A letter to dad

Hi Dad….

Happy birthday! I can hardly believe that you would be 87. But then again I can hardly believe where I’m at now…48. Ish. I don’t know how you would have liked being that age. With the way your health was going, maybe things turned out the best they could. If you remember, I was getting kind of wild that last year or so you were with us. I guess I discovered bar life and all that went with it. If it means anything, I did have some good times and I turned out to be a pretty good fighter (most times) but there were plenty of things I wish I could undo.

I think of all the things I could undo, the one big one that has bothered me for a long time was when you needed to go to the Vet’s hospital for a diabetic laser treatment on your eyes. You asked me to go with so I could help you make your way back on the bus. I told you no. Inside, my feelings were that I would have been too embarrassed to have been seen with a blind man. What an ass-hole I was. You don’t know what I would give to take that walk now. I guess God has a way of getting even with us though, because the big guy upstairs decided that I will be carrying the diabetic torch now…Treatments are a lot better than they were back then. One good thing I guess.

I do regret the last night I saw you, my regrets are for reasons that were different than the other kids. I had gone out with my friend to the Mermaid bar. When I came home, of course, I was altered a bit from drinking and wanted nothing more than to hit the hay. I remember you were waiting for mom to get home from the laundry so you could take the car to the truck farm. You opened the door and said “oh, I thought you were ma…”. You might have said more, but those are the last words I remember you saying to me. I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much with all the crap I pulled, but I am sure I did. I know it's too late now, but I’m sorry dad.

I remember Tim coming into my room the next morning and telling me that you had died. I ran thru every room in the house looking for you that morning. I thought for a second that this was some dumb “Tim” joke. Not so. I never found you. You had died at work. Mom said it was about 4:20 when you passed away. Your watch had stopped at that time and that’s when they figured you had fallen. I woke early about that time that morning and looked at the clock and realized it was way too early to be getting up. For a long time afterward, I wondered if I had gotten up and gone and visited you at work, that maybe I could have done something to help. I guess not. I knew over the years that you had a bad heart and I would lose you someday. I remember seeing you on the ground one time working on a car. You must have run into a problem because you were just lying motionless, waiting for the next idea on how to keep another clunker running. I looked at you as you lay there and wondered if that was how you would look someday when you died. Turned out I was wrong. It was different than what I had imagined… I’ll never forget how you looked…


I tried to help ma after you left, but to be honest with you, I didn’t handle your dying very well. I remember when me and ma went to the truck farm and they wheeled you out of that building. I didn’t want to see my dad on a gurney. I wasn’t ready for you to go. For the next few years. I drank way too much, got into more fights and found out what the backseat of a cop car looked like. I was making a real mess of my life. I needed something in my life to change…

I hung around home for the next few years. I did some things for Corey that may have been things that were meant for a dad, but I don’t think you would have done them. Nothing against you, but the role I filled somewhat was the coaching and sports end of life. You were better at other things. He kind of became like a son to me. He turned into a pretty good ballplayer, dad. He actually had a little pop to his bat, something I never did. I did one-up him once though. I taught myself (thanks to all the home-run classics we had in our backyard) to hit left-handed. I actually put one out of the park some years ago. I have now gone on to coach my own kids in their sports and will never forget the great times I have had with that. I wish now I had spent more time with Tim. He seemed to really get the short end of the stick in this one.

Getting back to the time I didn’t go with you to the hospital, I did learn a lesson. I met a man at the bowling alley by the name of Dick Dargis, Elmer’s brother. He was somewhere between you and mom’s age. I got to be pretty fond of him. He was a good man. Well, as things go, Dick told me one day he had cancer. He needed rides to the Vet’s hospital for chemo and radiation treatments and asked if I could help. I didn’t give it a second thought. I’m certainly am not the smartest of your kids, but I knew my role in this one. I took him to all I could. Eventually he passed away but we remained friends until the day he died. He used to get mad at me on the way to the hospital because I would make him laugh and because of that, his body would hurt. It would no sooner quiet down and then he would want another story. It's hard to see a man cry from pain. I miss him. He taught me a lot. I used that laughter Dad, to make it onto a stage one New Year's Eve in Minneapolis as a comic. I got to perform in front of over 4500 people, including mom. She doesn’t like my choice of material sometimes, but oh well. It deals with having a big head. I know you were sensitive about things like that, but I looked at it as a choice. Either fight someone over it or deal with it thru laughter. I chose the latter. My wife Lynell doesn’t appreciate the big head stuff either, but for different reasons. She had to have three C-sections…The fathead curse struck again...

Whether my comedy goes anywhere, it remains to be seen, but I am having a blast doing it. I think I have turned out okay. I am married now to Lynell, a wonderful woman who has fit into the family very nicely, coming up on nineteen years at the end of February. We have three kids, our daughter Kayla, who is a freshman at Mankato. We also have two boys, Bryn who is sixteen and Jake who comes in at twelve.


Unfortunately, I do have to work (I still don't like that word!). I am a mailman in the worst part of town, North Minneapolis, but it’s where the paycheck is at for now. I will have been there for eight years on the 26th, so a big yoo-hoo for me. I actually get up early in the morning too. Never thought that would happen, but we all seem to have changed. Corey spoke in his piece of the money we gave you at your funeral. You were in your casket, dressed very nicely. I had a lucky dollar that I would use for liar’s poker. It had nine aces on it. You always told me, when I wanted to go out at night, that I would take your last dollar. Well, I took that lucky dollar of mine and tore it in half and placed part of it in your breast pocket and the other half in my billfold. I still have it, taped to the back of your picture. Someday, my hopes are that we can put the pieces together again. What I didn’t know was that a very young Corey was watching his big brother try to make sense of this thing called a funeral. He saw what I did and took some pennies and put them in an envelope and he too, put them into your pocket…he has been copying me ever since!


I was so pissed at your funeral for different reasons. At the luncheon, I saw folks standing around and laughing and having conversation. I thought to myself, “how dare they when I am feeling so bad…” but I know better now. I’ve grown up I guess.

A lot of things have changed since you’ve left. We've all become older. We have all dealt with losing things that are precious to us. Mom had a bout with cancer. Patty is getting ready to retire, Kathy is running a big medical firm, Tim had his own cleaning company. Mary moved south, raised a family and got her finger chopped off too! Laurie is an actress! I even got a license and performed a wedding. Corey is married and sings and thru all of us, there are kids everywhere. And most of us are getting a little grayer. I have dreamed about you so many times. In it, you come back and even though I realize you have died, I think this ain’t too bad of a deal. We lose someone, but they come back to us again. We talk for awhile and I turn my head and when I look back, and then you're gone. I like that dream but yet I hate it because you did it to me again…. It seems everyone I know goes away in the end.


Mary spoke of me having your eyes and eyebrows. I never said anything to anyone, but I have noticed it too. Sometimes when I am driving and look in the rear view mirror just right, there you are….Kind of a neat thing sometimes.


I am going to close because this is getting quite long. I ask that you continue to watch over us and help make our daily journey safe. Maybe you and Cindy can keep on extra eye open for Tim, Dad…He’s been having a tough time the last couple of years. We’ll watch over ma for you as best we can. You would be proud of how the kids have stepped up (especially Patty, Kathy, Laurie and Corey) and made sure she is part of our lives and not forgotten.


We’ll talk later Dad
All my love Joe