by Jessica Hughey

Created on: November 15, 2009   Last Updated: November 30, 2009

I was not quite 16 years old when my father died on the 17th of October in 1971. My parents were divorced and Dad had not lived with us for quite a few years. He lived alone in a mobile home in a community adjacent to ours. He would come over to visit us quite often, though, bringing with him the standard inappropriate gifts, typical of a father with little emotional connection to his children. My youngest sister was just five years old at the time and enjoyed his visits much more than we older kids. Often during his visits, he would drive her out to the airport near our house, just to park and watch the planes take off and land.

As summer turned to fall, Dad's visits suddenly and inexplicably stopped. Since he had no telephone, we could not call him to find out why he had not been around. So Mom - taking my oldest brother, the "man" of the family, with her - drove over to his trailer park. As soon as she approached the small trailer, Mom knew something was wrong. Unread newspapers sat piled on the front step and the door was locked. Mom went to the manager's office, explained the reason for her visit, and gained entry to the trailer. There, lying in bed with a washcloth over his eyes was my father. The coroner later determined he had died approximately five days earlier from a brain hemorrhage, caused by complications of diabetes. My brother called me at home, where I had stayed behind to babysit my sister, to break the bad news. Not being the tactful type, he simply blurted it out. "Dad is dead."

While I was saddened by his death, I was not overly so. After all, my dad and I had not had an emotional connection in a very long time. Growing up, as a little girl, I had idolized my father. He was my best friend. I remembered how he used to take us out to the park in the spring every year, where we would sit on the grass and make our own kites out of paper and some sticks we had painstakingly selected from the trees in the park. How Dad would always say, "Good sticks make good kites." This is what he had done as a boy back in Tennessee, and if it was good enough for him, it was certainly good enough for us. No store-bought kites for him! We kids always loved those outings. Sadly, though, divorce can take a huge emotional toll, especially upon the relationship between the children and the parent who does the leaving. In addition, when little girls begin to grow up, the adoration once reserved only for Daddy silently begins to shift. Our heads suddenly fill with

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