As we approach the room where I can change and get ready to go home, my mom is waiting in the hallway. When she sees me she walks over, bends down to me and asks how I feel. I nod the sign of "It sucks, but such is life". I am then wheeled into the room where my dad is waiting. He looks at me and with a knowing tone says, "Hi honey. It hurts, huh?" With that I burst into tears, let him pick me up and sit me into his lap, and I burry my head into his shoulder as he holds me and strokes my hair. This defines the relationship with my parents for years. I love my mother with all my heart and know she'll be there for me when I need her, but my dad has a way of pulling out of me that thing that needs to come out.
I have been lucky enough to have two great dads in my life. The first one had the first five years of my life, before his life was taken away from us. The second, Pops, came into our lives after we moved 3,000 miles across country to make a fresh start. It was not easy for him. He had to deal with a little emotional girl who couldn't express her pain except to say "I miss my Daddy" - and she said it every time she was upset, including when told to take a bath. Then, when asked if she cared for this new man in her life, she flat out said "No". Of course, she didn't know what the words "Care for" meant, but a long discussion ensued none the less.
Pops had four kids of his own, but only one, my brother Vooten (when he was small, that was how he described the sound a car makes) came to live with us for any amount of time. With that, even though it might have sadden him to think of it, I know Pops might have felt closer to me than his own blood. A two hour comute in LA traffic wouldn't keep him from any of my plays, band performances, parades, spelling bees and the such. With my mom having gone back to school, joining the Air Force Reserves and working two jobs all at the same time, he would usually be the one picking up my brother and I from my aunt's house to cook dinner for us then get us ready for bed.
Throughout fairy tales, the step parent is always put in an evil light. Pops has never been like that. Yet even with that I never got comfortable calling him "Dad" to his face. He was introduced to me with his first name, and that's what I've always called him. He was happily surprised one day when he found out that I referred of him to others as "my dad". As I call him Pops, he knows that this is my way of communicating that to him. How do you give someone the name "Dad", when that was the name of the man before him, even if that is how you feel in your heart?
Pops fixing the training wheels on my bike. He taught me how to ride.
Halloween, fourth grade. We're in front of the fireplace. We both love having a fire in the fireplace.
Eighth grade. I got an award for perfect attendance.
My twenty-first birthday. New York City at our back. He put his coat on me as it was very windy for June.
At the celebration for my mom's 50th birthday and her safe return from Operation Enduring Freedom.
Pops shooting the breeze with Abe Lincoln during my parents cross country trip a few years ago.
This Thanksgiving found Sagittarius and I packing up our Guitar Hero equipment and some movies, so that we could share some fun times with my parents and some extended family that came for the holiday. Although the kids had fun with the games, my dad, as usual, with his funny outgoing personality, was the center of attention. When he took over a guitar and lost the song, he decided to become a showman and danced around instead. He danced around while others played, as well.
Christmas Eve is my family's day for togetherness and celebrating, traditionally. My parents came over to spend the night this year. We exchanged presents at midnight. Pops loved the blanket I had been working on for him since July. My mom and Sagittarius loved theirs as well, but my dad's blanket was the one that started it all. Even though we had very little sleep, my dad and I made breakfast together Christmas morning. We had a great time before they had to leave so my mom could go into work that night.
Pops on Christmas Eve/early Christmas morning with the blanket I made him.
Two days after Christmas, my dad had a stroke. With no health insurance to speak of, he dealt with the pain and dizziness from Saturday until Tuesday morning when he finally told my mom she had to take him to the ER. When a Neurologist came to examine him, I knew what they were looking for and the CT scan performed shortly afterward confirmed it.
My dad has always been pretty healthy, even though he is a smoker. My mother is the one that tends to be a bit of a hypochondriac, with a new ache or pain every day. Therefore, to see him lying in a hospital bed seemed like a huge cosmic joke. You know your parents aren't going to live forever. You do expect them to go before you. That still doesn't take away the sense of fear or "what will I do without them" with time slaps you in the face with something like this.
I am happy to say that his stroke wasn't as bad as it could have been. The part of the brain that was affected can be easily compensated for by the rest of the brain. His coordination has started coming back and he was discharged from the hospital on New Years Eve.
As many are making resolutions for the upcoming year, that they'll break before February rolls around, I'm just happy that we have another day.
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