Friday, October 31, 2014

Get Me My Jason Mask



This is the first Halloween without my dad. 

He loved Halloween - we carved pumpkins for as long as I could remember. And he proceeded to win the family carving competition, without fail. Spoiler alert: he was always the judge. That's a common theme. Dad being in charge of who wins, Dad winning. 

Even in the face of turmoil and change, he didn't lose his Halloween spirit. When his surgery didn't go well in 2011, he had been home for less than a week when the holidays came around. Between his month long ICU coma and a stint in a medical rehab, he had waited for Halloween for what seemed like ages. When you're stuck in an Intensive Care Unit (or, as we found out from research, a nursing home) you can develop a loss of time, days, day or night.  Dad would ask us frequently if he had missed Halloween when it was only October 12th - and every day after that, as well. He wanted to be home for the holiday. Sometimes the confusion was worse than others: once he got out of bed at the rehab facility on his own (he had been using a walker until that point) and assaulted a CNA with it when he confronted him. 

Why? Because he was sure that, in his uncertainty, someone had kidnapped his family and taken us to South America...where they then sold us. Unfortunately, his CNA this evening was named Miguel and ended up knocked over via a walker and a protective dad and husband who needed to get his family back. We cleared that up (and never saw Miguel again) and Dad came home not long before Halloween. 

He refused to be left out of the pumpkin carving fisasco when I hosted a pumpkin carving contest at work for our customers that year. He made my mom get a pumpkin and they drilled holes in it, filling it with Dum Dums. He, again, declared himself a winner because, as he said to me "who doesn't want free candy, D-bug?" 



Every year, my Dad handed out the candy. He would set up his speakers to play Halloween music, make the kids say trick-or-treat and giggle when the spooky music made a kid scared. This was no exception. He said to my mom he needed his Jason mask and his wheelchair. "Go wheel me out onto the front porch, so I can scare the kids." 



I don't think anyone was ever truly scared of my Dad. His big heart (and love of children) could be spotted from a mile a way. Tonight we will have zombie cupcakes, in his honor. Because, well -  they're spooky and also dead. 

Hey, I never said that we were politically correct. And Jim wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Spoiler alert: I didn't even carve a pumpkin this year and I think I beat you, Dad. SUCCESS. Finally.


Stay scary, folks! 

Monday, October 13, 2014

Full of Jive....

My dad's birthday is today. He would be 57. Birthdays were always kind of a big deal. There were balloons, and cakes, and presents. At least if you were dad. Here's just a glimpse into one of his earlier birthdays. He looks pained to have to open all these presents, doesn't he? Please note the dot matrix printer "Happy Birthday" banner in the background. And let's quickly discuss where Dad's children get their dorkiness from. I am pretty sure that's an old school robot on his birthday cake, yes? Yes. 


Dad had been not doing well for the few months before his 55th birthday. They hadn't recommended bringing him home, but thought that we should leave him in a nursing home. Mom, being the bull-headed (and amazing) woman she is told them no way. She would bring him home, she would fill him with home-cooking and surround him with things and people that he loved. He hadn't spoken much, but came home the day before his 55th birthday. He had lost over 100 pounds since his journey began 13 months before that. He had a feeding tube, and wasn't really eating much by mouth. In the ambulance, riding home, my mom reminded him it was his birthday the next day and asked him what he wanted on his birthday cake. He wanted his cake to read exactly as she made sure it did the next day. (The piece missing was cut immediately for him, we didn't take it - promise!) 


That's right, he said "I'm 55, still alive, and full of jive." And he was. He grew stronger, he lived for another 14 months with us. He thrived, he laughed, he mocked us, he shook his fist in frustration in our direction, he made us make cheese plates at all hours of the night, he didn't dance the jive - but he was full of it. And let's be fair - he wouldn't have danced the jive even if he could have. 

Last year, we kept the tradition going for his birthday: 



This will be our first birthday without Dad. It will be hard. We won't want to celebrate it with balloons or running boards for his truck (that was what was in the huge present years ago) - but I am thinking we will, in his honor, make some zombie cupcakes. And we'll still celebrate that he was born, that we got to cherish all our moments with him, that we were gifted an awesome dad, friend, spouse, co-conspirator, and ...well, we will have more cake without him here. I think we may have it read: Fifty-Seven and Laughing From Heaven

And don't worry, we'll save you a piece, Dad. 

Edit: I have the best mom, ever. Look at the cake she picked up.