Up Here in Bathysphere (or wherever it is)

[pipistrelle]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Salute to Admiral Dad!

[sad-cafe]

He's gone, between dinner and dessert tonight he simply stopped, which is exactly what he wanted. I'm sad and relieved. Events will become clearer over the next few days. No need to console me, I'm going to focus on being happy for him. I love y'all but I shall be AFK for a little while now. .

I’m so sorry

[p0rtia]

Well done, Foggy. You did it right--you did it the way I would have wanted to do it, if I'd had the chance.

You did it for all of us.

[Maybenaut]

I'm the only one who can tell that story, and the working title is "Motorboats and Convertibles", two of the constants of my childhood.

Mine too! I love this! I enjoyed chatting with your dad at the MetoDC meetup.

[Foggy]

I'm the only one who can tell that story ...

He lived too long.

He outlived everyone in his generation - his wife and only brother passed in 2005, and all his cousins and friends and neighbors and former shipmates are also long gone. He was born in 1928, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. There's nobody left from his generation. Nobody but his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and I am the oldest of the five children, so I have the clearest memories of the 1950s and 60s.

It's amazing to me, but I really am the only one who can tell people what he was like as a young man. How the heck did that happen?

[Shizzle Popped]

[Foggy]

So like I said, he had dinner and he was talking with the staff, animated and watching the Tee Vee (and saying "the hell with Trump" and I am quoting my sister on that), but when they came back ten minutes later with his ice cream, he was gone. Have I ever told y'all how much he loved ice cream? Always a ton of ice cream in his freezer.

So I texted my niece that I am totally fine with his passing, and my only complaint is that he didn't get his last ice cream.



And when she called me, she told me that I am not the only one in the family who is upset about that. But she's a Christian, and she told me my mom was waiting with a nice bowl of ice cream when he crossed over.

She and I (and anyone else we recruit) will be singing Eternal Father. She sings with a jazz band every Saturday night. An awesome lady.

[Foggy]

[realist]

I’m truly sorry to hear of your loss. But you were a good son and did a great job taking care of him. I’m sure he loved that time spent together.

[Maybenaut]

[Foggy]

Yes, well ... he did still have me arrested by the police twice before I graduated high school. For many years, he and I had a really rough relationship. I couldn't count the number of times we yelled at each other, most recently around 2010 or so. I loved him, and I respected him, but we didn't get along, which was mostly my mother's fault. It took her dying, and us continuing to visit as often as we could, before one day he was finally able to see who I am with his own eyes, and wasn't listening to my mother any more. From that point on, we've become actual friends.

Did I tell you about the time we were kicked out of the family for five years because my brother told him that ol' Wifehorn was playing a computer game where she was throwing darts at a photo of my brother's wife? I had told him that ol' Wifehorn was playing Microsoft Hearts, not darts. She had my brother's wife, my sister, and my mother as her three opponents - three ladies who were not my biggest fans. But my father didn't tell us what my brother had really told him for more than five years -- he just cut us out of the family completely. He didn't tell me what my wife was accused of doing. And he still believed my brother, until I offered to pay him $10,000 if he could even find a computer game that would allow you to throw darts at a photo you uploaded. No such game ever existed, to my knowledge.

Of course, over the past 20 years my wife has become his best friend. I'm sure he was secretly ashamed that he had ever believed my idiot brother, who did nothing to help my dad over that time. But we didn't get a chance to dispute the accusation for five years, because it was all hidden from us.

So anyway, we had a happy ending at the end, and yeah ...

I love happy endings.

[Frater I*I]

Condolences for your loss.

[Foggy]

Here's another painful memory, but it shows my relationship with my parents. My best friend Stan was admitted to dental school, but he didn't have the money. He knew my parents had some money, and he floated the idea of borrowing from them. But I told him that if I had anything to do with asking, they'd never give him a nickel.

So he waited until I left town to go to Cornell for summer school, and he went over to my parents' house and asked them for a loan, and he told them it was my idea.

What he didn't know was that I stopped at my grandma's house on the way to Ithaca. My grandma said to call my parents, they were furious with me. Sure enough, they weren't gonna give Stan a nickel and they couldn't believe how arrogant I was to leave town and have him come beg for money. How dare I? And they wouldn't believe me when I told them I had warned Stan to stay away from them. I had to call Stan on the phone and tell him to call them. Didn't they get that he waited until I left town for a reason?

Stan called them and admitted that I had nothing to do with it and he had lied to them about it being my idea.

So they put him through dental school. As long as I had nothing to do with it, they were very open-minded and generous. He paid them back every penny.

Now you can understand what a change it's been that my dad and I ended up being good friends. Those days were long, long ago.

[AndyinPA]

[bill_g]

Corrosive stories like this come out after a death. It will be impossible for you to do this, but those of us that love and respect you have to tell you from personal experience "let it go".

Our experience also says you will have to chew this rumination for a bit, but you'll get through it. You'll experience joy and anguish. It's a necessary period of cleansing. It's awful. I assure you there is a beauty in it too. We're here for you.

[Maybenaut]

Corrosive stories like this come out after a death. It will be impossible for you to do this, but those of us that love and respect you have to tell you from personal experience "let it go".

Our experience also says you will have to chew this rumination for a bit, but you'll get through it. You'll experience joy and anguish. It's a necessary period of cleansing. It's awful. I assure you there is a beauty in it too. We're here for you.

True. When my brother died I was thinking about some common experiences we had, and a memory popped in my head. I was a young’n, about 20 or so, and I was giving him a ride to our Dad’s. I got in a fender-bender (my fault). The cops were called. No big deal. I got a ticket and we went on our way.

When we got to my dad’s I cleaned out my car like I always do after a road trip. I found drugs in the ashtray that were not mine, and told my bro, here, I think you dropped these. I’ve never been a smoker but would deposit my wrapped up used chewing gum in the ashtray, so I always checked it for trash.

It didn’t occur to me until after he died at age 58 and I was thinking all this that he put the drugs in my ashtray because the cops were coming, and was perfectly willing to let me take the fall if they searched the car.

I was *so* angry. But I had to let it go. Who am I gonna yell at? It was 30 years ago! He had been clean and sober since shortly after that incident happened, which was a good thing (even if he did turn out to be a Limbaugh-loving RWNJ).

Grief is a roller-coaster.

[bill_g]

True. When my brother died I was thinking about some common experiences we had, and a memory popped in my head. I was a young’n, about 20 or so, and I was giving him a ride to our Dad’s. I got in a fender-bender (my fault). The cops were called. No big deal. I got a ticket and we went on our way.

(snip)

Yep. My sister and BIL spent the last weekend at my house. She was a marvelous help, dogged almost, sifting through Mrs' stuff figuring out what to keep, what to give away, and what to throw out. Amoung these things were more boxes of photos, and Holy Cow - the crap it dredged up in her was amazing. The tears and the sobs. There was so much terrible stuff she had held on to fifty years after the fact. BIL and I just listened to her, let her go through this catharsis, and did our best to be comforting without judgement.

It was difficult, but necessary.

[Foggy]

Corrosive stories like this come out after a death. It will be impossible for you to do this, but those of us that love and respect you have to tell you from personal experience "let it go".

Oh, absolutely, Bill. I'm just telling them because they are a little interesting and strange. They put Stan through dental school!

But I would not want my dad to tell you any of the corrosive stories about me. I would come out very poorly in any objective comparison. I am named William Jr., but I never could live up to his accomplishments. I inherited my mom's alcoholism and struggled with it my entire life.

I am doing some much-needed yard work today. I am so lucky to have replaced my joints with all of the surgeries, and I am finally able to get out there and get some shit done. But I can't hear my cell phone out there, so I keep stopping. Number one, is my knee OK? Are my shoulders about to pop out on me? Number two, I'm in text and voice contact with the siblings and others.

So far, my joints are holding up well, and I will return calls and texts.

Speaking of letting it go, today I thanked my sister profusely. She really stepped up and took great care of my dad. She has been visiting him every day for months, even helping him eat lunch and dinner. I told her, "You and I had some serious issues about a hundred years ago. As far as I am concerned, the slate on all of that is now erased. You are my sister and I am your brother, and that's how it's going to be."

How's that for letting it all go?

[AndyinPA]

Lotsa thumbs up for that!

[bill_g]

Very good. Marvelous in fact. Better than most.

When my Mother died, I folded a garbage bag full of paper angel airplanes from subscription cards in magazines, and flew them off a cliff with one of my brothers. When my Father died, I did nothing. That was as much as I could muster for him. I gave him what I got from him. There was a point thirty years ago when he tried to remind me of all the sacrifices he made raising us kids, and I responded with "How much do I make the check out for?"

We were not buds in any way, shape, or form. So, I kinda envy you were able to rebuild your relationship with yours. I have no regrets. I hope you don't either.

[Foggy]

Oh, I have a few regrets. And I'm still glad my mom passed 20 years ago, which gave me the chance to rebuild my relationship with my dad. My wife was a huge influence on that, too also. When my mom died, my boys were 6 and 3, and she was diehard determined that they were going to spend a lot of time with their only remaining grandparent. So even when I was not feeling chummy, she'd make me drive the family up to see him - again and again, until I finally started talking to him when we were up there.

One day in the car on the way home, she gushed, "The thing about your dad is, he's just such an interesting person." I realized that they were becoming seriously close friends, and I decided to go along for the ride.

He met about 20 or so people from the forum once, at MetoDC's party in downtown Washington. I had forgotten that, but Maybenaut reminded me. He was always interested in the forum, after I took a few hours one day and showed him how it worked.

[MN-Skeptic]

I'm so glad you got a chance to reconnect with your dad, Foggy.

[jemcanada2]

Sorry for your loss. I’m so glad you had years rebuilding your relationship with your dad.

[Lani]

Sorry. Much love to you.