Dad died when I was less than six years old. Let me tell you what I remember about that time.
Daddy was in and out of the hospital a lot for that last year of his life. There was a brain tumor growing in his head. One of the times in the hospital, the doctors cut Dad's head open and tried to remove all of the tumor.
I can remember some of the time in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Hallways stretched for a long way. The halls were very wide and most were painted a bright white. If you talked loud or made any noise, the sound echoed. When you are little it is hard not to make an echo. Especially if you are wearing new shoes with hard leather soles. It sounds so funny. Mom shushed me a lot.
The halls were divided into different parts with several very wide swinging doors that came from each wall. They met in the middle. Sometimes the doors would bump each other and make a loud echoing noise. Some went from floor to ceiling. Other doors had a space underneath and on top. I liked to crawl under these doors, but the hospital people did not like it when I crawled under. You'd think they had forgotten how it was to be little. The hospital had a funny smell too.
When he came home for the last time, Dad had stitches all over on his head. This was because they tried to remove the tumor. There were several big dents from where they drilled holes to put in the saw. Later those dents changed into bumps. The doctors could not get the entire tumor and it started to grow again. It was pushing Dad's brain out through those holes.
One day I woke up at Grandpa and Grandma Mathison's house. This had happened several times before. When Dad was feeling really sick someone would take me to stay with my grandparents. Usually, when this happened, I ran across the road to play with my cousin Arden. This time Grandma made me stay at their house. Arden could not come over to play either. We just sat in the living room.
I knew it was best to sit still and not make noise. Sometimes little kids just know these things. Then the phone on the wall rang my grandparent's signal. On party lines in the country, everyone had a bunch of long and short rings that meant the call was for them and not someone else on the line.
If you listened to someone else's phone call it was called rubbernecking, because it was like you had a rubber neck that stretched into other people's business. I think a lot of people rubbernecked on that call.
Grandma answered with, "Yellow." She meant to say hello, but it always came out sounding like the color yellow. Grandma listened without talking. Her face was really sad. At last she said, "Thank you" and hung up. She turned to Grandpa and said, "He's gone."
Grandpa said, "God Damn it." Grandma did not scold him for cussing. She went into the kitchen. Grandpa went into the downstairs bedroom. I think they both cried.
I just stayed in the living room. Soon Uncle James and Aunt Mabel came across the road from their farm. Arden came too and we went outside to play.
That phone call was to tell them that Daddy died. On the day of the funeral I was all dressed up in my little Sunday suit. I did not understand about funerals and some things were confusing.
The minister talked about someone going somewhere before us to prepare a place and that in God's house there are many rooms. This, along with other bits and pieces of things people said, created a confusing picture for me. I thought they meant that Dad was fixing up a nice room for all of us to live in. The house we lived in was just fine by me. If someone complained about our house, it sure wasn't me.
The cemetery was off to the side, just before the Harvey Hill. We didn't go to the cemetery as the ground was frozen in February. I thought that somehow Dad was going to build us a room out of branches at the top of the Harvey Hill. Sort of like a big bird's nest. That sounded like it would be cold, so maybe he would fill it with rabbit fur in the winter. I think that came from the rhyme about rabbit skin and bunting. Dad was a hunter so I knew he could get lots of rabbits.
Looking back I sure wish someone would've taken the time to try to find out what I understood about what was happening. But I guess everyone was afraid to upset the little kid. Probably figured that I didn't know what was going on. I may have been confused about rooms and rabbits and bunting, but I knew Dad wasn't coming back. Not ever.
Mom and I sat in the very front row with all four of my grandparents. My sister Joan wasn't born yet, so she came inside Mom's stomach. All of our uncles and aunts from both sides of our family were there. Except for Uncle Allan, Uncle Casey, Uncle Frank and Uncle Manford. They were all overseas fighting World War II. Aunt Deloris wasn't even my aunt then and besides she was in a defense plant in California helping to win the war that way. Manford wasn't my uncle yet either. The church was very crowded and some people stood on the steps or went into the basement. Everybody knew Dad.
Whenever I go to Walhalla and pass by that Church building, I think of Dad. I wonder how things might have been.
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