Again, this is a long post. This is my last post about my dad. I've had to take time writing this as it's hard for me to do so. I am ready to be done writing about this subject and back to a little bit more happy times.
The week my dad died was hectic. He passed away on
Monday, October 15th and that evening we were at the funeral home making arrangements before I went to a concert.
Tuesday was left to put together photo boards, get some pictures printed and in general, continue to grieve.
Wednesday, October 17th was the day my dad was cremated and it was also the day of my dad's visitation and memorial service. The obituary was in the paper that same day.
We had the visitation between 4-8 pm with the memorial service at 7 pm. There were photo boards all around as well as a video tribute featuring some photos of my dad with his two favorite songs playing; Layla (the electric long version) by Derek and the Dominos (Eric Clapton was the singer) and Ramblin' Man by The Allman Brothers.
There was a good turnout. I am grateful for everyone that came, but I'm especially thankful for all my friends that showed up. Multiple people from work, my oldest and dearest friends, the entire Alphabet Gang and everyone else in between. By the time the memorial service was about to take place, they added more chairs and there were still people standing in the back. The celebrant spoke a little about my dad and then read an excerpt of a poem written by Bessie Anderson Stanley as follows:
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;Who has the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;Who has left the world better than he found it...
Then it was my turn to speak. I committed to speaking on Monday. I wanted to do it. I had to do it. I was nervous. I was scared. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep it together. I nailed it. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but everything went smoothly and perfectly. I had people laughing and crying. I do remember being up there, I do remember making eye contact with a lot of you and I do remember speaking slowly. I am SO THANKFUL I did it. I thank the many that came up to me afterwards and said so many kind words to me. I know I made my dad proud. Here is the eulogy:
My dad, more than anything else in my eyes, was a family
man. My mom, sister and me were always
his number one. We always loved spending
time together as a family whether it was for our birthdays, holidays or for a
summer BBQ on someone’s deck or patio.
Both my sister and I loved hanging out with our dad, especially in the
last 7 years. Keith was not only just
our dad but he was our friend as well and we could talk to him about anything
we wanted. He’s the one who called me Spud just like his
dad called him. He’s the one who let me
have a rock band play in our basement for my 15th birthday. He’s the one my friends always thought was
cute when we were younger.
He was so proud of his daughters. We are both very successful in his eyes and
always would be no matter what we did.
He was very proud of me graduating college and always complimenting me
on feedback that I’ve received from my employers about my work
performance. He would tell both my
sister and I and anyone else who was there to listen about how beautiful we are
and how proud he is of us. We would just
say, "Dad, you say that because you’ve been drinking." Ok, so it was after a few beers that he told
us this but he believed it and we knew he believed it.
You didn’t have to know my dad very long to know he has a
sense of humor. It’s a goofy sense of
humor but I think we all loved it. Ever
since I was a little kid, he always told us he went to the Las Vegas School of
Comedy. Even as a kid I knew he was
joking but even if it had been true, I think he should have demanded his money
back. I remember plenty of times when he
would make a joke to us family and we would look at him and say, “Oh, Dad”
because the joke was so corny and he would laugh so hard at himself and for so
long and that made us start to crack up.
Most often on the phone with my dad, we would be having a
normal conversation and then somehow our conversation would turn into some
fictional discussion. I can’t even give
a good example of how the dialogue would have been but we would get off on some
tangent and be discussing something that isn’t real but with very real
details. He did this with my sister too
and it was fun to us to play along for a few minutes before we kind of just hit
a dead end and then we would just laugh and quit.
My dad has loved weather for as long as I can remember. He loved a good thunderstorm and the threat
of severe weather. I’ve adopted this
from him as well. In this day in age,
it’s so easy to get the weather from TV, online or most conveniently on my
phone but when a storm was coming, either rain or snow, I would call my dad and
ask him what was going on. He was my
personal meteorologist. I preferred to
talk to him and have him tell me what’s going on than any other media
outlet. I enjoyed doing this and I think
he did as well, while my mom worried in the background about us getting struck
by lightning through the phone. J Dad, thanks for teaching me about high
pressure and what the sky looks like at that time, what a shelf cloud looks
like, barometric pressure and despite the weather warnings, thanks for letting
us hang out outside or in the garage while the severe weather rolled in and
especially the time when we had cloud rotation right above us. He would have never put us in danger and he
knew the limits.
I have special memories of my dad and watching the Twins on
TV with him and watching the Vikings with the whole family. I also remember watching Timberwolves games with him during their
inaugural season. He supported me
through my softball years as well. I
played for 8 years when I was younger and he went to almost all of my games and
I remember how excited he was when I completed a double play by myself when I
was 15 or 16 years old.
I remember one time when my dad wasn’t very happy with
me. My parents always sat at the kitchen
counter to drink coffee and read the paper.
One Saturday morning, my 15 year old self came down the stairs and my
dad turned to say good morning, looked at me and in the most disgusted voice
said, “Oh my god. “ This was the
reaction I received when I had just dyed my hair jet black. Ok, I didn’t realize my hair would be THAT
black, but he hated it and made me ride my bike a couple of miles to the
pharmacy to buy another kit to try and fix it.
I hated having to ride my bike up to the pharmacy and especially since
as soon as I left the pharmacy, I saw my dad, mom and sister in the car up
there. He told me to get in and I was so
mad at him and stubborn that I said no.
They drove off and I cried all the way home. We found out quickly that unless you actually
get your hair professionally stripped of color, a kit on top of it would not
fix it so we just had to deal with the black hair until it all grew out.
We didn’t have much extra money when we were growing up so
any vacations we took as a family were in-state and always to the North
Shore. We went to the north shore every
year, sometimes multiple times a year and while we never were able to afford to
go to Disneyworld, I am so extremely grateful of the appreciation I have for
nature and the hikes and rivers we went through, the trails we drove through, the
beauty of Lake Superior and everything else that goes along with northeastern
Minnesota.
In his last weeks of life, I was very lucky to have been
able to spend a lot of time with him, whether it was just hanging by his side
and talking, giving him medication or transferring him from his wheelchair to
his hospital bed. One of my favorite times
with him during this time was getting him into his wheelchair and taking him
for a walk around the parking lot of the townhouse complex. He didn’t always feel like going outside
because it was a lot of work but I pushed him a bit to do so. Once outside, he
was very glad to be out there. I would
park him in the sun and just tell him to close his eyes and feel the warm sun
on his face. At night, we would just
roll around and stop at the picnic pavilion to just sit and talk. One of these nights, my boyfriend Michael was
with us. I told my dad that I was sad
that he wouldn’t be able to walk me down the aisle someday, while trying to
hold back tears. He said so quickly,
“You know that even though I won’t be there, you KNOW I’ll still be
there.”
One of the questions Michael asked my dad was, “What was
your favorite job?” His answer was his
current employer, Minnesota Children’s Museum because he said the people there
are just so nice. We know that to be
true and evident based on all the love we’ve received from them and how much my
dad means to them. So a special thanks
to Minnesota Children’s Museum for making my dad happy and loved.
I saw all the love that everyone had for my dad at the
benefit. He’s made a big impact on a lot
of us and while he’s gone physically, we still have his legacy within us.
My dad never wavered on his thoughts and opinions and he was
very much a person who didn’t try to impress anyone and he would say, “I am who
I am.” If anything, he would go out of
his way and make a fool out of himself just to try and get you to laugh.
So many of us have appreciated my dad over the years. Whether he worked on your car for you, did
your taxes or built you a deck, he loved to help all of us out.
Dad, you were everything to me and still are. You’ve left your imprint on my life and soul
and my memories of you will always be cherished.
I’ll close with this;
My dad gave me four life lessons a kid under 10 and before I became of
driving age that I have remembered forever and always will;
·
Don’t lie
·
Don’t smoke
·
No one is ugly
·
Always give a firm handshake
Dad, I know you’re proud of me and I am more proud of
you. Here’s a big firm handshake to
you.
Thursday, October 18th was the day we buried my dad. It was a private interment at Union Cemetery in Maplewood with just family. His cremains were buried and my brother in law Tom spoke and conducted the memorial there. It was kind of chilly and rainy and the weather added to the already somber ambiance. I absolutely love the part of the cemetery he's in. This cemetery is beautiful and I think he's in the best area. I have visited this little corner often as my grandparents are both buried a row away from my dad.
Afterwards, it was my mom, my sister and her family, Michael and myself that went back to my mom's house for lunch. We ate a wonderful lunch made by my aunt Terri and hung out for a couple of hours. One of the saddest things happened while were there. My 2 year old nephew Colton ran into my parent's bedroom and yelled, "Grandpa! Grandpa!" The last time Colton saw his grandpa was the Wednesday of the prior week while he was bed-bound so he was running in there to say hi to him. He just walked out when he didn't see him there and it broke my heart so much and it still brings me to tears now.
Friday was the day my mom, sister (little Keith too) and I went and picked out a headstone for my dad. We wanted to do this as soon as possible as we hoped to order it and have it possibly put into the ground before the ground froze. We were lucky as it didn't take long before the cemetery received it and it was put in the same day. My mom and I went to see it on Friday, November 9th, days after it was installed. There was a lot of dirt in the crevasses but I'm sure with the rain we received the next day, it's clean now.
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After picking out the headstone, we went to my dad's work to pick up the items he had there. Both my mom, sister and nephew had seen my dad's office before, but I hadn't. I envisioned something a little different as it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be but that was his place. My dad worked at the Children's Museum so we got to take a small tour down where they build the exhibits and we got to talk to a handful of his coworkers. They gave us passes to go tour the museum but it was so busy since it was MEA weekend that we just stayed for a little bit before heading to Tin Cups for lunch.
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| Outside his office door |
It feels really good to get this post written. It's therapy and now I can move on a bit. If you stayed through this whole post, thank you. If you didn't, I don't blame you as it was so long but if you didn't finish, you won't be reading this sentence anyways.
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