I've been thinking about this post for a while now and am finally going to get it down on paper (so to speak). I actually had it drafted for quite some time but never could hit that "Post" button. One thing that made me want to get if off my mind was a song I heard the other day. I don't remember the words exactly, but the gist of it was that if heaven weren't so far away we could pack up the kids and go visit our loved ones. The other thing that got me started was a facebook post by my sister that pretty much echoed my thoughts exactly. She said, "Big Dad would be so proud." I intended to post pictures along with this, but they hurt too much. Maybe later. There are a lot of difficult memories here, so reader beware.
For those of you who don't know, "Big Dad" is what Allen, my nephew (and the first grandbaby), called my dad. It is the same thing that my dad called his grandpa when he was alive and he wanted to carry on that tradition with his own grandkids. Allen loved his Big Dad, especially sitting together in the recliner reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear. One of my favorite, albiet sad, memories is when soon after dad died Allen walked into the living room carrying his Brown Bear book and asked where was Big Dad (he was just turning 2 years old). When they explained to him that Big Dad went to heaven and so couldn't read the book to him right now, he kind of seemed to shrug to himself and said, "I'll wait."
Clifford Gordon Bryan, aka Dad, was born on August 11, 1949 and died on July 28, 2005 from an aggressive lung cancer that spread over most of his body, but most importantly to his brain. I remember that April day I was sitting in a parking lot in Houston just after taking the Financial Reporting section of the CPA exam. I called home to tell my parents (okay, lets be honest, to tell Mom) how the exam went and Dad answered the phone and told me about a "shadow" they found on his lungs. He had been sick since January with what they thought was a cold and cough that wouldn't go away and they finally took a chest x-ray. Dad told me not to be afraid of "the word," and I honestly wasn't sure what he was talking about at first. Then he said it...cancer. They started treatment immediately but it was really already too late. He had his first stroke in June (the radiation therapy made the tumors in his head swell and push against his brain) not long after we got back from Kimberley and Kevin's wedding. That first one wasn't too bad; he was still able to talk a little and walk around although his sense of the passage of time was impaired. I was driving back and forth from College Station where I still lived every week or so to help mom who still needed to be at work most days. It was July 4th weekend and Jimmy and I were at the Pizza Hut on Dairy Ashford in west Houston when mom called to tell me that dad had another, much worse, stroke.
Once it became clear that Dad wasn't going to recover from the effects of the stroke, mom and I went to the cemetary and made arrangements for the day that we knew was coming all too soon. He was eventually discharged to the house and received hospice care, which was a huge blessing. I stayed for as long as I could (emotionally) then returned to College Station knowing it was the last time I would see my daddy alive. That was a hard and horrible decision for a child to make, and I still carry around the guilt of abandoning my mom at a time when she needed the emotional support of her daughter the most.
Dad lived for 15 days after I left. Every night I prayed that his pain would end soon, which is the hardest prayer to pray. Mom called me the morning of July 28th, 14 days before dad's 56th birthday, and said he went in the night with her signing hymns to him. I was just happy that it was over.
Dad wasn't the most amazing father and wouldn't have won any husband of the year awards. For most of my childhood he travelled extensively and didn't get to spend much time at home. He travelled so much that he had an apartment in Laredo and I actually asked my mom once, "When is daddy coming to visit." He was impatient, grumpy-pants, stubborn (basically, a Bryan) and he drank and smoked too much. But for all he was gone he was there when it counted. He did birthdays and ballet recitals, girl scout father-daughter events, baseball and boyscouts with Cantrell and the rare family vacation. He loved my mom and loved his kids. He told us he was proud of us and that he loved us on a regular basis. I never had to wonder. Like his father before him, he had a special soft spot for his grandson and I know he would have spoiled his other grandkids the same if he had the chance.
I deeply regret that Nathan won't have the opportunity to grow up with a Big Dad that can take him fishing and hunting and read him Brown Bear or the Sunday paper and make him ice cream with fresh peaches and tell him stories about horses that eat peanut butter sandwiches. I instantly tear up when I realize that Nathan won't have someone to make mud pies or opossum sandwiches (two flat coasters stacked together...we grew up in the country) for. He won't ever hear the lyrics to Big Chief Buffalo Nickel. All the things I loved about my Papa (his dad) I know my children would have loved about him.
We were very fortunate that Dad was able to see and do certain things before the cancer completely took over. He saw Kelley graduate high school, loved his first grandbaby, saw me graduate from Texas A&M, walked Kimberley down the aisle, and gave Jimmy his permission to marry me. But he missed so much since then...
-Jimmy graduating from A&M
-Kimberley and Kevin moving back to Texas from Arizona
-Kimberley's first baby, Breydon, and now second, Chance
-My wedding (I still cry at father-daughter dances)
-Kelley's wedding
-Birth of his first granddaugher, Tyley
-Nathan's birth
-Cantrell's accomplishments in high school
-Cantrell graduating from high school and starting college at A&M
-My promotions and successes at work
-Allen's first BB gun.....
.....Big Dad would have been so proud of us. I miss you, Daddy.
[As a side note (soap-box moment), this didn't have had to happen. Two parents, one wife, four children and five grandchildren should not have lost their son/husband/father/Big Dad when he was only 55 years old. If you are a smoker (and there is no doubt that 40 years of smoking did this) please quit. It's a selfish habit. Your family should never have to go through what mine did...there is always time to stop. Think of everything you'll miss.]
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