Potholes

I woke up this morning with a gigantic new pothole in my life.  I heard this concept a long time ago, and my memory does not allow me to credit the person who originally described the phenomenon.  But, I have lived with this ever since I first heard it.

When there are losses in your life, they become potholes in your road.  Our road is a self generated loop in our minds, with the scenery of our walk directly tied to our experiences, memories and learnings.  When there is a trauma, it creates a pothole in the road.  A bump, whose depth is related to the seriousness of the trauma.

It resonated with me, as I grew up on a gravel road.  There was, and is, a constant need to maintain the road.  Potholes form after every rain storm, and they only get worse over time.  They form in the same places, every time, because of the shape and incline of the road being the same every time.  It never stops.  I have even heard tell that when those old gravel roads are paved, the spots that need repair are always the same spots that generated the gravel potholes.

The remedy for the road is always the same.  You have to go level it out as best you can.  Then you bring in fresh gravel, more than is needed to fill the hole and do your best to pack it down in the hole.  Then you level the road out as best you can again.  Then you pack it down again, then you level it again.  This is all done after the rain.  You keep doing this occasionally, between heavy rain events, but nothing stops it from happening again, when the rain gets heaviest.

Our lives mimic that.  When the rain, stress and life, gets heaviest, the smallest particles of the gravel run off with the water.  That leaves just the larger pebbles and stones.  As the wheels, the pace of our living, pass over these larger stones, they skip and spin.  That spinning, turmoil in our lives, digs the dirt out just after the stone.  So, the pothole actually forms just after the stone, the hole in our life is just after the trauma.  The more the spinning, or the more times we go over it, the larger the pothole gets.

Yesterday, there was a huge bump in the road.  A great big rock, my father, left the road of my life.  What that means is that now, there is nothing to stop the slide into the pothole, it is just a sharp drop and then the slog out of it.  My father was a huge rock in my life.  Whenever I heard his voice, I was safe, I was okay, it was alright.  All my life, my Daddy was home base, if you were with him, nothing could touch you.  He absorbed the shock and pain for us all.

He certainly was not a perfect man.  I have no illusions about any of us.  Yet, for all his rough ways, and there were many.  We called it old timey, or stubborn, or foolish.  But, it was Daddy.  His road had more potholes in it than I could possibly count.  I find him amazing.

His childhood at home, was horrific by all accounts.  His father was an angry and abusive drunk.  I have only vague memories of a frail old man that liquor had completely ravaged.  I harbored a lot of hate of that man, as a young man, when I learned the truth of the situation.  He abused four of the people dearest to me in the world.  My Granny, my Daddy, my Uncle Billy and my Uncle Alvin.  If you asked me to describe what the devil looked like, when I shut my eyes, I saw those rheumy, yellow eyes and sunken cheeks.  He was my boogey man in a lot of ways.

Daddy never stopped loving him.  I know that they fought, I know that he hated what happened to his family.  But, that was still his Daddy.  And in his heart, he still loved the man.  No one is a monster all the time.  I would learn that later in my life, and my hard heartedness would change for a man whose life I could not imagine.  Joe Hill, Sr. was more of a decent man than I can fathom, and had enough love to not harden his heart against that figment of my imagination.  When I was old enough, that was a powerful lesson to me.

Daddy's first child, my sister, was born with a serious birth defect, spinal bifida.  She was the first child in North America to survive what was then pioneering surgery.  And, she was not paralyzed from it.  My sister's story is a gigantic pothole in a lot of lives, most certainly in my father's.  I won't go into that here.  But, in all of its terrific fury, my father never lost sight of the fact that to him, she was his personal miracle.  I confess to you that I did not, nor do not understand it.  I do not possess my father's love and compassion and forgiveness.  But, none of that matters, in the story of my father, she remained his miracle, and he loved her unconditionally.  That much is absolutely true.  I wish I could more closely follow his example when it comes to the pothole of my sister.

Daddy's fourth child, my brother Jeffrey, was born and died within a few hours.  That sorrow and sadness never left my father, nor my mother.  They did not speak of it often, I can only think of twice that my father spoke of it to me.  Both times, I saw tears in my father's eyes, which was something I had never seen else wise.  That sorrow I have never known, but I think it struck my father and mother severely because they had the experience of a miracle with their first child.  Why they did not see such a miracle with their fourth was a mystery to them.  It was the forbidden place in their lives, and we did not go there.  I never knew my father to attend the funeral of a child, nor can I bring myself to do that.

My father was very proud of my choice to join the Navy.  He was sad to see me go, but knew what I had chosen.  He supported me and made my leaving easy, though I did not.  The day after I left, my step-grandfather, who my father referred to as my grandfather, Pop, Harry Miller, passed away.  This was not shocking, from a medical standpoint.  But, to the family, it was devastating.  We mourned a huge hole in our hearts.  It was more difficult, because this was the love of my Granny's life.  That man loved her, and us, with all of his heart.  I can't speak of my Pop without feeling an overwhelming loss, to this day.  I know my father loved him and missed him in the same way.  Suddenly, for all of us, this large, very turbulent family, my father was the only father figure.  His load quadrupled, and yet he handled it with a grace and ease that amazes me still.  I was in Boot Camp, and not there to be the support my father should have had from his oldest.  It was a role I should have played that I missed.  That is one of my largest potholes.

Daddy's world got very small in 1987 when my Uncle Billy died.  I did not understand how much that affected my father.  It was an ugly passing.  The cancer ravaged a man that was larger than life.  I was away for 95% of it, in schools for the Navy, transitioning through 4 duty stations in the course of my uncle's disease.  The man that took me fishing and crabbing, that laughed and conspired on tricks on my grandfather, that was one half of the duo that loved and defended my grandmother, was gone.  I saw him in the hospital, near the end.  He was not even remotely like himself.  He hugged me, a tear in his eye, and told me "Go, don't come back.  Don't remember this, this isn't us.  Remember crabbing, laughing.  Don't come back.  I love you."

I do not know what goodbye my father had with his brother.  I don't know what he said to his mother at that passing.  I don't know how he carried the entire family.  I was not home, and could not attend.  That had become a recurring theme.  Yet, he did, quietly, with few words and a gentle touch of those powerful hands on your shoulder.  I cannot think of my uncle in that hospital, I cannot bring a vivid picture of that sight to mind.  I have repressed it completely.  I just remember the boat and the laughing, as he asked.  I think Daddy got there, but that pothole is one I cannot understand, as I have not experienced it.  Daddy never shared that, beyond a sigh and a smile at the thought of his brother.

There were many passings after that.  As the older generation reached the point that life and its living, took them in turn, it was hard.  When my Maw Maw passed, it hurt my Daddy.  She had Altzheimer's and had not been herself for several years.  But, everytime she saw my Daddy, she called him Joe.   He was proud of that.  I don't know if it was because she connected to that face, or that face reminded her of someone in the parts of her life that the disease had not destroyed, and it did not matter to my father.  She was a woman that treated Daddy more decently than anyone but his own mother.  He loved her completely, and his heart was broken by the ravages of the disease, long before the death.  For him and Mama, I think the death was a relief.  That pothole is evident in all of us, and we all despise that disease, like we despise cancer.

In 1994, my father beat cancer for the first time.  That word hung over him for the rest of his life, a constant and nagging pothole, his life's washboard.  Every time I talked to him after that, he told me when the next scan was, or the results of the latest scan.  When it recurred, he found the will to fight, and win.  When it popped up in his colon, he found the will to fight and win.  Each fight was harder, for us and for him.  When it popped up a second time in his colon, he was almost certain that would be what killed him.  I think that terrified him most because that is what took Uncle Billy, and it was horrible.  I will finish this story later.

In 1997, my father's heart broke forever.  My mother passed after a long bout with illness that was endemic in her family and had already taken her sister, Jan.  It was a shock to us all, a huge, massive heart attack that took her immediately.  My father never recovered.  That part of his heart never opened back up, and was never shared with anyone, ever again.  It was among the most horrific things I have ever dealt with, and would prove to be a pothole that I would need to watch my father navigate.  I had never heard or seen my father cry in sorrow like that.  I lost my mother, my Mama, and it broke my heart.  But, it tore my soul to see the trauma that he suffered.  I could not help him, I could do nothing but love him.  That was the love of his life, and had been since he first set eyes on her, on a sidewalk in Florida, in a crowd of people he had never met before.

I have nothing to offer to explain the change in my father.  He was never again the man he had been before.  There was a profound change.  He carried a heavy burden of loneliness and longing.  I could see it, but not touch it.  I just know that death did not scare him at all, because he knew that he would see Joyce again.  And his Mama.

In 2013, my Granny passed.  She was the center of all of our family for 70 years.  She helped raise, or did raise almost all of Daddy's generation.  She loved them all, all their children, all their children's children and then all their children's children's children.  "Come in here and eat before you get hungry," was guaranteed to come out of her mouth when you pulled up in the driveway.  I have never met a soul like my Granny's, and I hope that some of it has transferred to my soul.  She was such a loss to all of us.  I think we all felt the rudderless feeling that the center was gone.  None of us felt that more than Daddy.  And, that pothole would jar him again and again and again.  We loved her, but none of us loved her like he did.

My father continued to care for his brother, Alvin.  But, it was different.  He had already gone through so much.  The potholes were large, numerous and got bigger.  When he fell ill in October, and the doctor's told him it was colon cancer, he was convinced that it would take him.  After the surgery, when the surgeon told him that he had gotten it all, and they were concerned about the spot on his lung, he just wanted to start the chemo for the colon cancer.  He did not consider the spot on his lung a big deal.  You see, there had been a spot of scar tissue that everyone had watched for years.  He did not understand that it was a different spot, a very different and aggressive spot.

His health declined rapidly in the month after he was released from surgery.  We took him to the hospital on Monday, because the oncologist said he was too ill to be anywhere else.  They admitted him to the ICU.  On Tuesday, they did some scans and some other things to make him more comfortable.  By Wednesday morning, the doctors told him that there was nothing else to be done.  The cancer was too aggressive.

My Daddy, my rock, said "Shit, shit, shit!  Well, make me comfortable then, cause I sure as hell aint."  It broke my heart, but made my soul roar.  He knew, but it was okay.  That was a man's answer, and he had it at the end.

Within 12 hours of that point he was gone.  He was surrounded by his family all that day.  We cried, laughed, talked, cried, laughed, talked, but, for 12 hours someone was there holding his hand in love.  When he finally slipped away, it was surrounded by love and peace.

For all the potholes, for all the amazing things, for all the turmoil, for all the happiness, my father was a blessing to us all.  I have only spoken of the ruts in the road here.  There were so many more wonderful, happy moments.  But, today I have my own potholes to deal with, and this is what I had to share.  For all of them, Daddy never stopped loving us.  I never saw any pet that did not love him more than any other human.  I never saw any baby that did not quiet in his arms.  His true nature was clear when he was holding one of his babies, and he held them all.  They loved him immediately, and completely.  My Daddy was that way.  And I got to be the second baby that he held more than any other.  If you don't think I loved him more than I can express, you miss my entire point.

I have huge potholes in my road.  But, this one, this one never gets filled.  It is raw and painful at the moment.  But, like Mama, there is too much love and good there for that to last long.  I can only feel sorry for myself, over my pain.  Daddy is happy, black hair slicked back, window rolled down on that big black Ford, arm around Mama in the center of the bench seat, burning down those rear tires till they are bald.  That will always be my image, because that was the only thing that really made my Daddy smile after 1997, in the way that only my Daddy could smile.  Talking about his Joyce and that car, those were his touchstones.

The best news, for all of us, is this.  Where he and Mama (and Pop, and Billy, and Jeffrey and Granny) are now, there are NO potholes in the road.  They left all that behind.  While we can't do that here and now, we can choose how we manage them.  Instead of whipping the wheel left and right trying to miss them, and failing, we can just do our best to fill them up, and get through.

I love you and miss you Daddy.  I don't know what to do about it.  I doubt I ever will.  But, while this is a rough old road, I know where the roads are smooth.  I hope Daddy is racing down them, winning every run.  Now, the tank never gets empty, the tires never blow, and the engine never gives up.

GLYASDI