My father passed away in January of this year. It was a big shock. He had not felt well for a while. But nothing that hadn't been going on for a long time. He always said that he wanted to die the way that his father did. Grandpa Dayhoff went out after lunch and a small nap to work on the lawnmower. Grandpa had not felt well after lunch and looking back it was classic heart attack symptoms. Anyway, after he didn't come back for a long time Grandma went to find him and he was just sitting there on a box in the workshed dead. The doctor said that if he had any pain he would have fallen off of the box.
Well, Dad mowed the lawn the evening before he died. He went to bed and in the morning when Joyce got up she saw that Muffin, the cat, was laying over Dad in bed in his room (he snored REALLY loud) and that something was definitely wrong. He had died in his sleep. No pain, just like Grandpa. Dad was 76 years old.
He really had a fun personality. Just the year before he had flown up to Salt Lake City where Robert and I picked him up and he went snowmobling with us up in Idaho at Maxine and Gail's cabin. We had even talked about going again this year.
On New Year's Eve the phone rang at 1:00 a.m. It was Dad. He was all happy, almost giddy, welcoming in the new year. We oldsters had gone to bed hours before. :) But Dad was up celebrating a new year. How could I be upset about the phone call? We had a really fun conversation. Then he said, "I'm going to call your sister now." That was so funny because he was in Pacific time. We are on Mountain time and Rebecca is on Eastern time. So I reminded him that it would be 3:30 a.m. at Rebecca's house and he said, "Oh, I know." I never knew until the funeral a couple of weeks later whether he had actually called her or not. Well...he DID!
We also had a couple of fun traditions between the two of us. We always sent eachother 2 birthday cards. One funny, one serious. It was so fun even just finding the cards. Another thing was that at the end of a phone conversation One of us would say, "I love you." The other one would say, "I love you more."
We were trying to get together more often lately. When my folks divorced in 1976 it really tore our family apart and we didn't get together as much as we might have. Although we did live closer to eachother over the years especially when he lived in Indiana and we lived in either Illinois or Louisiana. So at least we saw eachother some. We were really having more fun together. He drove out to Colorado on his own more than once. The last time really tired him out though. Once he drove to Utah to meet his grandchildren and their spouses and to help with Kyle's baby blessing. That was so neat. He had started calling the kids every-once-in-a-while too.
I remember how handsome I always thought he was and he was always tall and straight. He told great stories too about his life. Once he was telling stories and I was amazed sitting there and thinking how I wished could know more about him. Before I forget the stories he told I should write them down.
I miss you Dad.