by Kim Richards

Created on: August 07, 2009

Life was strange to say the least with my father. His background was filled with tragedy and fraught with a mental illness that he did not ever admit as far as I can recollect. He was not an affectionate man, nor was he easy to have deep conversations with. He was steadfast in his spiritual beliefs and struggled in his later years with the fact that his middle daughter was a lesbian. He was abusive and hard-core. Having gone through WWII, he came back a changed man and he knew it. He had a love hate relationship with his children of which there were at least seven that we know of. Why then is the death of my father a subject that I would even consider worth writing about? Just that reason, he was my father.

His health had been failing for many years and for the most part he was on oxygen for emphysema. There was a chair that was his favorite and the pictures that I have are of him in that chair with his grandkids, the hose that kept him breathing steady hanging down from under his nose. No one seemed to notice as it had become as much apart of him as his chiseled face. His look was one of a tired man who had stood up to the devil himself.

I lived in Florida at the time and many of my siblings were scattered across the states. I got a call from my mother saying that your dad was in the hospital again, but doctors stated it was most likely pneumonia and he should recover. I kept a constant vigil by the phone remembering the words he often said to me I am tired and I wont fight it any more. The second phone call I received, which was the next day, informed me that his organs were shutting down and he most likely was in the early stages of death. He went into a coma and passed away without regaining consciousness.

I did not go to the funeral and had many rationalizations as to why. I spoke to his spirit and tried to explain my views were not the same as his, and he knew as I did his soul was no longer tied to the earth. Although this was sound thinking and the way I truly felt, I regretted not being there; to send this man off that I had fought with, fished with, flew kites with, and truly loved unconditionally. He may have been hard-core and tough to love but he was my dad. I think of him so often and miss him tremendously. So I keep his photos round about me, he is in his chair with his oxygen accessories. Grandkids smiling. Dad laughing.

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