Good Hearted Man

One

“I want to see the boys,” Dad said as he briefly awoke from his sleep.

“They’re all on the way.  They should all be here by tomorrow morning,” I said, getting up from my chair next to Dad’s bed, taking his hand and squeezing it lightly.

Dad smiled faintly, nodded approvingly, and then closed his eyes again to drift off to sleep once more.

“Too many years of breathing coal dust,” Dr. White had told me the day before.  “He doesn’t have long to live.  Maybe a week or two.” 

Dad is sleeping most of the time now.  The doctor said the medication would make him do that.  He doesn’t stir when the nurses come in to check on him, and the sudden noises that one hears in a hospital don’t rouse him at all. 

The only other time I have seen him open his eyes during the last twelve hours was when an unknown, unseen, small boy was walking down the hall outside Dad’s room and called out for his father, “ Daddy.”  Dad immediately opened his eyes and answered, “I’m here, son.”  I wasn’t surprised, and I got a lump in my throat as I realized the significance of it all.  It was a conditioned response to a lifetime of raising sons.  No matter what had happened in his boys’ lives, Dad had always been there for us.  We could always count on him.

I drove up from Knoxville just as soon as I learned that Dad was back in the hospital.  My brothers are scattered all over the country, but they are all coming.  I’ve been here for twenty-four hours now.  I told Mother to go home and get some rest.  She was worn out.  She said she’d go home to take a bath and change her clothes, and then she’d come back.  I told her to get some sleep.  She’s been gone for four hours now, and I’m hoping she went to bed, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her walk in the door at any minute. 

Sleeping in the chair next to Dad’s bed had proved to be impossible.  Fatigue was really starting to set in now, and I sat down again, and tried once more to sleep.  I closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the chair.   

My mind wandered back to a time when this gray, frail, elderly man was young and strong.  He was full of life, and his laughter filled our house.  I remembered how he effortlessly picked me up and lovingly held me in his arms.  It was the time when our relationship was the closest it would ever be.  He was my dad, and he could do no wrong; I worshipped him.  He was my hero.

My earliest memories of Dad were watching him walk home each day after working in the mines.  He’d be carrying his lunch pail, and he’d still be wearing his miner’s hardhat with a light attached at the top.  The mine had a shower and changing room where all the miners cleaned up before they came home, but Dad always had a line of coal dust around his eyes where he had closed them while he was washing his face.  It looked like he had on mascara or something.  Momma always cleaned that off for him when he got home.

                It was usually just my younger brother Allen and me standing in our front yard watching for Dad to come home.  When we finally saw him, we’d run down the dirt road and then walk the rest of the way home with him.  He’d carry us for a while, and then he’d set us down and hand us his lunch pail.  Allen and I took daily turns looking in his pail to see if some of his dessert was left.  There always was, and Dad would make us share it with each other.  I suspect Momma always put something extra in there, so Dad would have something to give us when he got home.  For some reason, Momma’s cakes and cookies always tasted better after they had been in Dad’s lunch pail all day.