My Daddy. It is hard to believe that the man who seemed like he had nine lives is really gone. Anyone who has lost a parent knows that heartbreak. I am thinking of him so often this month, as I garden, set up my camper and do other “summer things” we always talked together about, with my first Father’s Day without him.
When I became the Suburban Farmgirl Blogger in 2010, I remember reading the previous Suburban Farmgirl, Paula Spencer’s post titled, “What A Dad I Had”. I remember thinking how hard for her that must have been to write, and thinking “How sad to lose a parent. I hope I never have the need to write a post like that.“ But, here I am. No matter how elderly or sick, I think in the back of our minds, there is that piece inside even adult children where we think our parents will always be here. When they leave us, no matter how prepared we are, it is a gut punch that you can’t explain unless you experience it. I lost my dad last fall.
Growing up, I was “Daddy’s Girl”. I was his sidekick on Saturday errands to the local hardware store, and I cherish those rare Saturdays where Mama was out for the day, and it was just Daddy and me. Daddy was an avid reader, and books were treated as treasures. I still remember the perfect Saturday, right before Christmas, with lunch out and a trip to the neighborhood “used” book store, where he introduced me to Nancy Drew. I still have that first worn book from the 1940’s.
I am a true-blue “Farmgirl” because of my dad. I learned so much from him. My love for the outdoors was inherited from my dad, who was passionate about it. Some of our last conversations last summer were about wildlife, and the bears that have been seen so frequently not only here in Connecticut but also now in Texas.
Though he was born in, and lived his entire life, in the big city of Houston, he loved nature more than anything. From the time I could walk, I remember taking walks with Dad, especially in the hill country, the property he owned for fifty years, Quail Run Ranch, that we always affectionately called “The Farm”. We spent countless hours driving the property on an old 1950’s tractor, with me on his knee.
As a child, during the summer at the ranch, Daddy taught me about plants and insects, and we would study all the many butterflies we’d see in the summer.
When Audrey was little, he sent her the Butterflies of North America book, and took her to the butterfly conservatory, a day we both still remember.
When my dad was a young man, he was insanely handsome. I always thought he looked like a movie star. Daddy could be so charming, with a gift for gab. No matter where he was, he could talk to anyone, and knew how to make a stranger a friend in just a matter of minutes. My dad could also be a prankster! In middle school, he rode a motorcycle through the halls! In high school, he would ride a horse standing up and flip off of the back of it, like a trick rider. He drove his first car, a convertible hot-rod, at twelve years old, a gift from the Pro Golfer, Jimmy Demaret who lived across the street, who wanted my dad to drive the famous golfer’s mother to her errands.
He was going to be an architect, but found he had a gift for sales. As a young man, he worked at the upscale men’s clothing store in Bellaire (a part of Houston, Texas). During that time, he was voted ”Mr. Bellaire” for his dashing good looks.
For much of his career, Daddy was a traveling salesman. When the “red phone” in the home office rang at night, I knew it was my dad, calling to check in. Sometimes he was in New York City or at the Dallas Trade Mart. If he was on a particularly long trip, he would always bring me home a “surprise”. You never knew what treasure or trinket Daddy would bring home, a momento to let me know he was thinking of me when he was away. The best part, however, was when he would pull up in front of the house, and I would run out the door, and jump in his arms. He was a polished salesman, hair always neatly combed back with his little pocket brush that he never went without. Daddy always smelled so good – a mix of soap and cologne. How I wish I could hug him again, and breathe in that cologne.
For many years, he worked in the wholesale hosiery business for brands such as Hanes and L’eggs, and would always joke that he was an “undercover agent”. During the sock and leg warmer craze of the 80’s, I thought he was the coolest dad ever, because I got the latest trends before any of the other kids at school could.
Long before “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” was a “thing”, on a few occasions in the 80’s, when Daddy was working locally, he took me with him to visit clients. Later, when he worked locally in an office for a wholesale company, he would take me with him during the inventory days, and I would spend the day helping count the inventory – to me it was so fun, and I was so proud to get to go with him. I learned how to really talk to people from my dad.
Daddy was the most creative person I have ever known. Before Pinterest, decades before influencers”, there was my Dad. He could look at something and see something else – an original repurposer. He could build anything, perfectly, beautifully, and often without any plans. He loved to make signs, and would do so with the most beautiful free-hand script. He could, and did, build an entire house. He taught me how to make rock fences and borders in the garden, and to use what you have to make things beautiful. When we bought our house here in Connecticut, Daddy helped build our storage shed, and the baby gates that we use to this day for the pups.
He always loved to help clear brush, and some of the plantings in my garden beds are from my dad. He loved seeing the wildlife in the area, especially our sightings of his favorite animal, the white-tailed deer.
My attention to detail came from my dad. Daddy was incredibly artistic and creative, with an exceptional attention to detail in anything he did. As a child, Daddy made the holidays magical. The best Christmas present I ever got as a child was the amazing dollhouse he spent weeks building in his backyard workshop. It was beautiful and perfect and detailed. He even had porch lights by the front door, which were his repurposed cufflinks.
Daddy could wrap presents with such perfection, they looked like movie props. He was very creative that way. He also made sure I believed in Santa, with ho-ho-hos and ringing bells outside as I was going to bed, even climbing on top of the roof. One year, my dad cast a shadow with a red light in the shape of Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer across the ceiling of my room. It was fantastic, and to this day, I still don’t know how he did it.
I also inherited his love of cooking. My dad was an incredible cook! His dinners were the best! He could smoke and bar-be-que meat like no one else! When he made breakfast, it wasn’t just a plate of eggs, it was a symphony of deliciousness, with all sorts of goodies chopped up into those eggs with the precision of a skilled chef. I have dozens of recipes Daddy sent me, and my favorite cookbooks are the ones he sent, with little messages written in the front covers.
Dad would always send Christmas cards, and his handwriting was always such a beautiful script. Up until his hands stopped working properly, Daddy always drew little cartoons on notes. I still have several notes where he wrote he was “thinking of me” with little cartoons, and a chalkboard in our kitchen still has a cartoon of Audrey he drew when she was two.
Each time he visited, he laughed that it was still there, and it became a little “joke”. Over 21 years later, it still exists, and I can’t imagine erasing it now. Until the day he went to the nursing home, Daddy always mailed me articles out of magazines he thought I’d be interested in, and he was so proud of my own writing. He was thrilled when he was a part of my blog, and when I wrote about his mom and shared her recipe, he was brought to tears. He never was one to really lavish praise on his kids, so to hear when he was proud meant a lot.
Daddy was also an amazing gardener. From the time I was a small child, Daddy taught me about gardening. I think my dad could grow anything. We had a big backyard garden when I was a child. In the early 70’s, we planted baby trees together in the hill country, that last I heard were still there and as tall as skyscrapers. We always talked of gardening and houseplants, and farmer’s markets. It was in honor of my dad that I became a Master Gardener, something he always had wanted to do, but never got around to. I think he could have taught them a thing or two. He was my first gardening teacher and I learned how to grow the best and biggest tomatoes from Daddy. Later in life, he kept beautiful roses on the side of his house, and a mixed flower bed that was spectacular. He was especially proud of his shrimp plants. He and Karen also volunteered together at a victory garden, where Dad built beautiful raised beds. He had a knack for making his surroundings inside and out beautiful.
Like many men of his time, he could be stubborn and set in his ways, but there was also a soft side that I don’t think many knew about. Before the internet and constant “sharing”, before there was a constant flow of insincere “notice me” philanthropy that exists today, my Daddy would do things just to be kind.
In the early 1970’s, my mom, dad and I were on a trip to San Antonio. We had stopped for lunch at a busy fast food restaurant in the tourist district. Everyone was in line to order, when all of a sudden the line parted into two sides and the room became quiet. All eyes were disapprovingly staring at the man in the middle. He was homeless. You didn’t see many homeless people in Texas back then, especially in that area, and I had never seen anyone like that before in my young life. Everything about him seemed “gray” – his dirty clothes, his wild, untamed hair, his overgrown beard. There this man stood, a few clinking coins in his dirt-caked hands, looking at the menu, then nervously looking at the money in his hand, trying to decide if he could afford anything to eat. No one in the crowded counter area spoke to him, just stared at him. Without any hesitation, my father stepped forward, touched the man on the shoulder like he was an old friend, and slipped a $20 bill in the man’s hand, a lot of money back then. “Get yourself something good to eat”, was all Dad said. In the early 80’s, Daddy once helped a family we knew that had three kids, when the father had suddenly been laid off. And long before internet campaigns, for as long as I can remember, my dad always would give blood. He didn’t speak publicly about it, he just quietly went and did it.
When my dad and mom divorced, I was a teenager. It was awful! Being a teenage girl can put a strain on any father-daughter relationship, but a difficult divorce added to the mix makes it worse. My teenage heart was so disappointed when my favorite band at the time, A-Ha, was in town all the way from Norway, playing a concert in Houston. I could not get tickets for the sold-out show. I don’t know how he did it, but my Dad not only got tickets for me and a friend, but he got us front row, stage-front tickets. I know he must have spent a fortune on those tickets. I can still see my dad, sitting stuffed in the venue chair, loud 80’s pop music blaring, his ears stuffed with earplugs, while hundreds of screaming teenage girls jumped around the stage. I can still see the uncomfortable look mixed with sheer horror that my dad had on his face, and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized how much going to that concert back then meant to me, or how horrifyingly uncomfortable it was for him.
Growing up, I also adored Princess Diana. When my daughter was a baby, I went home to Houston for a visit. Daddy surprised me with two tickets for us to go to the Princess Diana exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural History. Diana’s clothes, including her wedding dress and some personal effects, were on tour. This wasn’t something my dad was interested in, but he knew it was something I would love.
Dad’s favorite movies were westerns, especially those starring John Wayne. He was incredibly artistic. He had a passion for collecting all sorts of things. He also loved his little dogs and his cats, and had a special connection to our little chihuahua, Pip.
Dad could give good advice. If he didn’t know what to say, or something was just not “fixable”, he would comfortingly say, “It is what it is”, or “It’s just one of those things…” He also had funny little sayings like, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”! I will miss his stories, as he was a natural-born storyteller. The last time I talked to him on the phone, he’d had a great day, sounding like a little kid when he told me, “Can you believe I played BINGO today for the first time? And I WON!”
My daddy’s last words to me on the phone were “I love you”.
Though he loved seeing New England, and thought it and our home here were beautiful, Daddy never quite “got over” that I moved out of Texas. He would always suggest we move back. He often worried that we were all alone. Back home, Daddy did not have a service or memorial. My dear friend, Susan, felt that we should have a “Celebration of Life”. I wasn’t sure who would show up, since Susan was my only friend here who ever got to meet my dad. My Daddy’s last lesson to me came when Susan’s house was filled with dear friends, all gathered to celebrate my dad and the life of a man they never met! I hope he was watching, and could see all the wonderful people with us that day, and know we are not alone. None of us ever are, really. I hope my daddy is somewhere beautiful, whole and mobile again, riding the wind like the wild-white tailed deer he adored. Daddy, I miss you so. I love you, always.~Nicole
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