Lessons Daddy Taught Me

In January of this year, the call came that we were both hoping for and dreading.  CM Tucker Veterans Home in Columbia had a room for Daddy.  For many years, Daddy had lived in the presence of Parkinson’s Disease – during those years he worked in maintenance at Peachtree Center, he went camping with my mom and other family and friends, attended countless family celebrations and generally lived a full and happy life.  However, as time passed and the disease progressed, Daddy began to lose his ability to care for himself and do all the things that those of us who are healthy so often take for granted.  By January of this year, Mother was having to care for his every need, and we found ourselves making the difficult decision to move him to “Tuckertown” as he called it.  As Daddy has traveled this difficult road, through his words, actions, and stories he has taught us all some important life lessons.

First, Daddy has taught us to be wise in choosing our life’s partner.  One reason moving to the Tucker Center was difficult for Daddy was that Mother took such good care of him.  She helped him dress, shaved him, managed his medicines, took him out to eat, fixed his favorite foods, drove him to the rook room, carried him to Tribe Talk Live, made sure he had his cheese crackers at bedtime, and a thousand other things that made his life full and happy.  She took the “in sickness and in health” part of her vows seriously and worked very hard to make his life happy and full.

Second, I learned never give up on your dreams.  In these last months, Daddy’s dreams were very simple.  He wanted to be at home with my mother.  When he first arrived at Tucker, he was fully aware of where he was and made no bones about wanting to go home.  In fact, one evening Dee and I brought him shrimp for dinner.  He refused to eat it, saying he would take it home with him and eat it there.  Then he looked at me and said, “Get me out of here now!”  Explaining to him that we couldn’t do that just didn’t go over with him.  As he held his cup of water in his hand, he asked me, “Are you going to take me home?”  When I tried once again to explain that it wasn’t an option, he threw his whole cup of ice water on me.  Man, he had good aim, even sitting in his wheelchair.  We cleaned up the water as best we could, and as I sat there shivering in my wet britches, Daddy decided he had made his point and ate every one of the 12 shrimp we had brought him.  However, he never quit wanting to go back home and eventually began to believe that he was home.  One day when I was pushing him in his wheelchair down the hall at the Tucker Center, he looked around him and said, “You know Linda.  Your mother and I don’t need this much room.  I think she and I should give this house to the church and build ourselves something smaller.”  Many times, when he was talking to my mother on the phone, after a short conversation he would tell her he needed to go to work but that he would be home in a few hours.  He often called his caregivers Ann and would get upset if one of them didn’t answer to her name.  Bless their hearts, they played the role of my mother quite often because it made Daddy happy.

Daddy taught me that there is always time for a good story.  Daddy was a storyteller all of his life and that didn’t change when he got to the Tucker Center.  He entertained all his visitors and his caregivers with stories about his life.  Some of the stories were true, like the time he and mother were on the pontoon when the water got rough and a bucket of worms flew up in the air and dumped all over my mother, even going in her mouth.  Other stories were creations of his vivid imagination, but he believed they were true and they made him happy.  While Daddy was living at the Tucker Center, he built multiple houses on the lake, bought and sold property which made him a fortune, rode in a helicopter and threw money down to my mother, bought and sold several trucks, and worked in maintenance at Tucker.  He often complained that they didn’t pay him and he was going to retire.  When he got too upset about not being paid, his nurses would write him a “check” for his work that he would carry around in his pocket.  One of my favorite stories Daddy told was about his purchase of a motorcycle.  We were sitting in the dining hall while he ate his lunch one day and he told me that he had bought a motorcycle.  We talked about what kind it was and how much he paid for it.  After a while, he got a big grin on his face and said, “I gave the motorcycle to Zach.”  I asked him if Tommy and Genene knew about that and he said “no.”  Later that afternoon, we were sitting out on the front porch of Tucker when a motorcycle roared by on the street below.  Daddy looked at me, grinned, and said, “There goes Zach.”

Perhaps the most important lesson that my daddy taught me through these last few months is that true love never fails.  Your body can fail you, your mind can fail you, but the love you have for others remains strong.  It may exhibit itself in unusual ways, but it is love still the same.  My husband, Dee, arrived at Tucker one afternoon to visit my daddy and found him tenderly cradling a sock in his arms.  Daddy was obviously upset and when Dee asked what was wrong Daddy said, “My cat has died and I need someone to bury it.”  He thought the sock was his cat, Lillie Belle.  Daddy often talked about his babies (his dog Daisy Mae and cat Lillie Belle), and worried about them being taken care of.  He also kept each of his children on his mind.  One of his nurses,

Jennifer Evans, became my sister, Debbie, in his mind, and Daddy would often tell me, “I just talked to your sister a minute ago.”  One day we were visiting and Daddy couldn’t wait to tell me about my sister, Cathy, running in a foot race.  Apparently, Cathy was running against an Olympic champion and was 12 laps behind her when the last lap began.  Then Daddy grinned and said, “Darn if Cathy didn’t catch that woman and win the race.”  He was so proud.  When Daddy had a problem that needed to be solved, he had me call Buddy.  One day, he told me his truck had broken down, and he was worried someone would tow it away.  I told him that I would call Buddy and ask him to take care of it for him.  That didn’t satisfy Daddy.  “Call him right now.”  So, I did and, fortunately, Buddy was on his way home from work and answered.  I explained about Daddy’s truck and Buddy talked to Daddy and told him that he had put it in his garage and would take care of it until Daddy could come get it.  Tommy, he talked about you a lot.  Sometimes he was worried about you – he thought you were sick and I had to do some quick talking to convince him you were fine.  Other times, he would tell me about a job you had keeping books for a pharmacy and how he was helping you run the numbers.  Even when we couldn’t be with him, we were always real in his heart and mind.  His love for us led him to create situations in which he could express that love.  His greatest love was my mama.  I don’t think I ever visited him that he didn’t talk about her.  Sometimes, he told me that he had just seen her;  she was working around the corner.  Although this comforted him, it became a problem when he wanted me to take him by her office to see her.  “Linda, her office is in this building.  Why can’t we go see her?”  So, I lied.  “Daddy, she had to go out for a while, she had a meeting, she’s off work now and gone home.”

Other times, he worried about her health.  He was convinced that she was addicted to drugs that she ordered from Mexico.  Most visits, we would call Mother so that Daddy could talk to her.  More than once, Dee and I would be sitting there listening to their conversation and Daddy would put his hand over the phone and whisper to us, “She’s drunk or she’s on pills right now.”  One day when they hung up from each other I called Debbie and asked her to assure Daddy that she would get mother into a rehab program and make sure she didn’t do any more drugs.  I couldn’t convince him she wasn’t doing what he believed she was doing.  As I’ve thought of his concerns, I’ve realized that he was doing everything in his power to take care of her.  His mind set up situations that needed solving and then he stepped in to help solve them.  Although Daddy often expressed concern for my mother and her addiction problems (for those of you who don’t know, Mother is not an addict), he also spent a great deal of time expressing his love for her.  One day on the phone, he told my mother that he had an idea.  He wanted them to renew their vows.  “What do you think about that Ann?”  Another day, he told her that he wanted to dance with her.  As he talked about wanting to hold her in his arms, I was putting my hands over my ears thinking, TMI Daddy – too much information.  One of the sweetest conversations I overheard them have was when they talked about how Daddy had always told her he loved her.  Mama reminded him that he would tell her, “I’ll love you forever” and Daddy finished it, “and one more day.”  That conversation occurred about a month ago, so even towards the end of his life, Daddy remembered who mattered most to him.

What I would say to you my family--mama, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren-Daddy loved you.  When life took away most everything else, it couldn’t take away his love.  Be proud.  Know who you are.  You are Basil Clary’s beloved family.