This may be the hardest post we have ever made. On March 12, 2024 we lost my daddy. It was very sudden and unexpected. He was in great health despite his 86 years (2 months and 8 days before his 87th birthday). He and mom had lunch, he went for his daily walk in the neighborhood, came in and did a little work in his office (yes, he was still working the company he built when we moved to GA over 40 years ago) and then as he came into the living room where mom was, he flopped into his chair and had a massive heart attack.

Unreal

He had been going to his regular check ups with his doctors and coming out with a clean bill of health every time. Took the meds he hated taking, but nonetheless took them every day. Walked every day. Moved a bit slower, but still sharp as a tack. Still drove he and mom everywhere they needed to go.

None of us can understand why he got taken from us now.

I can’t even express the emotions that are roiling through me since that day. My brain is numb and yet racing non stop. Everything I see, everything I hear…….reminds me of him. I am daddy’s little girl and I am lost. I can’t imagine how much more lost I would be right now if I didn’t having such a strong, tight knit family to surround me. We all hurt. We are all lost. But we have each other and that is one of many beautiful gifts that he left us.

If you knew daddy (and there are so many people who did) you know what a wonderful storyteller he was. He had a seemingly unending supply of experiences and antidotes that he would weave into the most interesting stories to either help someone through a time, or simply make them laugh.

I know I am beyond blessed and lucky to have had a father as amazing as him. Who held his family so close but gave us the space we needed to be who we are. He was a superb storyteller and never knew a stranger. He could (and would) talk to anyone about anything and make them feel like he’d known them for ages.
He came from the Northern Appalachian mountains in PA and built a beautiful life in the south. He was a man who lived his faith. A perfect example of what it means to walk with God. We were his world and he was ours…….the whole world is upside down now. Our family is strong and we have each other to lean on but damn if our hearts aren’t just shattered in a million pieces. We will get through this but we’ll never be the same. I love you daddy and I miss so much.
Two of my most cherished memories of him are when he would read me Uncle Wiggily and Uncle Remus stories at bedtime and he would do all the voices. He would bring those stories to life reading them like that. The other is when I was little and he used to smoke a pipe. I would crawl up in his lap in his big chair, pull his pocket comb out of his front shirt pocket and comb his extraordinary eyebrows. The smell of pipe tobacco and leather pouch he kept it in stays with me and brings me comfort when I hold one of his pipes and smell it.

He was a humble man, preferring the simple things, but damn did he clean up nice! In his younger days he looked just like James Dean and in his later years, Sean Connery (not in his James Bond years, but his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen years). Some of the gifts he bestowed upon me were his love of bluegrass music (mountain music), planting and tending to an organic garden and reading and writing poetry.

He told me sometime last year, after we had started doing Poetry Sunday, that he had a poem he had started many many years ago, and wanted to pull it out and finish it so he could submit it to our blog. When I was going through the lockbox looking for important documents we needed for the funeral home, I came across a folded page with lines of words typed on it. It was old. I showed it to mom and asked “what is this? who wrote this?” She replied “oh, I think that’s a poem your dad wrote a long time ago”

In that moment I realized…….this is the poem daddy was going to submit.

So daddy, this one’s for you. Thank you for the gifts you gave and continue to give. I love you and will miss you forever.

I like walking in the rain
It makes the air seem clean again
To breath the air so good and sweet
To walk through puddles in the street

I like the smell of new mown hay
It reminds me of another day
Of new turned earth, of spring in bloom
Of fresh cut flowers in a room

I like to hunt and roam the hill
A bird in flight gives me a thrill
And with a dog walk thru the glen
And wish I were a boy again

I sometimes like to sit and reminisce
To remember the joy of my first kiss
But most of all when I’m alone
I like to think of my old home

I like the beach, the surf, the sand
I like to walk and hold your hand
I like the warmth of your embrace
I like the nearness of your face

I like the sun, the sea, the sky
To watch the clouds go drifting by

 

this poem was never completed………….R.I.P. daddy

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