(see above). It was my Dad. My Mom is still around and goin' strong.
No, I never had the chance to tell him. I've shared some of this before. When I was a kid, he was drinking pretty heavily. He finally stopped when I was in Jr. High, but of course, I was at the "they don't know anything" stage.
When I went away to college was when I started appreciating him. I was 300 miles away in Kentucky. My sophomore year I worked over Christmas break in New York. I remember calling home and asking him what he wanted for Christmas.
All he said was "for you to come home."
That was Christmas 1977. He died August 1, 1978.
And again, I was gone. I was travelling with a ministry team from school. We had just returned back to the home where we were staying in Flint, Michigan when I got the call. It was a total shock. Might as well finish the story...
You've seen my picture. I'm about 6'2" and @#$%^ lbs. My Dad was 5'11" and weighed more than I do now. In 1972 he was one of the first to have the intestinal bypass procedure (here in Richmond, two blocks from where I work now). Over the years, while he lost a ton of weight, he had other problems develop, one of which was kidney stones.
Two weeks before he died, he and my mom came to see our group in Georgia (we were all over the East that summer). We had a couple of days off so I went with them to my cousin's house in Jacksonville, FL. The last day we spent in St. Augustine. I have a picture with my Mom and Dad on the streets there. I got on a bus to rejoin the group that night and driving away was the last time I saw him alive.
Some people think this part is weird. A couple of weeks before their trip to see us and to see my cousins in Florida, my Mom was in church and had what she described as a vision. She saw her mother and my dad's mother holding out a white robe. She took it to mean that something would happen to her on the trip. So she spent the next two weeks getting all of their affairs in order.
When they got back from their trip, my dad started having problems with a kidney stone. He'd had several before. But this one wasn't passing. So the doctor indicated they may have to do surgery. On that Monday morning they took him in to x-ray and gave him the injection of dye that he'd had many times before.
That morning he had a reaction and his heart stopped. They were not able to revive him.
I didn't find this out until years later, but my brother hired a private investigator to check things out. He found enough evidence that there was negligence on the part of the hospital that we could've sued and won. Apparently the anesthesiolgist was not in the room when the dye was administered.
But as my brother said, he just wanted to know what happened. No amount of money would've brought him back. And after that the hospital made some significant changes.
Ironically, after she retired from the job she'd had for 45 years my Mom got a part-time job and worked for almost another 10 years at the hospital.
I flew home from Michigan for the funeral, but rejoined the tour the next week and finished the last two weeks of the tour. I held things together until I got back to school. That's where I fell apart. At one point toward the end of the quarter I called home and told my Mom I wanted to take some time off (like not come back the next quarter). But since we were on the quarter system we had a long (6 week) Christmas break (allowing kids to work). I took that time off and rested and (more or less) got my head back on straight...(like I said more or less).
There are still times I have a hard time dealing with things because he's not around.
Sorry to ramble on so.
It is great.... Save those writings.... All of that history will be important for Corin Jr. to have later, and he probably would not get it so much now. It will give him a glimpse into the guilt and regrets and feelings we all have. He will know that you understood.