There were only two times that I can recall seeing my father drinking hard liquor.The first was in June of 1978,before I started twelfth grade.He was very drunk then,and he told me a story.However,I do not have a great deal to say about that just now.The second time was about a year later,and I'm slightly less informed as to what might have caused this.It was a hard time I believe,with myself just leaving the home,a sister a year younger,and my younger sister nearly ten years younger than me.My father was a long way from finished when it came to parenting.There was a lot of talk of layoffs and closing government facilities,including the one where my father worked.My father I'm sure was a homebody who did not want to be uprooted in the final years of his working career.His own father had just passed a year or so before and his mother was in declining health.Moving must have seemed an unbearable burden to him.He always wanted to be close to Springhill and close to my mothers family as well,and would likely have viewed any inability to stay in Moncton as a sort of failure.And as much as he supported my move-it was the thing to do in those days-I'm not sure he understood it fully.I think he expected it to perhaps be temporary.1979 must have been a very stressful time for my father.
When the strokes began I'm not certain.I'm inclined to think it may have been as far back as the mid 1970's.Once my father showed us that while his right hand was flowing with blood and warm,his left hand was ice cold and white.I don't recall that anything ever came of that,but at the time it seemed spooky.It seemed much spookier recalling it later.
Certainly by the time my parents visited Alberta in 1981,my father was not nearly as hardy as he was when I'd last seen him.We met in Edmonton and planned to drive down to Mt.St.Helens in Washington state.It was a wonderful vacation,the last together as a family,though not all of us were there.My father seemed sickly though and couldn't or didn't want to drive the car.So my mother and I drove along highway 90,where it was 107 degrees in Moses Lake,and my father was curled up in the back seat of the car.Visions of the crossing into California from the "Grapes Of Wrath"came to my mind,and I think that it was then I realized that my father was truly not well.He sipped on a lot of beer during the trip,to the point where he was quite jolly and not just a little bit silly.We were unable to get to Mt.St.Helen's because it was still closed,but we spent the most of a whole day at Mount.Ranier,and my father seemed pleased to point out the size of the trees in the park.He was I think reliving his visit to British Columbia,which he was quite taken with.
The silliness of beer overtook him on the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria and he met this girl who was crossing on a bicycle to make a trip around Vancouver Island.He introduced me to her,tried to set me up in fact,but I was not really interested.Once off the boat we set up camp and sat around our campfire until early morning.My father asked me,very pointedly if I did not find the girl on the boat attractive,to which I explained that I was not interested.At that point,he,again drinking beer,asked if I were a homosexual.He need not have worried.I had more than one lady friend in my life at that point,though I'm not certain any of them were a serious interested.I explained that I did not want to be married,but my father said that was nonsense,he expected me to find a suitable wife.Unknown to either of us,that would be accomplished in less than a year.For a long time I was offended about being asked if I was a homosexual,but with time I came to realize my father asked it out of worry and concern.
We visited my fathers cousin in Port Alberni and it was a good thing as she was to pass away a short time later.We had a picnic by a wonderful waterfall and when we left for Vancouver my father seemed reinvigorated and happy.The trip seemed to end much better than it began.
It was to be nearly two years until I was to see my family again and by that time I had a wife and a son on the way.My father had seemed to lose ground again,though he was still working ans it must have been some time before he had his stroke.Still he did not seem at all well.He took to Susan well and accepted her as a daughter and was truly happy to know that a grandchild was on the way.In all ways that I can recall it was a happy visit and Matthew was born in October of 1983.
As far as being a grandfather was concerned,my father took an active role,though his health was declining.We saw my parents nearly every year through the 1980's and every year my father seemed worse off.In 1987,in Ottawa,the weekend of the tornado in Edmonton,he seemed convinced his time was not long,and talked to me about his will.I didn't perceive it as an especially urgent matter and this seemed to annoy my father as he tried to tell me what he wanted done at his passing.By this time he was not doing any of the driving,my mother was taking a greater and greater role in running the household,and in my fathers care too.He had had at least two strokes by this time.A year later,we met in Ottawa again and drove back to Moncton.It was a hot summer and the trip seemed to drain my father to the point where he was tired and sick for the remainder of our visit.
My youngest sister moved west and in 1990 was ready to give birth to my fathers second grandchild.My parents came to visit and stayed at my place in Edmonton.Zachary was born on September 11 and they all went back to New Brunswick by car shortly after.My father looked frail and as weak and tired as I had ever seen him.
A year later,Susan and I separated and later divorced,and I believe my father had a hard time with the idea of divorce.Still he supported me in going back to school,even financially for a while.He seemed proud when I graduated,though whenever he called he must have been under the influence of powerful medication,for he became harder and harder to understand.Tracking a phone conversation with him was very difficult by 1995.What was transpiring was a continued series of strokes that was to last for the remainder of his life.
By 2000,I'd moved to Calgary,and it must have been a year or two later that my mother and father set out by train to visit me.I was looking forward to the visit,and called on the night they were to have arrived only to find that they had cancelled their reservation.It turned out that my father had had some sort of an attack on the train in Toronto,and they'd turned back.After that he became quite sick,so that he'd not even talk on the phone.I was not to see him again until 2006,after the car wreck that took my mothers life,and left my father severely injured and without his wife and caregiver.So unnecessary,I thought,and still do.He seemed so small and frail and I knew that this was a thing he would never really come back from.I could not be certain what it was he knew then.He had a hard time tracking conversations and didn't seem to grasp,at least not all the time,that my mother was gone.I heard him from time to time call out her name.At other times I didn't think he recognized me,at least for a few short moments.It was such a tragedy and I thought,no matter how good or bad he had been,he deserved better than where his life had left him.He had deserved something more merciful.
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