I received word Friday that my dad had died.  He was only 59, and it was unexpected.  Yet in a way it was expected–he was never quite the same since his heart attack 9 years ago.  I think he waited until he knew the 4 of us would be ok, and to learn who his grandchildren were going to be, then decided to let go.  It didn’t happen the way he’d always said he wanted it to–going off into his beloved mountain woods and disappearing, but he went with a book on his chest, and that’s the next best thing.

I’m in a creative discernment process with a group of friends, and one of my early goals was to start calling him more often.  I spoke to him about a week before he died, and hit on several topics, as is normal for our conversations.  I had called to ask if he’d do a genealogy test for the research Rach and I are doing.  He said he didn’t need to–he already knew he’s an alien.  Such was our conversations!  (I had fun afterwards telling my coworkers stories of my crazy dad!)  It turns out that we’d all talked to him in the last week and had GOOD, positive conversations, which wasn’t always the case with him.  The only one who didn’t talk to him was my brother David, who’s currently in Afghanistan.  His wife was a proxy and she talked to him, but I’m sure when David gets here later in the week that’ll be an emotional problem for him, although he’ll try to be the “man of the family” as he always did when Dad was away, and hide it.

Today I get to go to the house for the first time.  I’m dreading it–as the oldest, I feel I need to be the one to call any old family friends that my stepmother didn’t know.  In the next few weeks I’ll be seeing and talking to family members and family friends I haven’t had contact with since 1985 or earlier.  I find that I’m also looking forward to it–the chance to reconnect and share memories of this difficult, stubborn, irritating, intelligent, wonderful loving man that my father is.