Paying the Tolls

Today, we laid my dad to rest next to my mom in the Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego.  My dad died last week at age 85.  As you all know we lost our dear sweet mother four years ago tomorrow.  She was the sweetest lady we could ever know.  She died early in the morning.  We were at a loss for words and direction.  She was the one who we would call when we needed comfort.  We spent two and a half days in the Intensive Care Waiting room praying for her survival.  We knew it was a hard fight.  

We sat there with strangers, each sharing their own little pain.  Strangers with different lives as rich and deep as ours.  Loves, challenges, pains and memories.  Just as ours.  This is life.  This is what we do.

 

And, as I look around me today, I don’t see any strangers.  I see family.  I see all those people my mom and dad have touched, directly, or through the sweet lives they have influenced. My Mom married my Dad, a man strong in faith and beliefs.  They raised seven children and 15 grandchildren.  She looked after so many children in her 20+ years as a day care provider.  She has influenced a great many lives.  Look around you and you will see a face that has gazed upon my mother’s smile. 

After Mom died we went back to Mom and Dad’s house to begin our final arrangements.  I looked around the house.  The house is filled with pictures of favorite phrases.  “When there is love in the house, there is joy in the heart.”  “Welcome to our home, Here find peace and love wrapped in your arms.”  I am sure these were gifts, given to my mom because of those feelings that our house embodied.  She was a dear, sweet, kind woman.  

One of my earliest memories is of my mom, of course.  She was watching the JFK burial on TV.  My brothers and sisters and I were playing in another room.  My mom was in the kitchen crying.  

I also remember when I was a kid, probably about 10 or 11. I overheard my mother confide in an older lady friend of hers. My mom was worried about her newly developing crow’s feet and other assorted wrinkles that come along with age. My mom was wondering what there was to be done. This older woman announced to my mother that those were nothing to be afraid or ashamed of. Those wrinkles, or laugh lines as she called them, were a tribute to how much she enjoyed life. A tribute to how often she smiled and how popular she was.

 Some people call them "worry lines", some call them "laugh lines", whatever you want to call them, they make up who we are.  For my mom, they were both.  She worried about her kids, but she also laughed.  I remember one time we were having dinner.  The phone rang.  I was closest to it so I answered.  It was for mom.  She was sitting right next to me.  I handed her the phone.  She kept saying “hello…hello” but she said no one was there.  I reached over and turned the phone over.  She was speaking into the wrong end.  My mom laughed.

We are what life makes us.  We are what we become. Our experiences, our fears, our laughter, our smiles and our problems, they all take their toll on us. They all help to sculpt the lines of our face. 

Life took its toll on Mom.  She saw all of her children grow to responsible adults.  She saw the birth of 14 grandkids.  She took care of countless children in her day care.  But she was in a lot of pain.  She died way too soon. 

 

My Dad met my Mom on the first day of classes at American River College in Sacramento.  For him it was love at first sight, I think for her it took a little longer.  But on one of their first dates, this from Dad’s autobiography, there is a story that tells it all.  In those days Mom was living on a dairy farm a little ways up river from Sac.  Dad was going to take Mom to a friend’s house for dinner, then into town for a movie, not too late, Dad said, or they would miss the last ferry across the river and have to take the long way home.  Mom, said it might be kind of fun to take the long way home. 

Dad majored in some kind of engineering in college.  I think he minored in history.  He wanted to be a history teacher.  But kids kept coming along so he took jobs in refrigeration at a local ice rink and soon went into engineering.  My dad skated with Peggy Fleming at that ice rink – he was a professional figure skater.  During his Air Force years he played guitar.  He played several times at the officer’s club on base.  It was then that Carl Perkins asked him to join his band.  Dad declined.  I don’t think he wanted to be a rock star.

Dad took us to most of the corners of this country.  And, oh the places we’ve seen.  Our family started in Sacramento.  Because of allergies he moved us to Placerville, Ca.  And because of his work he moved us to Buffalo, NY and, again, because of work, to New Orleans, La. and eventually to San Diego, Ca.  In 1979, when my Dad’s contract expired in New Orleans, he moved the family to San Diego, Ca.  My brother had just graduated from college and he found a job in San Diego also.  My dad had a long career as an engineer until his debilitating stroke in 1995.  

My dad lived as long as he did mostly because of my mom.  She loved him.  She took care of him.  She made us promise to look after him.  And, Mom, for four years we kept that promise.  We got him to his doctor’s appointments, kept up his meds, tried to get him to exercise.  But time took its toll, as it always does.  Time caught up with my old man last week.  I think he got tired of us telling him what to do.  Mom called him home one last time.  

As a child, I remember Dad singing an old song from the 50's,  written by Stuart Hamblen, an old friend of John Wayne’s.  The song, “This old House” is a classic. Part of the lyrics go like this:

“This ole house once knew my children
This ole house once knew my wife
This ole house was home and comfort
As they fought the storms of life.
This old house once rang with laughter
This old house heard many shouts.
Now he trembles in the darkness
When the lightnin' walks about.

Chorus:

Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
Ain't a-gonna need this house no more
Ain't got time to fix the shingles
Ain't got time to fix the floor
Ain't got time to oil the hinges
Nor to mend the windowpane
Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
He's a-gettin' ready to meet the saints

On his knees he’s gettin' chilly
But he feel no fear nor pain
'Cause he see an angel peekin'
Through a broken windowpane
This ole house is gettin' feeble
This old house is needin' paint
Just like him it's tuckered out
But he's a-gettin' ready to meet the saints.
 
Chorus: 

This ole hound dog lies a-sleepin'
He don't know I'm gonna leave
Else he'd wake up by the fireplace
And he'd sit there and howl and grieve.
But my huntin' days are over
Ain't gonna hunt the 'coon no more
Gabriel done brought in my chariot
When the wind blew down the door.

Dad’s house just couldn’t keep his spirit no more. Gabriel done brought His chariot
When the wind blew down the door

And now he is at peace and with my mom.