Remembering Pop
On November 16, 1994, at about 3:30pm, my Pop left this world. Despite the terrible things of my childhood, we'd made our peace, mended our fences and rebuilt the bridges between us in that last year of his life. And so, I remember Pop now, and I will share a little of what I recall of the tales he told.
My Pop was French and Irish, and Indian that he either didn't know about or denied. He wasn't very tall, but he was strong, with muscles on his arms so powerful that he could trap baby fingers in the crook of his elbow, which we children thought was a most remarkable thing. He was a handsome man, I think, with jet black hair, sun-leathered skin and hazel green eyes that were filled with laughter. He had a fabulous smile, and was forever cracking jokes and making others laugh. That was his greatest gift of all. He loved for everyone to be happy and laughing.
When he was a boy, they were poor, but everyone was poor then, so it didn't matter so much. His family owned the neighborhood dairy, grazing their herd on then public land which is now a golf course and nice houses. They lived up the road, on a tiny patch of land, with a tiny house built by my G. Grandpere Joseph. The tales Pop told of Grandpere were unbelievable, until I did the research and indeed, they were all true. An inventor who created the single-handled life boat release and the captain of a three-masted sailing schooner on the Great Lakes. Grandpere had a series of strokes that left him paralyzed, and for three years he lay in the bed that was shared with Pop and Uncle Emmett. At one point, the tiny house was home to thirteen, my grandparents, Grandpere, Pop and all of his sisters and brothers, and his oldest niece. The dairy was closed down in the mid-'20s, and Grandpa James went to work for the sand and gravel quarry, cutting timber and ripping lumber when he wasn't at his day job.
Pop had adventures when he was a boy. He once rode the rails from Seattle to Hibbing, Minnesota with his friend Rudy Finne in the middle of winter. Pop was twelve, Rudy was nine, and they made it, despite the brutal cold. Rudy's family were desperately poor, with thirteen children and his father a day-laborer who made pitance. Rudy's aunt in Hibbing could afford to care for him, so he made his plan to go live with her, and Pop went along because Rudy was "too young" to be making that trip alone. On the return trip, Pop was alone, and was caught by the railroad detectives. Washington State and Minnesota argued over who would pay for his ticket home, while Pop lived at the jail, eating his meals at the restaurant across the street, sweeping and doing dishes to pay his keep. The sheriff's wife got him new clothes, the first new shoes he'd ever worn in his life and would have him come stay at their house over the weekends when there was nobody at the jail house to watch over him. He finally was shipped home, after nearly a month of waiting. The tale is documented in the newspapers, though I don't have a copy. I remember seeing it when I was young, in my Aunt Leona's scrapbook.
In 1936, the same year my Mom was born, my Grandmere, Pop's mother, commited suicide. She'd been unwell for years, manic-depression brought out by post-partum depression destroyed her mind. The last year, she'd been in Western State Hospital, the mental hospital for their area. The baby, my Aunt Joanne, had been put up for adoption because Grandpa couldn't care for her, and the other children were pretty well left to fend for themselves. Aunt Leona took care of Aunt Betty, and the boys went to work, leaving their schooling behind. A tragedy, really, for Pop was very smart and would easily have earned a scholarship to university with his grades.
The year Grandmere died, Pop joined the Navy. He was trained as a ship's engineer, and served aboard the USS Saratoga CV30. He won commendations for his work, as well as a few reprimands for AWOL. He left the Navy briefly at the end of his four years, returning to construction work. He reenlisted after Pearl Harbor, this time in the Navy SeaBees. He served in the Pacific Theater, both North and South. He contracted malaria, took schrapnal in his left shoulder, and survived to come home to the woman he'd married, though he hardly knew her. They had a son together, and lived together more as roommates than a marriage for the next sixteen years, when they finally divorced.
Pop met Mom at a truck stop in Reno. They were married in 1964. Pop wanted more children, despite his age, and after much discussion, Mom agreed to having two children. They lost three babies before my brother was born, then Jack came along, and when he was pronounced apt to survive at about six weeks of age, they started working on me. Just six weeks later, I was conceived. At about that time it was discovered my brother was PKU and allergic to dairy. I was tested at birth, and I was diagnosed the same.
I was Pop's only daughter, Mom's youngest daughter. That made me the "princess" according to my older siblings. We were spoiled, given everything we could ever hope to want. Well, except the pony I asked for from the age of two onward and the ballet lessons I wanted. I had to teach myself ballet, destroying my four-poster canopy bed in the process. Jack and I, being only a year apart in age, were like twins for years. We did everything together. Everyone swore we were twins, as I was large for my age, and he was small, until well into high school. Freaks, we were, with excessively high IQs and thanks to limited contact with children, we related better to adults than children, especially myself as there were a few boys in our neighborhood, but until I was five, there were no little girls at all. I played girl things by myself, and so, I was alone a great deal.
I'll skim over the bad years, because there's not a lot of point in rehashing them at the moment. When I was four, Pop was in a serious accident. He was a truck driver, and on a return trip over the Sierra-Nevadas, fully loaded, a carload of kids cut him off. He made the choice to save their lives and dumped the truck off the shoulder, rolling and honestly, he should've died that day on the side of the mountains. But he was thrown to the floor beneath the steering column, which saved him from the load that shifted and sheered off the entire top of the cab.
He did not escape unharmed. He had over a dozen broken bones, punctured organs, and a spot on his right retina tore loose, leaving him with a blind spot. But, like many men of his generation, who he was was tied too closely to what he did, and he demanded to go back to work. It was too soon. The damage to his body hadn't had enough time to heal, and the second accident happened not long after returning to work. This time, six weeks in intensive care, two weeks on the ward, then months of recovery at home. He was in a full body cast, from neck to ankle, one arm and one leg being all that wasn't free of the plaster. And the damage to his body was nothing compared to what happened to his mind. He'd sustained a major head injury that left my wonderful father with "physically induced insanity", along with depression, the diagnosis being made years later by a friend and psychiatrist who went over the files with me, as I needed to know. That led to the horrible nightmare that lasted from 1973 until 1981, the effects decreasing dramatically over the last two years of the issue as his brain finally began to heal. To the end of his life, he had minor episodes, but the worst of it lasted those eight years. One of the most gentle, loving, kind men I've ever known, for eight years was a monster, who did things that he later couldn't remember though he knew he'd done them. He hated himself, hated what he'd done, and it ate at him from the inside until nearly the end, when he and I sat down and discussed it all.
Through my teens, Pop came to rely upon me more and more, as his body, once strong, weakened and became frail. Emphysema, caused by pneumonia that nearly killed him before Jack and I were born, complicated by years of smoking and exposure to dust without protection, slowly stole his strength. I became his hands and eyes. I took care of the house, fed our family, as well as doing the work that he needed done, taking instructions as he watched. I learned to fix all sorts of things, from bikes to cars to electrical to plumbing.
When I moved to Iowa the first time, Pop began to fail. I still hold a tiny seed of guilt over that, for it was because I left that his care suffered. When he turned seventy five, I took the bus out to celebrate his birthday with him, and I smelled death on him. I moved back to Seattle, to care for him the last year of his life. We spent that year talking, and rebuilding our relationship. We said everything we needed to say to one another, including goodbye.
On November 16, 1994, I was in Bothell. I left on the bus at about 3:00pm, heading to Pop's house. My brother Jim finally had come to visit that day, after months of my calling him, begging him to come before it was too late. He'd arrived at noon. I'd waited a bit, so they'd have some time alone, then headed to the house. At 3:30pm, my stomach grabbed and I threw up out the back door of the bus. I rushed when we got downtown to catch the bus up to the hill. I caught the 2, which left me on the far side of the hill, and ran from there the mile home. I slowed as I reached the top of the alley, catching my breath, and was met at the back door by my stepmonster and my brother. I knew already, of course, that he was gone. I knew, and that both of them met me at the door confirmed it before I was even in the house. I pushed them aside, making my way to the living room, to Pop's side. His spirit lingered, though the body was stopped. I kissed him on the lips, then the forehead and said "Goodbye, Papa." I went outside, to find the roses that I'd planted that spring for him were in full, glorious bloom. I plucked one of the sprays of tiny pink flowers and brought them inside. While outside, picking the flowers, a cloud formed overhead that looked like an angel, and I know in my own heart that it was one, come to take my Pop to his heaven.
The roses? They're in the back of my cookbook still, the roses that he'd longed for over the years by my stepmonster didn't care for because they were 'messy'. The color is now brown, like dark parchment, but the petals still cling to the stems.
In nine days, it will be eleven years since I kissed my Pop goodbye on a warm afternoon in November. I miss him. I miss calling him and hearing his voice. I miss the smell of Dial soap and English Leather aftershave. I miss my Papa.
I write this now because this morning I read something on TC, about the poppies of Flander's Field, of those who fought and died in wartime. It brought back memories of standing on the side of Main St. in Issaquah, watching the old men in their uniforms slowly march by, selling handmade poppies, and Pop's eyes filling with tears as he recalled his friends who hadn't come home from that terrible war. And Thanksgiving is coming up soon, which was Pop's favorite holiday. He loved my turkey and my gravy. He loved to sit in the living room after we ate and watch telly, while everyone talked and laughed and played cards. He loved the pumpkin pie, served with too much KoolWhip, which I brought out from the kitchen with cups of freshly brewed coffee. He died just before Thanksgiving that year. I already had the turkey and all the fixings laid in. He was so looking forward to it all. Right now, we're making our Thanksgiving plans. We'll be going to Trenton this year, with Tim's family. I won't be cooking. But I will lay aside a bite of everything, on a small plate, for my Pop.
I love you, Pop, and I miss your face so much. You might even have liked Tim. No, I know you would've. He's like you in a lot of ways. He's strong and loving and kind and he takes very good care of me. He's kind to animals, too, like you were. And he works hard. You'd have finally approved of someone in my life. I wish you were here to meet him, and to walk me down the aisle when we marry come spring. I'll leave the invitation in the hollow of the oak tree.
My Pop was French and Irish, and Indian that he either didn't know about or denied. He wasn't very tall, but he was strong, with muscles on his arms so powerful that he could trap baby fingers in the crook of his elbow, which we children thought was a most remarkable thing. He was a handsome man, I think, with jet black hair, sun-leathered skin and hazel green eyes that were filled with laughter. He had a fabulous smile, and was forever cracking jokes and making others laugh. That was his greatest gift of all. He loved for everyone to be happy and laughing.
When he was a boy, they were poor, but everyone was poor then, so it didn't matter so much. His family owned the neighborhood dairy, grazing their herd on then public land which is now a golf course and nice houses. They lived up the road, on a tiny patch of land, with a tiny house built by my G. Grandpere Joseph. The tales Pop told of Grandpere were unbelievable, until I did the research and indeed, they were all true. An inventor who created the single-handled life boat release and the captain of a three-masted sailing schooner on the Great Lakes. Grandpere had a series of strokes that left him paralyzed, and for three years he lay in the bed that was shared with Pop and Uncle Emmett. At one point, the tiny house was home to thirteen, my grandparents, Grandpere, Pop and all of his sisters and brothers, and his oldest niece. The dairy was closed down in the mid-'20s, and Grandpa James went to work for the sand and gravel quarry, cutting timber and ripping lumber when he wasn't at his day job.
Pop had adventures when he was a boy. He once rode the rails from Seattle to Hibbing, Minnesota with his friend Rudy Finne in the middle of winter. Pop was twelve, Rudy was nine, and they made it, despite the brutal cold. Rudy's family were desperately poor, with thirteen children and his father a day-laborer who made pitance. Rudy's aunt in Hibbing could afford to care for him, so he made his plan to go live with her, and Pop went along because Rudy was "too young" to be making that trip alone. On the return trip, Pop was alone, and was caught by the railroad detectives. Washington State and Minnesota argued over who would pay for his ticket home, while Pop lived at the jail, eating his meals at the restaurant across the street, sweeping and doing dishes to pay his keep. The sheriff's wife got him new clothes, the first new shoes he'd ever worn in his life and would have him come stay at their house over the weekends when there was nobody at the jail house to watch over him. He finally was shipped home, after nearly a month of waiting. The tale is documented in the newspapers, though I don't have a copy. I remember seeing it when I was young, in my Aunt Leona's scrapbook.
In 1936, the same year my Mom was born, my Grandmere, Pop's mother, commited suicide. She'd been unwell for years, manic-depression brought out by post-partum depression destroyed her mind. The last year, she'd been in Western State Hospital, the mental hospital for their area. The baby, my Aunt Joanne, had been put up for adoption because Grandpa couldn't care for her, and the other children were pretty well left to fend for themselves. Aunt Leona took care of Aunt Betty, and the boys went to work, leaving their schooling behind. A tragedy, really, for Pop was very smart and would easily have earned a scholarship to university with his grades.
The year Grandmere died, Pop joined the Navy. He was trained as a ship's engineer, and served aboard the USS Saratoga CV30. He won commendations for his work, as well as a few reprimands for AWOL. He left the Navy briefly at the end of his four years, returning to construction work. He reenlisted after Pearl Harbor, this time in the Navy SeaBees. He served in the Pacific Theater, both North and South. He contracted malaria, took schrapnal in his left shoulder, and survived to come home to the woman he'd married, though he hardly knew her. They had a son together, and lived together more as roommates than a marriage for the next sixteen years, when they finally divorced.
Pop met Mom at a truck stop in Reno. They were married in 1964. Pop wanted more children, despite his age, and after much discussion, Mom agreed to having two children. They lost three babies before my brother was born, then Jack came along, and when he was pronounced apt to survive at about six weeks of age, they started working on me. Just six weeks later, I was conceived. At about that time it was discovered my brother was PKU and allergic to dairy. I was tested at birth, and I was diagnosed the same.
I was Pop's only daughter, Mom's youngest daughter. That made me the "princess" according to my older siblings. We were spoiled, given everything we could ever hope to want. Well, except the pony I asked for from the age of two onward and the ballet lessons I wanted. I had to teach myself ballet, destroying my four-poster canopy bed in the process. Jack and I, being only a year apart in age, were like twins for years. We did everything together. Everyone swore we were twins, as I was large for my age, and he was small, until well into high school. Freaks, we were, with excessively high IQs and thanks to limited contact with children, we related better to adults than children, especially myself as there were a few boys in our neighborhood, but until I was five, there were no little girls at all. I played girl things by myself, and so, I was alone a great deal.
I'll skim over the bad years, because there's not a lot of point in rehashing them at the moment. When I was four, Pop was in a serious accident. He was a truck driver, and on a return trip over the Sierra-Nevadas, fully loaded, a carload of kids cut him off. He made the choice to save their lives and dumped the truck off the shoulder, rolling and honestly, he should've died that day on the side of the mountains. But he was thrown to the floor beneath the steering column, which saved him from the load that shifted and sheered off the entire top of the cab.
He did not escape unharmed. He had over a dozen broken bones, punctured organs, and a spot on his right retina tore loose, leaving him with a blind spot. But, like many men of his generation, who he was was tied too closely to what he did, and he demanded to go back to work. It was too soon. The damage to his body hadn't had enough time to heal, and the second accident happened not long after returning to work. This time, six weeks in intensive care, two weeks on the ward, then months of recovery at home. He was in a full body cast, from neck to ankle, one arm and one leg being all that wasn't free of the plaster. And the damage to his body was nothing compared to what happened to his mind. He'd sustained a major head injury that left my wonderful father with "physically induced insanity", along with depression, the diagnosis being made years later by a friend and psychiatrist who went over the files with me, as I needed to know. That led to the horrible nightmare that lasted from 1973 until 1981, the effects decreasing dramatically over the last two years of the issue as his brain finally began to heal. To the end of his life, he had minor episodes, but the worst of it lasted those eight years. One of the most gentle, loving, kind men I've ever known, for eight years was a monster, who did things that he later couldn't remember though he knew he'd done them. He hated himself, hated what he'd done, and it ate at him from the inside until nearly the end, when he and I sat down and discussed it all.
Through my teens, Pop came to rely upon me more and more, as his body, once strong, weakened and became frail. Emphysema, caused by pneumonia that nearly killed him before Jack and I were born, complicated by years of smoking and exposure to dust without protection, slowly stole his strength. I became his hands and eyes. I took care of the house, fed our family, as well as doing the work that he needed done, taking instructions as he watched. I learned to fix all sorts of things, from bikes to cars to electrical to plumbing.
When I moved to Iowa the first time, Pop began to fail. I still hold a tiny seed of guilt over that, for it was because I left that his care suffered. When he turned seventy five, I took the bus out to celebrate his birthday with him, and I smelled death on him. I moved back to Seattle, to care for him the last year of his life. We spent that year talking, and rebuilding our relationship. We said everything we needed to say to one another, including goodbye.
On November 16, 1994, I was in Bothell. I left on the bus at about 3:00pm, heading to Pop's house. My brother Jim finally had come to visit that day, after months of my calling him, begging him to come before it was too late. He'd arrived at noon. I'd waited a bit, so they'd have some time alone, then headed to the house. At 3:30pm, my stomach grabbed and I threw up out the back door of the bus. I rushed when we got downtown to catch the bus up to the hill. I caught the 2, which left me on the far side of the hill, and ran from there the mile home. I slowed as I reached the top of the alley, catching my breath, and was met at the back door by my stepmonster and my brother. I knew already, of course, that he was gone. I knew, and that both of them met me at the door confirmed it before I was even in the house. I pushed them aside, making my way to the living room, to Pop's side. His spirit lingered, though the body was stopped. I kissed him on the lips, then the forehead and said "Goodbye, Papa." I went outside, to find the roses that I'd planted that spring for him were in full, glorious bloom. I plucked one of the sprays of tiny pink flowers and brought them inside. While outside, picking the flowers, a cloud formed overhead that looked like an angel, and I know in my own heart that it was one, come to take my Pop to his heaven.
The roses? They're in the back of my cookbook still, the roses that he'd longed for over the years by my stepmonster didn't care for because they were 'messy'. The color is now brown, like dark parchment, but the petals still cling to the stems.
In nine days, it will be eleven years since I kissed my Pop goodbye on a warm afternoon in November. I miss him. I miss calling him and hearing his voice. I miss the smell of Dial soap and English Leather aftershave. I miss my Papa.
I write this now because this morning I read something on TC, about the poppies of Flander's Field, of those who fought and died in wartime. It brought back memories of standing on the side of Main St. in Issaquah, watching the old men in their uniforms slowly march by, selling handmade poppies, and Pop's eyes filling with tears as he recalled his friends who hadn't come home from that terrible war. And Thanksgiving is coming up soon, which was Pop's favorite holiday. He loved my turkey and my gravy. He loved to sit in the living room after we ate and watch telly, while everyone talked and laughed and played cards. He loved the pumpkin pie, served with too much KoolWhip, which I brought out from the kitchen with cups of freshly brewed coffee. He died just before Thanksgiving that year. I already had the turkey and all the fixings laid in. He was so looking forward to it all. Right now, we're making our Thanksgiving plans. We'll be going to Trenton this year, with Tim's family. I won't be cooking. But I will lay aside a bite of everything, on a small plate, for my Pop.
I love you, Pop, and I miss your face so much. You might even have liked Tim. No, I know you would've. He's like you in a lot of ways. He's strong and loving and kind and he takes very good care of me. He's kind to animals, too, like you were. And he works hard. You'd have finally approved of someone in my life. I wish you were here to meet him, and to walk me down the aisle when we marry come spring. I'll leave the invitation in the hollow of the oak tree.