Not many hours ago, my father passed away. George T Ward, known by some as George, like his Dad, known to others as Tom or Tiny. Some called him Big Tom because of his weight. His grandkids called him Papa or Grandpa Tom or Grandpa.
He made it to 71 years old.
He'd been in two different hospitals since Christmas Eve. During the two weeks he's been in the hospital, I've had many opportunities to pray with him, read to him and just talk with him. Sometimes it's been on the phone, sometimes standing or sitting beside his bed while he went in and out of sleep and consciousness. I've spent a lot of time crying over the past two weeks, for my Dad and probably some for myself, not wanting to see him suffer through the holidays and miss Christmas with his wife and family and friends and not even thinking he would be going yet.
I think back to Friday night, getting the call that he'd been coughing up blood. My 6 year old Ryan, (he had been in bed sneak-playing his Gameboy and was still awake when my wife went to ask my oldest if he wanted to go see Grandpa Tom, because he might not be around much longer,) popped his head up crying, insisting that he needed to see Grandpa Tom. I gave in and took the two boys with me. My Dad was glad to see them. Ryan wanted to tell Grandpa Tom hello, and he did. My Dad talked to him and Brad a little. I was surprised by Brad, he usually doesn't do well in hospitals, but he did ok. In fact, the boys stayed in the waiting room for quite a while, occasionally, off and on coming back to his room, to see Grandpa Tom for a minute and talk a bit and then back again. We brought my Dad a picture of my birthday with the kids and a card Ryan had made for him with Grace's help.
Somehow all of it seemed surreal. I prayed with and for him, constantly hoping and encouraging him to pull through. Many times throughout the past week, he told me how much he loved his family, how much he wanted to see all of them truly give their hearts to Christ. Dad talked about how he knew it wasn't his time yet and he wasn't going to go. Every time the doctor's changed shifts, there were new statements, well, realistically it doesn't look good, but he could pull through, we should really leave judgment to his heart specialist and so on and so forth. He even told me that his favorite scripture in the Bible was the book of John, Chapter 1.
Don't get me wrong, the Detroit VA hospital doctors and nurses were wonderful, they were honest yet hopeful and I was willing to cling onto whatever hope they would give me, so I could share it with my Dad and try to encourage him to get better. However that throwing up blood thing, the kidney's shutting down not much later, that kind of stuff, that's scary. That's scary in a young healthy person... let alone a 71 year old with diabetes, and heart problems.
I loved my Dad, I loved him even when he didn't know it. I loved him all those years that we couldn't talk because of a gulf of bitterness and hurt between us. And then I watched him start changing. I watched him stop blaming everyone for his problems, I watched him change his attitude towards God and church. Maybe 8 or 10 years ago, I think he actually heard me tell him I loved him, without throwing up a wall of bitterness over the past to block my words. Even that time was too short of a window to get to know my Dad again. I watched him fall in love again, with a good woman. I watched my Dad becoming the kind of man I wanted to be friends with, to get to know again.
My Dad wasn't all bad. He had a hard life, but he did a lot of good. I know he played basketball at Fulgham High School in Kentucky. He was in the army, a Vietnam Veteran. He saw some hard things there, things that sometimes never go away. He told me a little, about watching a buddy get blown up by a shoeshine boy across the street from him, about being exposed to Agent Orange and even about playing football on base with the guys.
He had six kids. That was a few, even for that time. He really tried to provide for his family. My mom even told me about the time when his two jobs weren't making ends meet and he was ready to go get a third. They ended up working it out where she picked up the third job.
My Dad seemed to be able to fix any broken appliance, refrigerators, stoves, washers or dryers, hot water heaters, furnaces and/or air conditioners. He did it all. I was able to go with him in the summers sometimes and learned how to repair and troubleshoot appliances then. While there at one of the shops he worked for, I would sometimes troubleshoot appliances or he would give me money to go play a couple video games and get a Boston Cooler across the street. He gave me $20 one time, and kid that I was, didn't understand how much a $20 bill meant at that time, spent almost the whole thing on Centipede. He got upset with me, but only scolded me a bit and didn't even hang onto it, like he usually would.
He led a Royal Rangers boys group, when I was small at one of the first churches I remember, and took us camping and taught us how to make our own leather vests and so many more things. He loved giving that and doing that with the kids.
He had a creative/artsy side to him too. He would make leather items and create intricate art work, designs and patterns, on it. When I was younger he would hand carve the leather, as well as using some of the pre-made stamps. Over the past years as his hands got to be too bad, I knew he was frustrated that all he could use were the hand stamps and then even more frustrated when he couldn't do that anymore. Funny, when I smell real leather, I think of my Dad and all the work he did with it.
Dad loved movies too. Funny, I remember how he sneaked in a trip with me to see Star Wars, Return of the Jedi for my birthday. Only I couldn't tell my mom, because she thought I was too young to see it. Funny thing is, being a dad now myself and loving to take my kids to the movies with me, I think he probably wanted to see it as much as I did.
My parents separated and divorced, not something to be proud of, it happens. It took a lot of years for those scars to scab over, but they did and everyone seems to have survived it.
I know my Dad was proud to have been a Veteran. That was one thing he really did love, this United States of America and the men and women who served it.
He also loved his children and grandchildren. While we were growing up, he didn't always know how to tell us, I think he learned that later in life. He certainly told his grandkids a lot. He loved to see them and hold the babies. He would even come to their birthday parties, wanting us to have them in a park or outside, so he could have wheelchair or scooter access. He would come to our house in the summer and take the little kids on sidewalk rides on his scooter.
He would talk to me about his church and the ministries and outreach they would do. He loved the pastor's at that little church in Marine City. Pastor Meade and then Pastor Joe. He really gave from his heart and his time to those ministries.
I didn't get to see every life my Dad touched. I know he was still full of spit and vinegar at times. But I saw his heart soften over the years. I saw it grow close to God like it never had before, during my youth or childhood. As a result of that, I saw him reaching out to and joining his community and family, I saw him dropping the anger and bitterness that had so permeated his life. I wish I knew more, I wish I could have known more about the lives he touched.
I prayed with him and he told me he was proud of me and my wife. I told him I was proud of him and the life he lived. I was proud to be his son. I hope and wish right now, even a week later, after the memorial service we had for him, struggling to put my thoughts on this blog, that my life can make him proud.
During these two weeks, he told me, as many times that it wasn't his time to go, he was ready to go. His heart was right with God.
So, during his last few hours. I got to pray with him, watch Jeopardy with him, adjust his bed up and down for him, put wet cloth's on his forehead, help him with his coffee, hold his hand, feed him yogurt, listen to him ask about the two guys (that none of us could see but him) and when they were going to take him upstairs. So little did we expect that this would be his last day. We (and the nurses) thought he would be with us another couple of days. Pulling out onto the freeway, completely drained, I got the phone call that I needed to get back to the hospital right away, that he wasn't doing ok, that there was a problem with his oxygen. The first exit - turn around couldn't come quick enough, and somehow I knew, from my nieces voice on that phone, that it was already too late, I wouldn't make it back in time, that I had already said my last good-bye to him.
But now he can walk with Jesus. There's no more wheelchair, no more struggling to breathe, no more piles of medicines, no more heart attacks. He gets to see his Mom and Dad, my Grandpa and Grandma. He's in a better place and I know he wants me to rejoice for him, and I do. For him, right now, to live was Christ and to die is gain.... (sorry, crying again, it's hard to see what your typing through tears...) While there's a selfish part of me that doesn't want him gone, that wants to let him hold my youngest daughter one more time, that wants to hold him and hug him one more time, to tell him I love him, just one more time, I know he's in heaven and it's good. Seeing his body on that hospital bed, he was truly at peace, he had a peace and lack of pain on his face I hadn't seen in months.
I'm going to miss my Dad so much. I do miss him and I'm proud to be his son, and I so hope that my life can make him proud. Somehow time always seems so short, too little.
Goodbye Dad, my father, my soldier, Christian, Veteran, craftsman, handyman, servant, husband, grandfather, brother, son, friend... I love you...
