Taken with iPhone Camera. Edited with Best Camera
Sorry this is a long post. If it seems like too much to read, please just enjoy the photo.
Yesterday I told a brief story about my mother. Today I want to tell a short version of the rest of the story. My intention is not to garner sympathy, but to honor my father and mother of whom I speak.
The Photo: The photos is of my fathers last hammer. Some people are sentimental, others are not. I, for one, am very sentimental. Whether is hardened steal and wood or simply pieces of paper.
My father could wield a hammer like no one I have ever know. His hands where huge and gnarled, but had the strength and dexterity of a man in his prime. He tried to teach me to use a hammer the proper way. I’m still working on it.
He was born in 1911 to Dutch immigrants. He was a carpenter, architect, artist, chemist, school teacher, hospital cook and who knows what else. He didn’t marry ’till he was 52 years old. (My Mother was 26…yes, I know…very strange) He sired me when he was 60. At age 65 he fell two stories, breaking his back very severally, ending his building career. He spent the next 11-plus year delivering newspaper, so that he could support his still young family. These are all random facts, but they build a picture of the man who was my father, who even today I feel like I barley know. He was a man of few words (unlike myself). I hardly remember a real conversation we ever had.
I said yesterday that my mother died when I was 23. It was Easter day 1994. What I didn’t mention was that my father died 5 days prior. He was 82 years old, almost 83. He had been active up until a year earlier when a mild stroke had weakened the unbreakable man. That last year he had gone downhill rapidly, eventually sitting all day in a chair and being feed three times a day with a tube that went directly to his stomach.
I lived in one side of a duplex that my father had built with his own hands. We had moved my father and mother from the family home into the other side of the duplex so that they could be more easily cared for, since she was dealing with cancer and the effect of chemotherapy and radiation.
My father was not very affectionate; I often doubted the love that my father had for my mother. Two stories from those last days put my doubts to rest.
One night I was awoken by shouts and noises from my parents apartment. My mother and father had separate bedrooms to make caring for them easier. When I made it over to their apartment, I found my mother calling from her bed, in fear or pain I don’t remember. And my father on the floor in the hall, trying to crawl to her bedside to help. He had heard her cries for help and had made every effort to make it too her. He was too weak and unstable to walk, so had fallen to the floor. But had continued to try to get to her side, pulling over his IV stand, pulling himself along with his hands. I never forgot that. In daily life, my mother was not one to need help, but when she truly called out in need, he went.
The final story is from the night before he died. My mother was in the hospital. The cancer had claimed her almost completely. We all knew she only had days left. My father was in a stable condition where we thought he could survive for weeks or months, maybe longer. We felt he should be able to see his wife one last time before she died, so we took him to the hospital, rolling him into her room in a wheel chair.
They looked at each other and said no words, but the communication was clear. The atmosphere was peaceful, yet somewhat electric as though hundreds of thought were flowing back and forth. For 30 minutes they looked into each others eyes. My father had a strong belief in the afterlife, and he knew my mother would be going there soon.
After that, we took him home and put him in bed for the night. The next day he was gotten out of bed. And shortly after he was moved to his chair, he passed way. It’s my belief from what I know of my father that he died because he knew he had done everything he could in this world, and was anxious to be there to meet her when she arrived.
It doesn’t matter what you personal beliefs are of the afterlife, that much devotion can only be called love.
A hammer doesn’t have to say much to get the job done.
Taken with iPhone Camera. Edited with Tiffen Photo Fx.
