"Dealing With Death" Submission #2

April 22, 1969... Lakewood, California

You know how when you are awakened from a deep sleep and your mind starts to rapidly process information that eventually brings you to reality? Questions like, "Where am I?" begin to flood your mind. "What day is it?" "What is going on today?" What happened last night?"

That last question: "What happened last night?" That explained why I was awakened to the sound of my sister crying as she entered my room in the early morning hours of April 22nd, 1969.

She didn't have to tell me why she was crying. I knew, Dad died. The 10 year old boy who hadn't realized the seriousness of cancer had finally figured it out. Cancer was serious. Cancer killed my dad.

After she told me, she left my room and I sat on my bed for a few minutes, processing what I had just been told. "Dad's dead. My dad is dead. Dad is really dead." I repeated these phrases in my mind as though I were trying to convince myself that it was really true. It didn't sound right. It didn't feel right. It was too final. It was too foreign. Death. For the first time in my life... I was experiencing the passing of someone close to me and I had no clue how to handle it.

Eventually, I got up and made my way down the hall. Bill was in the bathroom and as I walked through the door, he grabbed me and hugged me. I started to cry but I really wasn't sure why. I know that sounds odd, but it was true.

I felt the somberness of the moment but my mind was still in the processing mode. My dad died but what does that mean to me?  Does the world now stop for my family? I had just signed up for baseball but would I still play? When would I go back to school and will the kids know that I lost my dad? Will they treat me differently? How much would I miss him? Would I miss him at all?

Strange but honest thoughts. That's what occupied my mind. Everyone was crying and so I did too... in compliance with expectation.

I missed my dad for all the wrong reasons during the ensuing several years. Selfish reasons. I wished he hadn't died as I sat in class later that 4th grade year when my classmates all made Father's Day cards and I just doodled on my paper, hoping that no one noticed. Or like in the 6th grade when our teacher went around the class asking each student about their father's occupation. I was overwhelmed with anxiety and fear as it came to my turn. With my eyes looking down at my desk, I quietly said, "Pass."

I was selfishly embarrassed about his death. Not a very noble admission but a truthful one.

Jeana and I, 1980

I miss my father tremendously today and I think I miss him for the right reasons now. I miss him because I don't think I ever really got to know him. I grew up with some personal characteristics that I despise and that I know he would have worked to correct. He was a disciplinarian. To borrow a phrase from the late singer, Dan Fogelberg, "He earned his love through discipline, a thundering velvet hand. His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand." Of course, my older siblings might disagree with the words "velvet" and "gentle" in describing dad's disciplinary methods but my experience with him was in a totally different phase of his life than was their formative years.

I wish he could have seen me throw my one and only no-hitter, pitching in a Little League baseball game when I was 13. I would have loved to see his face in the crowd at my high school graduation. Wouldn't he have been pleased with the choice of my bride. As much as any of these, I wish he could have met my children, his grandchildren.

The Munson Family - December 2013

I miss him terribly and think about him most every day.