Today Mom & I both were having a tough day missing Dad. She is so angry at him for leaving her and not coming back. Just seeing a pair of his Fruit of the Loom underwear set her off in anger and tears. Yet she is not ready to pack up most of his clothes. I can't even begin to imaging how she must feel after nearly 66 years of marriage. Today she said it's not fair that he died before she did. We all thought that 5 years ago when Mom was diagnoses with Congestive Heart Failure and Breast Cancer that could not be surgically removed that Mom would not be with us long. The doctors said 5 years is usually maximum life span with this kind of diagnosis. Dad had congestive heart failure also but he did not take meds very well.
Last night laying in bed I was thinking about Dad and things we did together over the past 15 years that I have lived on the farm. Riding the Ranger checking fields or fences or cattle with Dad talking, facing away from me and pointing at something out there - With the motor noise, wind noise, facing away from me and with the wind blowing from my side I could not hear a word he was saying. Dad talked with a soft voice and could be hard to understand on a quiet day. After he began having mini strokes his speech became more jumbled or slurred at times making him even harder to hear and understand.
Dad used to talk about people and all their relatives that were old when he was young. We did not know or really care about that. I would feel frustrated at times by this but told myself to just listen to his voice. Some day he will not be here to rattle on about nothing important. It seemed that whatever was going in circles in his brain would just fall out of his mouth. We never were sure if he was talking as part of thinking or if he was really talking to us. Rose, just listen to his voice. Some day you will miss all that just talking.
Remember the sound of Dad's voice. Do I remember it? Can I hear his voice in my head? Can I hear his voice in my dreams at night? I can hear things he would tell me but is it his voice or just his words? I'm afraid I'll forget that sound!
This past week Mom's air conditioner unit was falling apart at the duct work underneath There is rusted out spots so water drips inside the house instead of running outside to drain. I was trying to raise the motor and ducts to get them back lined up. I hit something that shocked the crap out of me. I let it be and called Kevin to see if he had any guy advice for me. The girl thing was not working for me. A couple days later once everything was dry inside I tried again. Crap!! I got shocked again. I then saw that there was a switch outlet that was not covered and only one of the three wires had wire nuts on them. That is what I hit. I found the wire nuts and put some on the exposed wires. I finally got the duct work together enough that I could seal them together with the silver metal tape. Ok, so it is not totally done right but it is done and will be on. I found a cast iron skillet with a hole drilled in it with a tube mounted in the hole that ran outside the window. I discovered that by sitting the skillet on top of the motor and squeezing the flattened side of it between the bend in the duct and the framing of the wall it would catch the leaking water from the rusted duct and actually drain through the tube outside. Oh, yes, the outlet that we need to plug the fan motor into has a lamp cord attached to it and is plugged into another wall outlet to get power to it. What was Dad thinking?! Only my father could cobble pieces and parts together to make something work. He knew what he was doing but nobody else could really follow or figure it out.
I love that man with that amazing brain but I still can't follow his line of thinking. His mind works on another whole plain. He could take bits of nothing really and put it together to make something else work. He could fix anything. I miss that. I miss his advice on how I should do something. He would give me 18 different possibilities of how to do it but never just one way to go about it. I would be so confused. When I would finally do something, I would "do it a girl way" from all the different things he told me. He would just shake his head at me. He got to the point that if I said I was going to do it a girl way, he would usually try to help me eventually.
I looked at the calendar and found that Dad left 12 weeks ago last night. It is hard to believe. I sure miss you, Dad.
Love you, Daddy!
