When my dad was a little kid he went to
work with his dad one day. I never knew his dad. He died before I was
born. I knew him only as Hank. Not grandpa, or some other nickname,
because my dad always addressed and referred to his parents by their
first names. Hank and Velma. At some point during the day, Hank and
my dad walked over to the store. Hank bought himself a carton of
buttermilk to drink (strange) and my dad a small chocolate milk. He
told my dad, however, that his was also buttermilk. My dad happily
sucked back his 'buttermilk' and found it to be absolutely delicious.
A few days later, while shopping with Velma, whom my siblings and I
would end up calling Gram, my dad asked her to buy him some
buttermilk. She told him he wouldn't like it, but he insisted that he
had drank it just the other day and loved it. So she obliged. My dad
excitedly gulped back a large mouthful, and immediately spit it all
back out.
I got a kick out of this story. The
combination of the innocent young boy wanting to be like his old man with
the always hilarious scenario of somebody thinking they're about to
taste one thing and ending up with something horrifyingly different
in their mouth. My dad told this to me one evening in our living room
while the two of us were watching The Barefoot Contessa. It's one of
the last stories I can remember him telling me.
There are a few clear memories after
that. His initial reports of back pain, which I mostly ignored. His
decision to start sleeping in a guest bed in the basement that felt
better on his back. The time he picked me up from student teaching,
wincing in pain at every small bump. Him staggering into the kitchen
and telling me about a new recurring, and highly disturbing symptom.
My silence. Him repeating. Me snapping back that I didn't know what
to say to that. The tests. The frustration. The crying. The
diagnosis.
It was cancer, widespread throughout
his body. From there it was an avalanche. Within no time his pain was
unbearable. He took large amounts of morphine, which made him
incoherent but seemed to do nothing for the agony he was in. There
would be no real conversations after that. Just endless moans and
cries from his bedroom. Day and night. A sleepless house.
His hands grasped my shoulders, mine
under his armpits. He had lost a lot of weight. We shuffled slowly
down the front walkway together, looking into each others eyes.
Looking like some sad, slow motion version of some football drill he
might have shown me years before. Me, walking backward, leading him
out to the van so that my mom and I could take him to Concordia
hospital, where he would spend his last few days. When it was clear
that he had very little time left, my family gathered in the hospital
room. My brother flew in from B.C., rushed into the room and was
mortified by what he saw. Friends came by to visit him. My sister
brought in her dog, whom my dad had loved. We took turns moistening
his cracked lips. It was hell. At one point, my sister's and I left
to get something to eat, and I decided not to go back. I was in a
band at the time and we were supposed to have a show at the Pyramid
that night. I sat at home, feeling exhausted and confused, and at
some point I decided that I was still going to play the show. So I
called our singer and asked if he could come pick me up. As he pulled
up in front of my house, so did the rest of my family. I knew what
that meant. I hugged and kissed and cried with everyone for a bit and
then headed off to go rock out in front of a small handful of bored
drunks.
When I was eighteen, I was backpacking
in Italy and I got an e-mail from my dad. He was going to start
drumming again, playing old standards at the legions around town with
some band. It was probably the most proud I'd ever felt of my father.
I had never really seen him drum. Maybe when I was too young to
remember, but his drums had been in cases on a shelf in the basement
for most of my life. That is, until my friend Dave and I decided we
were going to start a band. I convinced him to take the drums out and
show me a few things. He had played a big part in developing my
passion for music. He was a DJ, so I would sit in the basement with
him while he set tapes. I'd go through his song books and make lists
for him to make me mixtapes from. He'd play me the first few seconds
of a song and see how quickly I could guess what it was. He was
always relatively supportive of my band as we went from being just an
idea, to an actual thing, to recording an album and going on small
tours. Through all of the things I geeked out on as a little kid,
from cars to football he always had some knowledge and a stack of old
magazines to offer me on the subject. After becoming one of my football coaches the first
year that I played, he slowly got more and more involved with the football club, to the point
that it became more his hobby than mine. Music was different though.
Sharing this with him, at this point, seemed to say something to me
about who we were as guys.
He was far from a perfect father. I
choose mainly to focus on the good things about him now, but to remain
aware of his failings and to recognize them in myself and improve on
them. I regret that we were only starting to get to the point that we
could sit and talk as men. With every new year of my life I feel like
I understand more about who he was, and some of it makes me angry at
him, some makes me sympathetic, and some makes me proud, but above
anything else it all makes me wish that he was still here. Almost
every night he would gather with a group of other guys at the Salisbury House down the street and they would sit and chat for hours over
coffee. I always knew I could find him there if I needed to reach
him. Having to walk in there was always annoying and awkward at the
time, but now I would give anything to be able to join them for just
one night.
Now I grew up going camping, spent many a night out staring at the stars, I have seen northern lights from so many different places in this province, it is a impressive list! but in all my 29 years I have never seen northern lights like these.
