Celebrating a Life.

 Not long after they moved from the ranch to the new home a routine gall bladder surgery for continual digestive problems turned into a life sentence. In October of 1960, Daddy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given six months to a year to live. 

My parents made the most of the time they had left together. That fall and winter they worked making the new home more comfortable for Mom. It was not the log home Mom had envisioned but a large single wide trailer on a basement, with room for grown children and grandchildren to visit…Daddy felt good enough (pain was kept down with medication) in early spring, so they signed on with a fishing charter on the salmon river out of Riggins, Idaho. Mom would cook for the guests and Daddy would help her in the kitchen, do outside chores and also help the guide with the guests. It was a wonderful time for them, more like a vacation than a job. Back at the new home, I had finished beauty school and came home to live and make preparations for my June wedding. It was a bitter/sweet day when Daddy walked me down the aisle on June 10th. Daddy spent several months in the hospital and died on October 15, 1961, age 54. 

  Although “Celebrations of Life” were not done in the 60’s, after Daddy’s funeral we did celebrate arrived with food, enough to feed a small army. Family and friends joined together eating, talking and laughing as we reminisced about the many good times in Daddy’s life, his accomplishments, his sense of humor, his kind heart and his straight forward thinking. He was a jovial person but prone to give his opinions, of which he had many. We talked about and shared the many sayings that peppered his everyday speech, and the swear words he used to express himself. 

That evening Mom and we five “kids” returned to the cemetery to pay our respects and say our last goodbyes. I noticed the sign on the gate leading into the cemetery it said “Dead End”. My Dad would have thought that extremely funny and it struck me that way as well. Daddy never wanted to be buried but cremation wasn’t common then. He didn’t like the idea of being put in a cement vault in the ground, and said, “I don’t want my body turning to jelly instead of dust, why don’t you just sharpen my head and pound me into the ground like a post?” We laughed over this idea while he was still alive. And many times after a long work day, he would make the remark that with his luck he wouldn’t get to rest after he died, because resurrection would probably come on the day after. That didn’t happen and maybe in the ensuing fifty years he has been able to rest. Now when I’ve been at the cemetery for short visits, I hear whistling through the trees, his voice murmuring:  “They did it anyway; dressed me in a suit and tie, put me in a God Damn cement box and covered me with dirt. Not my choice.”

Our Dad, left this life, not a wealthy man, but rich in many ways. He was loved and respected by family and friends and we were blessed to have him enrich our lives.