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When Pops Is No Longer There

July 19, 2018

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           July 19, 2018

                                  

Today is different.

It is the first time I have traveled back to where I grew up in Ohio and neither of my parents are here. Translated into years that equates into 46 years of coming back home and seeing Mom and Dad…until today!

When Pops passed away February 15 things changed. I’ll be going to my nephew’s wedding in Frankfort, Kentucky this weekend, but I’m here in southern Ohio today with no father to eat lunch with.

It’s hard to explain or describe. The best that I can compare it to is that it’s like going back to your roots and seeing that the house you grew up in has been torn down in order to make way for a parking lot. Or, for me, when I went back to the town I was born in and realized that the elementary school where I attended first and second grade had been condemned. There’s something sobering about that!

My dad would have turned 90 on June 18, so it’s not like his passing was unexpected. However, when someone has always been there for you it is unbalancing. It’s unsettling…kind of a conscious disorientation. 

In the midst of the new reality I’ll honor some traditions. Dad and I would always visit Bob Evans Restaurant for breakfast at least once during each of my visits. I’ll carry on that practice one morning during my week-long visit. I’ll go have lunch one day at Wyngate, the senior living complex he resided in his last three years or so. I’ll sit with Carl and Louise and soak in the old stories, visit with Robin, the residence manager who loved my father dearly, and try to talk to Chuck, who would visit Dad in the hospital but can’t hear squat!

And while I’m here I’ll drive down to Paintsville, Kentucky and visit the cemetery. That may be the moment that overwhelms me as I gaze upon the plot of ground where my parents now lay side-by-side. For the past five years or so each cemetery visit has had Dad standing beside me quietly staring at Mom’s resting place. Now I’ll stand by myself and long for his voice to say a few words. 

One tradition I will not carry forward is taking Pops to at least one doctor’s appointment, radiation treatment, or hospital admission while I’m here. He had a “time share” at St. Mary’s Medical Center across the river in Huntington, West Virginia!

Life is populated with assumptions. One of those is that things will always remain the same even though we are fully aware that they won’t. I assumed that Victory Heights Elementary School would be there fifty plus years after I last attended it. I assumed K Mart would always be in business! I assumed I would always have hair and be able to run fast! And at some time in the journey what I thought would always be changed to”the way it used to be!”

I’ll miss watching my dad socialize with the Wyngate residents this trip. He could bring a smile to the face of the most sour personality. I’ll miss sitting in his living room and talking about what was and what is, as well as just sitting and watching NBC Nightly News. 

I’ll miss seeing the respect that people had for him. He was Deacon Emeritus at his church. People still remember him as a gift from God. There’s still that respect, but his passing has reshaped that respect in a different way. 

Carl, who was born four miles from Dad in a remote part of eastern Kentucky and turns 90 this coming September, will look me in the eye and say something like this: “I miss your dad. He was my friend and a wonderful person!” And then Carl will pause for a moment out of respect…and I’ll see a tear slide down his cheek. That’s when I’ll know that although Pops is no longer here…he is!

Categories: children, Christianity, Death, Grandchildren, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Dad’s Day Without Dad

June 17, 2018

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                June 17, 2018

                                 

It’s a weird feeling this morning! Today is the first Father’s Day I’ve experienced without Dad! He passed away four months ago at the wise old age of 89. Tomorrow would have been his 90th birthday. there’s

Dad has always been there. Though we were separated by five states his presence never seemed to be far away. Our Sunday night phone chats became our routine. When he didn’t answer his phone I worried…so I’d call my sister to see if he was okay. More times than I can remember he’d call me back as I’d be talking to her. I’d switch calls over to him and after answering he’d give his customary reply: “Well, hi son!”

“Did I get you at a bad time, Pops?”

“Well, I was on the pot!” He would say it like it was an unusual occurrence. 

Today, however, things have changed. It’s Father’s Day without Dad. It has the feel of eating fried chicken without also having mashed potatoes and gravy. Kind of strange and empty. 

My dad was a consistent man of faith, an even-paced Jesus journeyer. Through all his radiation treatments for cancerous growths on his ear, nose, and bladder, he never lost his humor and lightheartedness. The radiation technicians at St. Mary’s Hospital loved on him, enjoyed him, and treated him like their own father. When his name was called to come on back from the waiting area for his radiation “zap moment” of the morning he would always have a word for the attendant that would bring a chuckle and a smile. It’s how he was. His bouts with cancer weren’t seen as being setbacks, but rather moments in his journey.

When I became a father back in 1981, like any first-time dad, I had the deer-in-headlights look. What do I do? What don’t I do? I had taken a class back when I was a student at Judson College, taught by Professor Ted Hsieh, entitled “Marriage and The Family”. I still have the notes from that class, and I was tempted, when Kecia Corin Wolfe arrived, to get the lecture notes on parenthood back out and do a quick review. Instead, however, I looked into the mirror of my memories of Dad. What would Dad do? What did Dad do? How I fathered my own three children had the imprint of his parenting impression of us.

And so today I’m living with his memories, impacted by his personality. I’ll go out for a run this afternoon and wear the University of Kentucky hat that was his. As I’m huffing and puffing it will seem like he is close at hand. As my feet trudge along I’ll recall some of my favorite “Pops Stories” that I listened to numerous times, and yet, never tired of the warmth they would bring to my soul. 

It’s just weird! Dad’s Day without Dad…it sounds like the title of a horror film! In essence, it’s simply where I am on my journey, a place of wonderful memories and an aching grief.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Enjoying Dad

June 18, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                         June 18, 2017

                                        

Today is my dad’s 89th birthday! Extraordinary, considering he had a heart attack when he was 62! 62…that’s one year younger than my age right now!

He is sharing his birthday with Father’s Day, a double star on the family calendar! So today Carol and I will celebrate with him, probably take him out for dinner tonight, and talk about what was, what is, and what is to come.

I’m a bit surprised that his 89th has even come to be. Last year we were back for an Ohio visit on his 88th. When he blew out the candles (Two candles of the number “8”, not 88 candles!) someone asked him what he wished for and he cleverly replied, “89!”

I’ve reached the enjoyment stage with Pops. It’s a place that many sons and daughters don’t arrive at. Fathers often regress in their children’s minds from being strict to irrelevant to crotchety! The next generation moves out and moves on, living their own lives with just a hint of their fathers’ influence and presence.

Sad, but true! We become so self-absorbed with careers, our own kids, and our own routines that our parents become people in the rearview mirror.

I’m increasingly thankful that I’ve reached the point of “enjoying Pops!” Last night as we broke bread together at a local restaurant I peppered him with some questions about his courtship with Mom. How that came to be? How long had they known each other? What drew him to her, and vice-versa?

Our conversation was punctuated by amazement and laughter, as family stories were shared and details discovered. My dad had lost his dad when he was 14 in a mining accident. He shared the events of that story, the loss and the ripple effect of that loss. Losing his dad meant that my grandmother had to move him and his two siblings to Wittensville, Kentucky to live with his Uncle Sam, thus setting in motion a series of events that brought him together with my mom at Oil Springs High School.

My generation, and any generation once removed from their parents, tends to forget the stories of our past that have brought us to where we are in the present. We minimize the importance of pre-history, that is… the stories of our parents that precede our existence.

And so we talked and laughed. When my dad laughs his whole body shakes, especially his shoulders and head. He often slaps his knee with his right hand in extended appreciation of the humorous episode that was just shared.

I’ve noticed a few other things that stand out about him and his life. He has several University of Kentucky hats, fashion displays of his college alma mater. The other day he asked me to get him a Kentucky hat from the closet to wear. Expecting for there to be one UK hat when I opened the closet door I was a bit taken back to see “the collection” on the the top shelf.

I’ve enjoyed watching him converse with his “neighbors”, the other thirty people or so who live at Wyngate, a senior living complex in Proctorville, Ohio. Meal time at Wyngate is more about telling stories, and other stories as a result of the stories, than it is about the food. What can you say about egg salad? Not much, but you can tell a number of stories from when your family had chickens back in the day…that cause other stories very loosely connected to chicken to spring up!

Enjoying Dad has a warmth to it that is comfortable and satisfying. Watching the many Wyngate Widows smiling at him is a little hard to get used to, but also causes me to smile. Yesterday I joined him for lunch and we sat with two Wyngate ladies. I could tell that they find him charming and…enjoyable!

So today I’m going to seek to be showered with his laughter and bathed in his tales of what has been. I’m simply going to enjoy Pops!

Categories: children, Community, Death, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Leaving Pops

February 11, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                            February 11, 2017

                                           

Five days with my dad…not a lot of time, but deeply meaningful.

I flew into the massive Charleston, West Virginia airport on Thursday afternoon. Dad came home from another time-share experience at St. Mary’s Hospital in Huntington the previous Tuesday evening. When I knocked on the door of his apartment at Wyngate Senior Living Complex, heard the invitation to come on in, I was taken back by the tubes he had in his nostrils receiving oxygen. He looked a bit frail and “dragged out”, as he would say!

We chatted about this, that, and the other, soothed by the ointment of each other’s presence. After an hour or so it was time to let him be for the night. We had seen each other after an absence of about eight months. It was almost like checking in on one another to make sure we were okay, and now we could sleep.

The next day when I walked into his apartment I was taken back again, but this time in a good way! He didn’t have the oxygen machine going. He looked like he was “with it”, the familiar smile authentic and inviting.

“How’d you sleep, Pops?”

“I slept like a baby! Went to bed about 10:30 and didn’t wake up until 5:30!” Seven hours! My dad hadn’t been able to sleep for seven hours straight since he was…was…was probably in his seventies! Getting all the body parts of an almost 89 year old body to cooperate at the same time is on the same scale as getting all of Congress to agree!

“That’s awesome, Dad!”

Well-rested conversation flows much better than dragged-out dialogue. We talked about new great-grandchildren and grandchildren, “remember when” moments and tall tales of previous aunts and uncles.

“Are you going to have lunch with me?”

“Sure! Are you going to eat in the dining room?”

“Yes.” He hadn’t ventured down the hallway to the dining room of the complex since he had come home from St. Mary’s. He grabbed his “hurry-cane” and we headed down towards the room of wisdom and crankiness.

The residents who had arrived before him recognized his re-emergence from his isolation. Smiles and greetings floated his way, and he made the rounds to each table hugging the widow ladies and shaking the hands of the few men scattered around. We sat with Chuck, who hears about as well as someone on one side of the Ohio River listening to conversation on the opposite bank. Dale joined us, parking his motorized scooter in a spot close to another. Navigating through the scooter and the walkers in the dining room was like driving through a Walmart parking lot! Chuck could walk, but not hear. Dale could hear, but not walk! Senior complexes are a pantry of can’s and “can’ts”!

Meeting Dale and Chuck, as well as others, opened up hours of shared stories from Dad. I learned once again about Carl, who had been born four miles from where Dad had been born in eastern Kentucky, and is a constant source of encouragement for Dad; and Leo, who had been at the same Navy basic training camp with Dad and Carl in Williamsburg, Virginia.

We revisited the story of Leo setting off the fire alarm about a year earlier because he was frying bacon in his apartment at 9:00 on a Friday night. We laughed about the possibility of motorized scooter races in the parking lot. We paused to remember Nellie, the lady who lived in the apartment next door, who Dad had taught to give herself insulin shots. Nellie had passed away a few months before.

Each day of my brief visit followed this path of remembrance and revelation. Super Bowl LI was the first Super Bowl my dad and I watched together. Awesome!

And then Monday night I said my goodbyes. His embrace contained strength and joy. It seemed as if each day had been a step of progression for him.

Whenever I say goodbye to my father I realize it could be our last visit, our last embrace, our last walk down the hallway…and I treasure the moments of the stroll!

Categories: children, Community, Death, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized
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Dad-Sitting

February 4, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                      February 4, 2017

                                       

My dad has had a January to forget. Two weeks in the hospital…one week home…and then back in the hospital for another week. He loved the nurses, but disliked the meatloaf.

So I had the opportunity to fly in for a few days and be with him. My dad turns 89 in about four months. He’s no spring chicken! In fact, his spring sprung a while ago. The times I’m able to come back to the southern tip of Ohio from the elevation of Colorado are special, deeply personal, and filled with shared stories.

Yesterday I walked with him down to the dining room of his senior adult apartment complex. A slow walk, but a steady walk. When he arrived he made the rounds, giving a hug to each of the women who, I swear, all initiated the embrace. He shook the hands of each man before setting down at a table with two of his peers, Leo and Dale. It was Dad’s first meal taken in the midst of the gathered “white hairs”, and it brought a sense of exhilaration to the 25 or so. He is loved and appreciated, always ready to give a warm word of greeting and an engaging question.

Then it was back to his apartment to sit and talk. Three days earlier I had “grandbaby-sat” for a two year old. Now I was “Dad-sitting” a man who was almost twenty-six when I was born!

We shared stories about teaching, his military service, Kentucky basketball, and all the nice nurses who cared for him at the hospital. Our conversation wound its way through the many rooms of our lives, one door leading towards the next one on the other side of the story.

I told him stories from my recent three-week teaching stint and the one student that I sent to have a chat with the assistant principal, and he told me about the student who he had a difficult  time with when he was student teaching high school agricultural science.

We got on the topic of security guards at schools, banks, and other places, and he recalled the pre-security days at the Social Security Administration office he managed…the times when an irate citizen had to be calmed down simply with words, not a Taser gun!

We have a way in our culture of devaluing our older folks, minimizing their relevance and becoming deaf to their voices. Thankfully I’ve come to the point of seeing how treasured my life is because of the father I have. The occasions of “Dad-sitting” are dwindling, shared moments waning, and I breathe each one of them in as if they are my last sip on water in a long journey.

Tomorrow I’ll watch the Super Bowl with Dad. I can’t remember the last Super Bowl we watched together! It may actually be the first time we’ll share the moment. The game will become secondary to just being together. I’m sure we’ll laugh at some of the commercials and take bathroom breaks while Lady GaGa is being a spectacle. We’ll talk about the Cleveland Browns of the 60’s, the Ironton High School Fighting Tigers, and recall when my big brother came back from an away game that the Williamstown High School football team had played on a Friday night and said to Dad, “Look Dad! Real mud!”

We will simply sit and enjoy the moment. The depth of life is made from moments like these.

Categories: Death, Grandchildren, Humor, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized
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Eighty-Eight!

June 18, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    June 18, 2016

                                           

My dad is celebrating his eighty-eighth birthday today! Unreal!

He is the last of the generation immediately above Carol and me on the age pyramid, a gentle gentleman who never seems to be rushed in the sharing of wisdom. Wisdom and advice needs to be dished out and savored like smooth Kentucky bourbon whiskey…slowly and with great contemplation. I wouldn’t know, but my older brother, a tour guide at the Woodford Reserve Bourbon Distillery outside of Frankfort, has told me so.

It is remarkable that my dad, Laurence Hubert Wolfe, has made it this far. He has overcome a boatload of challenges through his nine decades…if you round it off to the nearest whole number. Named after two Baptist ministers, Laurence and Hubert, who helped his dad get out of the bottom of the drinking problem barrel, Dad brought us up Baptist. My brother, sister, and I frequented services and events at church three times a week…Wednesday night, Sunday morning and evening. I equated the trusted firmness of Dad’s arm with the unwavering love of God, as I leaned up against him about the time Pastor Zachary launched into his sermon. I will never know how heavy my head felt to him by the time the sermon was rounding thirty minutes and heading for an hour, I just knew that my “lean-to” never wilted.

That memory, that picture, is a telling illustration of who my father has been and still is. Consistent, solid, dependable, tender, strongly compassionate.

Dependability seems to be in short supply these days, as fathers do their own thing and seek to romance whatever or whoever pleasures them. Dads who stay the course, who keep their promises, are a rare breed.

Dad has been that rare breed. Interestingly enough, my siblings and I didn’t know that was unusual. We thought our dad was like all the other dads. We thought all dads embraced their wives in the midst of the kitchen, like my dad did, and then obediently would give my mom a kiss after she had said to him “Kiss me slobber lips, I can swim!” We thought that was normal! We thought we were normal! We thought all dads were patient, and all dads were home on Sunday nights after church eating popcorn and watching Ed Sullivan on TV. We thought all dads listened to their wives vent about what Myrtle had said to Thelma about Betty’s potato salad that had been brought to the Penney’s employees’ potluck that day. In those days there were no baseball games on TV to divide a husband’s attention, so Mom had both of Dad’s ears…and she used them with no consideration of moderation. Like Dad’s arm in the Central Baptist Church sanctuary pew, he was my mom’s “lean-to” for listening. He stayed with her in the midst of her rational and irrational moments.

Moving ahead a few decades he also stayed with her as she dealt with ill health, and then became bedridden, and then as her illnesses took away her ability to verbalize her thoughts and feelings. In their sixty-five years of marriage he had heard her say enough to know what she was thinking even when she could no longer say it. Even in the midst of Mom’s confusion towards the end of her life when she thought that Rachel Ray was Dad’s new girlfriend because her picture was on the front of a magazine laying by her bed, Dad stayed the course.

Now that he has his own apartment in a senior adult living complex that is heavily populated by widows, and lean on widowers, he gets to listen to a swarm of women every day. And they love him! He’s now the lean-to for a bunch. Valerie, Bonnie, and Bernice bring him his morning newspaper. Bernice is 93! She looks at his dinner plate as he passes by to see if he is eating healthy, even though she isn’t! Bonnie’s door is right across the hall from Dad’s staring at it, in his son’s opinion, too uncomfortably close! Robin, the building’s manager, is wonderful as she converses with him, always seeming to cause a chuckle to rise to the surface.

A lovely ninety-six year old was talking to Dad this week about the women all buying bikinis, and she was considering going topless! Dad listened and laughed. I blushed!

Tomorrow Carol and I begin our road journey home. We will worship together with my sister, brother-in-law, and Dad, and then say our tearful goodbyes. It will be hard to release the embrace, but we have our own family…that is, two generations below us on the age pyramid…to go home and hug. Three children, two son-in-laws, and three grandchildren to be the “lean-to” for. Tomorrow I’ll sit in church with Dad, just like I did fifty-five years ago. His physical strength has waned since then, but I know that his strength of character is abundant.

In new kinds of ways he’s still my “lean-to!”

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Faith, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Dad Time

August 12, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                             August 12, 2014

                                               “Dad Time”

I’ve been blessed with a great father, Laurence Hubert Wolfe. Dad is now 86 and moving a little slower these days, but he was able to fly from Ohio to Colorado Springs and spend about a week and a half with us.

My mom passed away last September. Dad had been her primary caregiver for the last few years of her life…feeding her meals, sitting by her bed, sometimes having to be firm with her about taking medications and drinking fluids. Because of his energies being directed to her he hadn’t been able to visit us in Colorado. This trip was an opportunity for him to spend some uninterrupted time with his grandkids and great grandkids, and it was…great…deeply meaningful…and impacting.

Our three year old granddaughter, Reagan, came to the point where she looked forward to seeing “Papaw” each day. One day she asked her mom when they were going to see Papaw and her mom said they weren’t going to see him that day. She was not happy!

One morning she entered into our house saying “Papaw, Papaw!” She breathed in through her nose and said, “I know he’s here! I can smell him!”

Dad was amazed and amused by the conversations. The uniqueness of each of his grandchildren and “greats” was obvious to him. He often smiled in satisfied appreciation. We had three meals during the week at the restaurant that our son is chef at. Papaw loved the fish and chips. They are probably not on his diet back home, but we put diets aside for a few days. His grandson personally fixed his meal.

Our oldest daughter had us over for dinner twice during his stay. The green bean casserole reminded him of meals my mom would cook. He visited her fourth grade classroom and was pleased to see a few of the ways she effectively teaches the youngest generation.

Our youngest daughter traveled up from Albuquerque for the weekend to spend a little time with her Papaw. We took him to an air show, and we did it not so much to see the planes but just to be with him, and to see his delight in meeting one of the Tuskegee Airman who was a guest there.

We talked about this and that. He retold some stories that I had heard a few times already, and also revealed some family history that I wasn’t familiar with.

We’d drive my Civic around the area, visiting the Air Force Academy, The Classical Academy where I coach basketball, as well as simple trips to Lowe’s and Walgreen’s and Albertson’s supermarket.

A few times during his stay he wasn’t up for any adventures. He just wanted to sit a while and read. Other times he just wanted to watch CNN as the events in Gaza and Iraq unfolded. On Sunday we watched the PGA championship for a solid two hours.

He ate watermelon and cantaloupe just like our family did in my growing ups days. Watermelon was a more prized treat than ice cream!

When I picked up Dad at the airport he was being wheeled down the terminal in a wheelchair. It’s a little difficult to see your dad in a wheelchair for the first time. When we dropped him off back at the airport I watched him get in a wheelchair again. It was a harsh visible sign that Dad is in his life home stretch.

The readers of this blog don’t quite understand how deeply respected my dad is by our three children. It’s hard to read something and pick up on the underlying value that they place on their relationships with Papaw.

They will remember this visit from him not for places that we went together, but rather time spent with him…sitting on the couch beside him…hearing his chuckles…listening to his accent.

Dad time…priceless!

Categories: children, Humor, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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