Left to my own devices

  "Be happy while you are living, for you're a long time dead."                                                                                          ---- Scottish proverb My dad died from pancreatic cancer 27 years ago today.  This year has been a bit different when thinking about his passing. It isn't because I miss him -- quite the opposite. It's because I realized, as the years have gone on, how I think about him less and less. Lewis is no longer present. That may sound like an obvious thing to take note of regarding someone who's been dead for almost three decades, but it's true that our deceased loves ones often continue to exist within our own psyche. We tend to think of them often, and it doesn't take much...

Well over twenty years ago, I made a mistake. It wasn't my first, and it certainly wasn't my last. This one, like so many others, was well-intentioned. It also resides completely within my own heart and mind. It is something which has been part of my psyche since the late-nineties, but today it envelopes my thoughts to a fairly large degree. Allow me to explain. My dad died twenty-six years ago today. He knew he was sick for almost the last year of his life. During that time, I would visit with him, in an attempt to finally connect with him on a deeper level. It didn't really happen, and there was a lot of anger and resentment on my part about it for a long time, but now I'm glad to have at least made the effort.

My dad, Lewis, was born on this day in 1945. He would have turned 78-years-old today. As regular readers of this blog may know and remember, he died aged 52. Too few years, though more than some. While it's true that sometimes I give March 21st a brief, passing thought (or have even forgotten its significance altogether), this year it looms more prevalent within my psyche, probably because of my mom's recent passing. So, here I am, writing another blog post about my father.

Not long ago, I watched the 1993 film, The Remains of the Day . Based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, it's a Merchant Ivory Production about life at a British estate, pre-WWII. It stars Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, as the butler and housekeeper, respectively. There is the most subtle element of potentially romantic feelings between the two, but Hopkins's character is far too repressed to ever be able to acknowledge them. Today is the 25th anniversary of my father's passing. There's rarely a week that goes by where I don't think of him -- what his life would have been like had it not been cut short by cancer, how our father-son relationship would have evolved as I'd grown more into adulthood, what he would've thought of everything that's happened since August of 1997, etc. I've also come to realize that he's one of the reasons I tend to be drawn to emotionally unavailable men in fiction and, sometimes, in real life.

Yesterday was Fathers Day. Dad had already been on my mind, as 2022 marks twenty-five years since his death. We tend to apply greater significance to various (sometimes random) measures of time. I suppose that a quarter-of-a-century counts as such a marker. Lewis passed away from cancer in August of 1997. I last saw him that June. It wasn't supposed to be the final occasion our paths crossed in life, but sometimes that's how things work out. Dad had received his pancreatic cancer diagnosis in October of 1996. I learned of it that November, and began visiting with him regularly soon after. He lived in Springfield, but would travel -- with his wife and two-year-old son in tow - to Champaign and stay with my grandmother about every two weeks. That is where we would meet, talking about a variety of topics before the time ran out.

T wenty-three years ago today, we buried my dad. I use the collective "we" to imply Lewis's family and friends who were there, though none of us did the actual grave-digging and burial. It was a Tuesday. his visitation had been the previous day, and he'd died on Thursday of the preceding week. All of this occurred in Springfield, IL. I was living in Champaign. The drives to and from the cities on those days felt like the longest drives of my life.  Lewis, who'd been a sergeant in the Vietnam War, is buried in Camp Butler National Cemetery, just outside of Springfield. I'd say his thoughts on his military service were conflicted. Back in the early nineties, at the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War, dad and I had a phone conversation about what was going on. I was nervous about the conflict continuing for years, and the possibility of being drafted once I'd turned 18. I could see the sneer on Lewis's face through the telephone line. "Don't you lo...

M y dad died twenty-two years ago today. He has now been gone for longer than I knew him. The other day I was thinking about how much of a factor time plays in the effectiveness of our relationships with people. While it is certainly important, I think it plays less of a role than we give it credit for. The bonds we forge with people can be made relatively quickly, their intensity dependent upon a multitude of factors -- time being only one of them.

Obviously, Star Wars didn't teach me everything there is know about life, but it certainly helped. I can recall watching the Darth Vader / Luke Skywalker clash in Return of the Jedi and thinking of my own problems with my father. The older I get, the more I identify with Obi-Wan Kenobi, particularly when he's urging caution at following the supposedly stray tie-fighter, but the younger, impetuous Han Solo won't listen. And, the sequel trilogy struck me with the already-creeping realization that the vicious circle of good vs. evil is cyclical, rather than final, in nature.

      A s the magnificent, authentic voice of Aretha Franklin rang out across the Virgina Theatre, my mind found itself drifting to thoughts of my father. The screening of Aretha's long lost 1972 concert recorded at a Baptist church in Los Angeles sounded excellent, though something about it reminded me of a vinyl record. Despite its crisp, remastered production, there were elements of the listening experience that sounded real, down to earth, and warm. Perhaps it was the visual cues to go along with the sound? Directed by a then less-experienced Sydney Pollack and his crew, the picture would sometimes zoom in and out, coming into and out of focus at a frenzied pace. We saw some banter and  discussions of the musicians between songs. And then the lovely gospel music, brought to life by Ms. Franklin and the choir and musicians sharing the stage, was, well, divine. Going back many years, roughly a decade after Aretha Franklin's  Amazing Grace recording wa...

Our household regularly watches a television show that last aired (in its original run) over half-a-century ago. What's My Line? -- the popular game show that ran from 1950 to 1967 -- featured four panelists, a moderator, and multiple guests. The panel had to try and guess what each guest did for their "line" of work. It's a fun show to watch, and a fascinating time capsule of its era. We usually watch an episode or two every evening. Most everyone associated with the program is dead. This is true of Dorothy Kilgallen, a long-time panel member who died suddenly in 1965. One day, several weeks ago, we were watching an episode of the show on YouTube, and I read a few of the comments below the video. One of them purported to be from Dorothy's grandson, who said he was glad to be able to watch his grandmother at the top of her game, even though she long ago passed away. Whether or not that was truly Dorothy Kilgallen's grandson who wrote the comment, it...

My dad died twenty years ago today. I didn't think the 20th anniversary of Lewis' death would be anything more than a notation on the calendar, perhaps looming slightly more significant in the mind, given our propensity to fixate on the multiples of five and ten-year milestones. Cue my surprise this morning, when, on the way to work, I was listening a song that -- for whatever reason -- reminds me of dad, and I broke down crying. Had to spend close to ten minutes drying-up in the car before heading to the office. Wore sunglasses, even though it wasn't that sunny outside, to cover the puffy eyes. This morning, I thought about the concept of stolen time. The idea that someone dies at what we deem to be too young of an age, and how they really should have lived longer. In truth, we all die when our time comes, and it's different for everyone. When someone passes away aged seventy-five or eighty, we rarely think to ourselves how they should have had more years....

Twenty years ago today, my father turned 52 years of age. It would be his last birthday. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer late in the preceding year, Lewis likely knew there wouldn't be many more (if any) birthdays, though he kept up a fairly good facade. Oh there were times it cracked, certainly, but then I've never understood why we seem to demand stoicism from the terminally ill. Too ill from chemotherapy treatments to do much celebrating on March 21st, we actually celebrated dad's birthday on Sunday, the 23rd. Truthfully, the entire event was somewhat up in the air, depending on how Lewis felt at the time. I was working at Garcia's Pizza, and had a boss who would bend your ear at the slightest query about how her mom died of cancer. When I made the request to take-off that Sunday for what would likely be my father's final birthday, the manager gave me grief. So it goes.

Recently I read a piece from NPR that, in a nutshell, suggested we always attend a funeral if at all possible. Not every funeral, of course, but the ones for those we knew in life, or (perhaps especially) the funerals for loved ones of someone we know. Our attendance can mean so much during those occasions. The piece is almost twelve years old but, as with most things these days, nothing truly dies on the Internet. It was resurrected recently on social media, and I read it with interest. Over the years I have attended funerals and visitations that ran the gamut from sparse to overwhelming attendance. Some funereal proceedings were an odd mix of fire & brimstone religiosity that decided to use the occasion to touch upon seemingly every hot button topic except for the deceased, to ones that were intimately personal ceremonies that provided those present with comfort. memories and closure. I've even been to one where a group of my cousin's peers performed a beautiful ...

My father has had three funerals. The third (though perhaps not final) one, was last night. In reality, Lewis died in 1997. Cancer. Aged 52. He had a real funeral. I was there. The next two funerals occurred only in my dreams, yet they seemed real at the time, and their impact during the waking hours was keenly felt. You see, during the intervening nineteen years, Lewis has come back to life in my dreams, many times. It is more than simply having a dream about him. During these nighttime images, it is noted that Lewis shouldn't be there, that he died of cancer and is resting six feet under. How, then, could he be alive and, seemingly, healthy?

Earlier this year, a full, complete picture of our Earth was taken and released by NASA. It is the second such photo in our history, the first having been taken some forty-three years ago in 1972. Both pictures have been dubbed "blue marble," a name affectionately given to our planet, and they are breathtaking. While some have, understandably, paid close attention to the visual condition of our atmosphere, both photos have evoked within me another kind of comparison. I think of my own life, and that of my friends and family, of what has changed during the time between photographs. The thoughts are both sad and humbling.

"Come with me, Matt. Your dad has something he wants to tell you." Mom made the quiet statement when I was roughly twelve years old, coming to get me from another room in our brick house on John St. Several things went through my mind at the time: I hadn't done anything bad recently, so it couldn't be that, could it? The notion of divorce was one that always lurked in the back of my head, though it wouldn't become realized for another year. As mom led me into their bedroom (an odd choice of venue), I honestly couldn't think of what it was dad had to talk with me about. Entering the room that he and my mother shared, I found Lewis sitting, looking more solemn than he typically did. Through lots of obvious angst, pauses and sighs, he told me that I had two older half-sisters, Valarie and Angie. They were from a previous marriage, his first. You can imagine how this news might shake someone who, for their initial twelve years of life, only knew of hi...

Today is a day like any other. It's the day after the first day of Spring. It's a Saturday. Some folks are working, some folks aren't. Some folks are drawing their last breaths, others are being born into this glorious world. Here in Champaign, Illinois the weather is fairly nice. Lower-50s currently and, coming off of winter, it feels great. So, much like it does, the world continues to turn. Today is also the 70th anniversary of my father's birth. Regular readers of this blog know all about Lewis Ivy Gladney. I've certainly mentioned him enough times. He passed away in 1997 and, as the years have gone on, things like the anniversary of his birth and the anniversary of his death have loomed less and less and large in my life. Some years, I haven't remembered them until days later. My world has continued to turn. This year is different.

I had the dream again last night. There are, perhaps, two-to-three dreams about my father that are played on regular rotation throughout the year. My mind selects them (for what reasons I do not know) every 6 months or so. Last night saw the return of the ' Old Lewis ' dream, as I like to call it. The events play-out in fairly similar fashion each time: dad is still alive, older (the age he'd be today), and I visit with him for a few days at a time. They seem pretty realistic in the light of day, save for the fact that Lewis is, in reality, dead. It's odd, but the dreams are set in present day, with me being a 38-year-old adult, however they almost always have me leaving mom's house, waving goodbye to her like some overly-excited schoolboy, as I depart for dad's house for the next few days. It's like the visits with dad I had in my teens, except I wasn't too happy about those at the time.

Dear Dad, Today would have been your 69th birthday. I've thought about how to acknowledge your birthday anniversary. Taking a page from Chaz Ebert, who wrote a letter to her deceased husband Roger about the most recent Academy Awards , I thought I'd write a letter to you. Granted, it's a bit odd, but then that's not always a bad thing. So, it's coming up on seventeen years since you died from cancer. I've often wondered what the intervening period of time would have been like had you lived. Unfortunately, we didn't have the closest father-son relationship in the world, so if that had continued, perhaps life wouldn't have been all that different. I tend to hope, of course -- in that fantasy world that only the dead can inhabit in the minds of the living -- that we would have grown closer, healed any rifts between us, and enjoyed a stronger relationship. Your children -- including Dillon, who hadn't yet turned 3 when you died -- ar...

We had a beautiful Sunday here in Champaign-Urbana. Only two weeks ago today there was a foot of snow falling, and now we have 70 degree temps and plenty of sunshine. It was a nice day to do some walking, and so I walked, purposefully. Part of my job as an elected precinct committee person is to get information to voters. I did so this afternoon by dropping-off some campaign literature for various candidates. Hopefully there wasn't much bother to folks, simply putting the lit in their doors, and moving on. As I meandered up Daniel St., a father and son could be seen on the sidewalk. The son was on a bicycle with training wheels, the father sometimes beside him, sometimes behind him. This was at the portion of Daniel St. that comes to an end right at the front of Westview, my old elementary school. In fact, it is the same school where I learned to ride a bike without training wheels. It's a coincidental reminder of living in the town you grew up in, seeing a father and ...