkey brains, bell peppers, lemur tongue, and whatever else you could find. I didn't like any of those things, so mine had cheese in them. Sometimes my dad would put ham in it, other times leftovers of whatever we had over the weekend. My dad would also make me toast, cut in triangles because that tastes the best, and bacon.

Omelets were breakfast on Sunday, but occasionally, I would have a fried egg sandwich. Despite the amount of egg talk in this story so far, I would like to let the record show that I absolutely hate eggs. My aunt could make me an egg sandwich, as could my dad, and my dad could make me an omelet but I refuse to eat eggs made by anyone else. Since both my dad and aunt are both dead, I am the only one who can fix eggs in a way that I will eat. My problem with eggs is that they taste like what I assume stale, wet farts taste like, and I am not okay with that.

Every other breakfast my dad would make for me was blueberry waffles with butter and peanut butter drowned in butter-flavored, Great Value brand syrup. With my breakfast, I would drink water however, once I hit 5ht grade, my dad started offering me coffee that would "grow hair on your chest." I am 22 years old and have no hair on my chest.

After every breakfast, we had the same conversation.

"How was it?" my dad would ask.

"It's gone now, so it was pretty good," I would say.

"What do you want to do today?" he would ask.

"What do you want to do?" I would ask him back.

"We could go for a walk, we could go fishin', we could drive the 4-wheeler around, we could do some shootin'. We could do whatever," he would list.

I would think about it for a while and once we figured it out, we would go out and do just that. If it was summer, he would go fishing, and I would swim in the pond. If it was rainy or winter, we would play games inside and watch TV, typically reruns of The Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver, The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, or Criminal Minds. We played checkers and blackjack all the time. We also had a blowgun and Chutes and Ladders, so we created our own game where we had to spin the spinner and then blow dart onto the correct square. Looking back, that probably wasn't the best inside game, but that was what made it so fun. We also had a lot of Nerf wars.

My mom recently told me she is glad that she let me spend so much time with my dad because somehow she knew she would be around longer than he would be, which is never something that crossed my mind. No one thinks their dad will ever die, and then they do, and then you are completely empty and lost. Sure, my dad and I had some ups and downs, but nothing will ever replace him. My dad was such a rock in my life, even when he was in rehab, or when he was passed out from being drunk, he was never mean to me, he never hurt me, and we always had such good times. Sure, the times were always better when he was sober, but looking back, all of the "bad times" I had with my dad weren't that bad.

Once I was old enough to realize he had a drinking problem, which really shone through once two of his three sisters, his uncle, and his dad died within three months, I was mostly hurt because I was concerned for his safety. He would always tell me he wanted to stop, but eventually, things got so bad that if he did stop, it would kill him.

My dad was not the most academically smartest, he had major dyslexia, which got passed down to me in the form of disnumbria, which, as it sounds, is number dyslexia. I struggle so hard in math, but I do pretty well in English. Which is what I am in college for.

My dad had only read one and a half books his entire life. The first was My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George and the second was Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. He never finished Old Yeller, and after he had me watch the movie, I don't blame him. I wouldn't finish it either.

My dad had this little flag that represented my college and he wore a shirt that represented it as well. He was so proud of me all of the time. I miss him so much.

While my dad was not academically the smartest, he taught me so much. I can identify so many plants, I can tell you the trees I see as I pass by, I can tell you what type of bird that is, and I can skin any animal, as well as shoot them.

Since killing my first deer, I have refused to go hunting. I would go with my dad, but I was too sad to kill one myself, we can eat them and skin them, but I am not going to be the one to take their little life. I have taken bites of meat straight out of the deer, but I am unable to take their life.

Thanks to my dad, I know how to do so much, and if there ever is an apocalypse, I will be very prepared and whoever I am with will be safe.

We had live traps that we would bait with wet cat food, my dad used to work at a cat food plant, and we would catch raccoons and opossums in and then let them go. We just wanted to look at them. One night, we went to check it because we were outside when we heard it close. I was manning the flashlight, and we heard a rustle in the weeds and I ran back home so fast, leaving my dad alone and lightless. I never lived that down. He told that story to everyone.

Not an hour goes by that I don't think about my dad. I am getting better about not crying every time I do think about him, but sometimes I can't help it. He was my best friend. We called one another every day, but sometimes every other day. We talked to each other enough that sometimes our conversations were just a few sentences:

"Just callin' to say hi," my dad would say.

"How are you doing?" I would reply.

"Oh, back hurts a little, but I'm doin fine. I wish I had something to talk about, but I don't," he would say, his voice gruff.

"Same. Just doin' homework," I would chuckle, "Or at least lookin' at what I need to do and not doin' it."

"I'll leave ya to it. I love you," he would say laughing.

"Love you, too."

And that would be that.

He would text me every morning, "HOP U HAVE A GOOD DAY! LOVE U!" Once he learned about emojis, and every text had so many emojis, his favorite was the smiley face with glasses and the angel.

I miss him so much, but I know he's always here. A lot of people think that someone will visit them in the form of an animal. For example, my aunt comes as a hummingbird and my great-grandma is a cardinal. My dad spent so much time out in nature that he is nature. I feel his hug in a warm breeze, the birds singing are him talking to me, hawks winking are him winking at me. Occasionally, when I make a mistake, I can hear his voice saying "welp, it sounds like you're fucked," and I can feel his hand on my shoulder. My dad is everywhere, which is why I am almost always comforted, but always sad because I wish he were more physically here. I would give so much just to talk to him one more time.