This is probably going to be a very strange post, but it keeps being on my mind. Every time that another friend loses a father. There have been quite a few to be honest, with one even happening within the month. My own father is still here, which is great, but I'm also wondering why. See? I said it was going to seem strange. Who ponders why their own father is still alive? I think even my own dad ponders why he's still here.
To start the story, and I'll make this brief, dad was born with this quirky ticker. Well, not so much his ticker, but the arteries. They're not as large as other peoples apparently and are actually quite tiny. His first heart doctor was extremely surprised that he'd completed Marine boot camp without trouble. He also isn't the healthiest of eaters, really diggin on that fried food and candy and sweets. But, moving forward, so dad has had three major heart surgeries and one minor one. The first was when I was thirteen. Open heart surgery where they cut open his chest, clipped open his ribcage and removed his heart completely. He died about fifteen times on the table and the doctors weren't even really certain if he'd pull through. The man did pull through and immediately left the hospital, against doctors order, to rush to his dying fathers bedside in hospital in Jackson. So, he had to deal with a dying and soon to be dead father, and his own major heart surgery. Fast forward to when I'm eighteen and dad goes back in for major heart surgery. Again, he almost didn't make it. According to the doctors, their concerns were far from normal. But, he pushed through it and lasted another fourteen years before he started having troubles. Again it was his heart. And again a parent was knocking on deaths door, which I find interesting. His mom joined his dad where ever the dead go and dad went to see the heart surgeon. His own heart had grown new arteries to bypass blocked ones. It's not unheard of, but isn't common. The Sister and I found this to be very cool, but they just weren't big enough to pump blood into and out of the heart. So, the doctor decided on the minor surgery of adding a stint. It didn't work and dad had to go in for his third major bypass surgery. After the surgery, he just didn't really have it in him to overcome that hardship. Perhaps he has it in him, but he was in his late 60's and no longer a man in his forties. "I think I shouldn't have gone through that last surgery..." He's had a difficult time of recovery. Even this last go round I'm not even sure where they pulled arteries from because his legs are shot for harvesting because of the other surgeries. I'm not sure if it's this last surgery, the death of his mother, his advancing age or a combination of all three, but for long stretches he'll seem like half the man he once was. He'll seem frail and worn like one wrong move will be the end of everything. We check on his breathing in his sleep and often ask if he's OK because he'll clutch his chest or arm and seem in pain. But he always waves it away as nothing. Then he'll completely surprise us and be that man pictured at the beginning of this post. All strong and in command. Not that he looks that way, because that was for Halloween. Though he does wear suspenders now, but I digress. It's the surety that's emanating from the photo that I'm really talking about. He'll effortlessly lift a fifty pound container of cat litter like it's a small and insignificant rock or he'll be bright and chipper and set out to work on the cars; hefting large spanners and batteries like they're not a problem and getting back into the groove of automechanics that he knows. It's this flip-flop back and forth though and we never know which dad we'll meet everyday. That's par for the course with our mother. We never knew which mother (nice or insane) and that we'd encounter at any given moment while growing up and the same can be said even now. But dad was always a different story. He was pretty constant. Sure he had a temper and it could flair up, but it wasn't the same. You know when something had crossed the line and thus would make dad angry. He'd curse in frustration when playing Mr. Fix It around the house or working on cars (even though he'd be excited to start the project), but he was always up for adventure and trying new things, foods, or roads. Now I don't know if he'll be super grumpy or fearful or normal dad. It's strange. Which does lead me into all of the other fathers. They seem in relatively good health and then BAM it's all downhill from there. One friend, her father was sick though I don't know from what, but he still had get up and go and it did seem like his death was sudden, regardless. There's a friend whose father died suddenly long before I met her and she's been grieving his death for about twenty years. Another friend whose dad died on Thanksgiving Day and it too was sudden. Then the friend I mentioned whose dad was sick, but it was still sudden. And yet another friend who lost her father in a sudden manner. Tack on another friend, this time a guy instead of a girl, who lost his father suddenly. And yet another friend who lost her father, suddenly, just a year or two ago. Another friend whose father died suddenly, and I was asked to take photos at the funeral, because they were very Momento Mori people. And recently twin friends of ours' father passed away just last month. I say that they're twins because we don't know a lot of twins and it seems kind of important. We know them, twin sisters, and then a boy and girl twin. That's it. Two sets of twins and both of their fathers died suddenly. The boy and girl twin's dad was the one who was ill. While we're friends with both the girl twins, we're only friendly acquaintances with the boy, but are super friends with his twin sister. That's eight dead dads. Eight friends within my age range, because I'm not even counting people in my parents age group, though some of them lost fathers recently. And two of those dads had twins. And all the deaths seem to be sudden. All but one happening in the past ten-ish years and while I was currently friends with these people (unlike the first girl whose father died before I met her). It feels weird. Like some weird omen. The Sister and I are forever wondering if dad might be next in the strange Dead Dad Club or if it's merely that his time is coming to and end. Whenever someone's dad dies we keep a closer eye on ours just in case. Though we don't want our dad to die, we realize that all things must die. Even my paternal grandfather. It would've been great to have had more years with him, but I can't wish him to be here now. Even if that wish were to somehow magically come true it wouldn't be fair to him and it would be kind of gross. He'd either rise from the grave, and a corpse, even if they were embalmed, is going to be pretty gnarly after twenty five years in the ground. If he'd just have lived this long, the man would be ninety seven. That's old. Would he even have any semblance of vitality? I think not. Our my maternal grandmother. She'd either have been in torment all of these past thirteen years having to stay alive, when her body was riddled with cancer, or barring that, she'd be turning one hundred and nine this year. She'd have no get up and go and really what would be the point in her being alive? So, everything must die. It doesn't make it any easier, or perhaps it does, keeping this at the forefront of ones mind? But regardless, when it's our dad's time The Sister and I hope that he goes out with his boots on. A car crash or dying while out fishing or something crazy and not languishing away in a hospital bed or something. Because regardless of how flip-floppy he's become in his older age, he's still not the type of man to die slowly or painfully. Hell, this is a man who ran a car into a ditch and had it pinioned perfectly between the embankments and his dad was surprised he'd survived. Also as a child he set a field on fire. A man whose first motorized vehicle was a motorbike and he'd steal his moms hoover pipes to afix on to his tail pipes so they'd make a louder noise. Who also crashed that bike so many times, he was surprised every time that it was still working. Or the one time he crashed it and flew over the handlebars several feet onto someone's lawn. What's important about that one? The fact that the person had just previously cut all this bamboo down and short spikes were left with odd angles, because they hadn't gotten around to pulling out the rest. My dad landed in the circle in between all of those instead of being impaled on any of them. He's also a man that did join up with the Marine Reserves and now we know sort of miraculously survived their very strenuous boot camp. A man who was very accustomed to tromping through the woods with a variety of machetes, learned archery, and knows how to shoot and clean any gun; who knows how to survive in the wild. Tell me, just from that little bit, is this a man that seems like he wouldn't die with his boots on? Because I'm pretty certain if we've had past lives then that's the way he's always gone out and that'll be the way he goes out this time too. Whenever that might be.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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