A College Moment--25 years ago (5/9-10/89) --long

If you want, you can look it up, but I assure you, in 1989 May 6th was a Saturday.  It was the night I went to see a brand-new movie, "Major League".  By that point, I was on Easy Street.  I was a graduating senior suffering Short Timer Syndrome.  I had my graduation permission turned in, only had a final in one class, and otherwise, had nothing to do for the next two weeks, other than that final and packing to head home.  It should have been paradise on Earth...though of course, any day spent in Ames at Iowa State is awesome.

I know May 9th was a Tuesday.  A nice day, I'd gone to class, playing out the string, come back and done the usual--watched some TV, read the Des Moines Register (because in the '80s, that's how you got news), and then gone down to Windows for dinner. 

*Windows was the name of the East Cafeteria within Friley Hall, known because of all the windows (gasp), creating a ton of natural light and a nice view of campus outside, pretty whether it was green with spring or the all-white of winter.  The other cafeteria was Dungeons--because it was in the basement and had no windows at all.  Sadly today, Windows is used for conferences or storage while Dungeons is a study center.*

After dinner, I went down to a women's floor, Lowe, to hang out with people there.  My friend Brian's sister lived there along with her roommate who was a huge Cubs fan (but I've forgotted her name now), as well as Tami Cott who was dating my friend Paul, and Cathy, who was my roommate's girlfriend.  Lowe had been ejected from Westgate at the same time as Foster House, moved to Friley, so that there remained a connection between the people on the two floors.  I was in Cathy's room--I can still find it--talking with her and a couple other people when her phone rang.  Two rings at a time--on campus.  She picked it up, looked at me, said "It's for you.  It's Ron."

It was Ron, her boyfriend/my roommate.  He'd just got a call up in our room from my mom.  I needed to call her immediately.  Something happened.  Since the phones had codes to access long-distance, I called the number from Cathy's room--it was my mom's work number at the hospital.  When I reached her, she told me my dad had just been brought in--he'd collapsed, had a stroke, but was stable.  That was 815.

The rest of the night is missing for me.  I remember nothing.  I know I talked with my sister at some point to coordinate me picking her up in the morning to go home--because Mom was specific: He was stable, he was okay.  She'd call if there was a change.  No call--so we proceed as planned, leaving Ames around 8am. 

May 10th was a Wednesday.  Classic Rock Night at Welch Avenue Station.
The car ride home was silent.  What's there to say?  We were both worried.  It's different facing mortality when it is a parent rather than a grandparent or distant relative.  This was Dad.  I remember it was a decent day to drive--nice temperature and overcast.  The plan was to drive home, then walk over to the hospital (since we lived across the street from it).  Mom and Pete would meet us there.

*My parents had been divorced almost a decade by that point and Mom and Pete were married 3+ years then.  Pete and my dad had known each other and been friends going back to the early 1950s.  Life is weird sometimes.*

Except that when we got home and went in the house to use the bathroom before heading over, I opened the door and both Mom and Pete were there in the kitchen.  They were waiting for us.  Pete was standing in the same spot where they found his body when he died last year.  Yeah.  I'm writing this now and have Gordon Lightfoot pop in my mind--Does anyone know where the love of God goes...  I'm many things, but I'm not stupid.  This wasn't the plan and the look on Mom's face.

But dammit, she didn't call. 

He'd taken a turn for the worse in the early hours.  She didn't want to worry me, knowing I was driving.  Didn't want me to speed or be reckless.  I understand her logic--and still disagree with it.  I wish she would've said something.  So we walked over to Genesis West on a cloudy day.  In the ER, the woman my dad married was there along with her biological son, as well as a relative of my dad's.

*That woman he married was/is one of the most evil, horrid women I've ever known.  I love my dad, but his judgment on her was so messed up--I have no idea what he ever saw in her.  Dad's relative was there simply to see who she could get in good with--she was broke and wanted money....ahh, the joys of family, right?  It's not like your family doesn't have people like either of these women....*

We walked in and the doctor, trying to be gentle, said he was already brain-dead.  There weren't going to be miracles.  So the question then was what to do next.  And that was a horrid moment.  Because of a pre-nuptial agreement, the decision about my dad's life could not be made by his wife.  That meant it fell to me as oldest surviving child to decide.

So there it was.  I decided to put his organs up for donation (they were able to use his eyes and one other), and then I had to sign the papers to remove him from life support.  Twenty years old and I signed the papers killing my dad.  I know I didn't kill him, but those papers say otherwise.

Once they were signed, we each got a chance to go in and see him, to say goodbye.  When that moment comes, you have to do it.  I wish I didn't.  I'm glad I did.  They'd tried to fix the problem.  That meant brain surgery at some point during the night.  They'd shaved his moustache, all his hair.  The meds and the brain injury had caused him to retain fluid or caused swelling--so that his hand nearest me was swollen enough, the fingers were a little spread apart.  But the worst was his eyes.  They were open, pupils wide, but there was no response.

So I talked to him.  That's between me and him.  The last time I talked to him before that moment holding his hand in the hospital, it was April 24.  I'm sure of that, though maybe it had been the 25th.  So I'm not sure.  But I remember that conversation, too--because it ended with me saying "Go to hell, I hate you."  Yup--last words ever to my dad, at least that I'm sure he heard.

And then he was gone.  49 years old, less than four years older than I am now.  I'm the age he was when I started college.  He'd be 74 now, probably retired if he'd found a buyer for the family business (which is sadly no longer family).

I wish he'd been here for what he missed.
*Julie
*Three great kids
*My first novel, my first coaching text. 
*Starting my own businesses, now just Jolly Roger though.
*Erick's graduation, Brigitte's impending graduation.
*The joy of me meeting Julie
*7/24/93

But it doesn't work that way, and how could he foresee what his sister would do, what his then-wife would do?  He couldn't.  For all of those problems, I still love him.  He was imperfect, even as a dad, but I'm older now I understand.  He did the best he could.  It's all anyone can ever do.

But even when my sons are 49 and I am old and retired, it will still be with me that May 10, 1989 was a Wednesday.