My dad always had the sickest sense of humor (which he definitely got from his mom, bless her heart). He would casually ask “How does that raccoon sleep through all this traffic?” while passing roadkill, and he told jokes both macabre and silly. One always stands out in memory:
“Want to see my Elvis impression?” he’d ask, with that sly half-smile he would do when he was already laughing inside.
“Okay!” I would answer, full of anticipation. He was able to do all sorts of impressions, from Steve Martin to Monty Python, and it would always make me laugh.
He closed his eyes, as if to prepare. Then, he took both arms, crossed them across his chest, and stiffened, imitating a dead body. Once the joke hit me, I’d fall over laughing.
That was my dad. He was as funny as he was talented. The smell of mineral spirits takes me back to the garage, where I would watch him paint and learn everything about kerning and color. He taught me to play guitar, but I was blown away by his talent when he would pick up his Spanish Classical guitar, plucking exotic melodies from the catgut strings with bare fingers. He taught me to tie knots and build campfires, leading our Cub Scout troop (Troop 105!). He taught me to tear apart an engine and how to bring together a house. I drove roofing nails by his side, carried wood for framing, watched him fix plumbing, and learned to wire a light fixture by his example.
He entered a contest for our local newspaper, the Paducah Sun. He wrote an essay and was a finalist to compete for “Househusband of the Year”. The challenges included ironing a shirt, sewing on a button, and cooking an egg, all under a timer. He not only completed it faster than anyone else, but he also showed off by fixing them over easy, instead of taking the easy route with scrambled. He didn’t bust a one. He won, and used the prize money to buy a new TV for us.
He and mom were partners, whether it was working to put food on the table or being the one that prepared that food. There weren’t gender roles in our house, because he or she would just do what needed to be done, when it needed done. That made a profound impact on how I view masculinity, feminism, and relationships to this day. I’d say it was a great example he set.
He could also be a bit of a daredevil, much to my mother’s chagrin. His adventurous and athletic nature made him seem like an action hero to me (I always thought he looked a bit like Harrison Ford, so I imagined my dad chasing artifacts or shooting Greedo first). He had his share of spills, though. He plunged a motorbike down a hole once, and he wrecked more than one car. One of my earliest memories is one of me standing on the passenger’s seat, tires screeching, and me hitting the windshield. I woke up in the hospital with a latex glove of crushed ice over my face, and I couldn’t stop playing with it. That scared him pretty badly, and he took extra caution with us from then on.
If only he would have taken that caution himself.
One rainy morning in 1998, he was driving to work and slid out into Highway 62, directly in front of an oncoming Mack semi truck (the very brand he used to hand letter as a painter). I lived in Chicago, and received the call that he was in a coma. I got a ride to Kentucky as quickly as possible, because no one knew how long he would last.
2 1/2 months passed. He never woke up. My mom had to face hard decisions that I don’t envy, and we had to shut off the feeding tube and put him into hospice to say goodbye. Every twitch of his eyelash, every cough through the tracheal tube gave me little sparks of hope that I clung to. Maybe he’ll fight his way back? Maybe this next cough he will open his eyes? But he never did. We would take turns being with him, still talking to him, hoping he could hear us in whatever darkness he was lost in.
On the evening of May 29th, the Hospice called us in. They knew the time was near. My entire family (Aunts, Uncles, Cousins) crowded into that little room to be with him. Night turned into morning. I held his hand, and with a sudden and final cough, he was gone. I exploded in grief, tears, sorrow, everything that I’d been staving off. I didn’t want to let go.
That was 20 years ago.
He still gets the last laugh, because there he is, doing his Elvis impression behind cold marble, and we can’t stop him.
I love my dad.
