Memories of Father
What is your favorite memory of your father?
My father was perhaps the hardest working person I have ever met to date (besides my twin brothers). Because of his (extreme) work ethic, I rarely saw him as a child.
On Sunday mornings at church as he would give me and my brothers the evil eye if we moved a muscle.
Each and every Sunday we all(me and my little brothers and father) would load up into the cab of my father's pickup truck and drive to my grandmother's house (my father's mother).
Every single Sunday.
It was a joy, an absolute treat to go.
She lived on this huge farm with geese, pigs, cows, chickens, horses and a huge barn.
This barn was a delight to explore for new baby kittens . . . even though my grandmother drowned each and everyone that we found.
I had a mini-bike and my brothers had three-wheelers and we shared a snowmobile for the winter months. We rode horses, we tortured the geese, we collected eggs, we climbed the windmill, we explored the deserted train tracks.
And we worked as well.
In the garden harvesting every vegetable you could think off.
We chopped wood, we loaded wood, we stacked wood and we swept wood chips.
I also helped butchering chickens (my brothers were excused from this disgusting chore).
I could chop off a chicken's head, pluck it clean, cut it up perfectly and feed the feet to the cats . . . I don't think I could do it today though.
After play time or work time there was always snack time. My grandmother was very much an Eastern German woman and one had to rest and eat after playing or working.
She had the best little snack time ever.
To this day I can taste her perfectly plump blackberries with fresh cream, her delicious cheeses and meats and her water that was pumped from the well.
My father would sit at one end of the table and my grandmother at the other. Each would drink a beer and eat and chat. My brothers and I would devour whatever food was in sight and beg for ice cream.
These are the memories of my father . . . these are the rare times that I saw him as a child.
My father became ill and was diagnosed with a rare blood disease when I was a 15 and quickly deteriorated.
We no longer went to my grandmother's on Sundays. He no longer went to church with us on Sundays. In fact, he was rarely in any shape to do or see anyone.
My father died two months after I graduated from high school.
I had already moved away by that time.
I was (and still am) sad that I never got to say goodbye to him.
But I do know that he has been watching out for me all these years.
My father was very proud of me for graduating high school. I remember chatting with him once when my boyfriend was over at our house and we were discussing college. He was very sick at by this time. My father told me to leave and never come back and to stay away and do whatever it took to be successful. He told me to travel and suggested that I apply to be an airline attendant (I wish I would have listened to him on this one). This was a rare conversation that my father ever had with me and I will cherish it forever. That is my favorite memory of my father.
I stayed away and I did succeed and I love to travel.