kingrat

I meant to post the eulogy I said at Gramps’ funeral last year, but didn’t get around to it. Posting now as a method of archiving it so I can toss the paper copy. I kept it short because I knew I was going to be unable to hold in the waterworks. As it was, this still took me nearly 5 minutes to say.

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My hero died on Wednesday. Since I was little, Gramps has been the man I want to be. Many people are known because the do something very well. In Gramps’ case, he was a firefighter. I once watched him run to a burning cabin from the Ponderosa community club. That was great, knowing he saw that danger and knew what to do. But I didn’t want to be a firefighter; I wanted to be like Gramps.

I want to be loving and open. Gramps and Gram were married over 60 years, and their marriage was still as strong last week as it was 30 years ago when I was a kid. I want to be able to call my wife lover-girl, in front of anyone. He didn’t hide anything. Like him, I want the self-confidence to tell people what’s important about me. He was generous and without judgment. He patiently taught me how to drive a standard shift, while I killed the engine of his car over and over. Never once did he tear me down. When a student I was mentoring started applying for scholarships, Gramps gladly spent an afternoon going over scholarship applications with her so she would be ready. He gave his time because I asked and because she needed it. Nothing more. I could list his good qualities for some time.

Now he’s gone. I miss him already. We all do. That’s why we are here. But what I’ll miss most is the living example of who a man can be. I’m proud to say I’m his grandson. I hope that people who knew him will tell others, That’s Cleo Hathaway’s grandson, not because of blood-line, but because I’ve learned well from him. Because I still want to be like my hero.

crossposted from King Rat.

Gram has been losing weight for a year or so, mostly due to lack of appetite. Scans of her digestive system showed some abnormalities but nothing conclusive. A few weeks ago, Gram started bleeding though. This put in motion additional tests. Turns out she has uterine (or ovarian, I’m not sure) cancer.

It’s early stage. And essentially the choices are: surgery or slow death. Tuesday she goes in for surgery.

Since she’s so underweight, the surgery isn’t a slam dunk success. Getting the cancer is the least of the problem actually. She may see an extended amount of time recovering, and is at greater risk of complications. I’d be worried if I hadn’t already gone into do the next right thing mode.

Next week I’ll start fretting about Gramps’ upcoming surgery.

I need moving help.

Here’s the scoop: My grandparents are moving into an assisted living place. Originally Gramps wanted to hire movers, but he got back the estimate today and it was thousands more than he expected. The actual move is one bedroom and one living room worth of furniture. They are leaving the second bedroom and the kitchen out. I need 3 to 5 people to help with the move, either with loading or unloading. Pizza and beverages (at a minimum) will be provided. I’ll probably have a pie or two too.

Here’s the catch: It’s next Wednesday the 20th. Short notice and not a weekend. But even if you can only spare a few hours in the evening, we could use the help.

I’m expecting loading to be early afternoon (noon to 3pm) and unloading to be evening (4 to 6 pm ish).

So, can you help?

Edited to add locations: Moving from 6535 Seaview Ave NW (by Shilshole Marina west of Ballard). Moving to 12509 Greenwood Ave (Ida Culver House in Broadview).

My mom never talked much about family history. But driving my grandfather around the last 6+ months I’ve learned a ton that I didn’t know before.

• Gramps’ mother’s family was Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, but Gramps quit the church after his mom died. He was irritated that none of the church members his mother had loaned money to would repay. Gram also said he wasn’t too happy that the church changed it’s name a few years ago. Even so, he’s contacted one of the local churches because he wants to have one of their ministers conduct part of the service when he’s buried.
• I’d thought he’d grown up in Ballard. He graduated from Ballard High School, but his family moved around a bit before that. Around 10, he was living off Delridge near where Chief Sealth High School is.
• I’d thought his dad had grown up in Western Washington. His mom did, and his grandmother came to Western Washington in the late 1800s, but the Hathaways came here in the 20s from North Dakota.
• My great grand-father wasn’t born Otto Hallin. His original name was Otto Omaan (sp?). He changed it after the Great War when he got his citizenship. Supposedly he knew a Hallin in the Army.
• Two of Otto’s brothers returned to Sweden rather than serve in the Army during the Great War. Otto nearly disowned them. Gramps thinks this is why he changed his name.
• My great grandmother’s maiden name was Nordwall (sp?). One of her brothers shortened it to Nord when he became a citizen.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s what I remember of his family stories off the top of my head.

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.

Yesterday was Hallmark Father’s Day. Nisi Shawl’s post about her father got me thinking. Crying actually. I cry easily at sad things. Losing mom last year exacerbated this tendency in me that seemed to be getting more pronounced as I got older.

I felt the need to write about my relationship with my father, but after writing the following, it’s inadequate. My memory is spotty and jumbled by years of emotional tumult. So take it as a confused mental image more than anything else.

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I grew up without a father.

My dad died in December 1972 after what I understand to be an ugly battle with cancer. I was 2. My brother Dan entered the world the following month, January 1973.

I’ll never know what kind of father he would have turned out to be. Probably pretty good. But it’s a big what if.

In 1975, mom married my step-father Andy. He wasn’t and isn’t the father I wish I had. I call him dad, and father, and it’s somewhat more than convenience for me to do so. Where exactly he fits and what a good definition for my feelings for him are pretty hard to describe. Properly, it isn’t dad. But it isn’t not dad either. (Oh, how Zen of me!)

I never felt like dad treated me like one of his kids. I felt like he treated Elaine, Matt, and Joe as his favorites because they were his kids. They got to do things I didn’t. I got punished more severely and for stuff at a lesser threshold of badness. Worse, he was mildly physically abusive to me.

I remember him coming into my room once, very angry. He had his belt off, and he meant to give me a thrashing. The proper way for me to take a spanking was to submit meekly. I didn’t that time. I scrambled off the bed as he hit me with the belt to try to slide underneath the bed, or over my brother’s bed. I didn’t get away. He grabbed me and held me and hit me with the belt quite a few times. Maybe a dozen. I don’t remember exactly, as it was a long time ago. I think I was 12 or 13. He was very angry and taking it out on me.

One of his favorite punishments was to make me kneel bare-kneed on gravel or our asphalt driveway. It doesn’t start off as too painful, but after just a couple minutes it hurts quite a bit. After 30 minutes, it’s excruciating.

I didn’t get punished for no reason. He didn’t get drunk and start hitting, for instance. It’s just that I got punished hard.

I never received a word of encouragement from him. He made fun of me for chewing my nails. He made fun of my hair. I didn’t have to work on the farm, so I had it easy.

When I was 14, I lived with my paternal grandfather for a year on weekdays. Weekends I stayed with mom and dad. Friends and family were told it was because taking Metro to Seattle Prep was easier from where Grandpa Weiss lived in Broadview. I think I even pitched it that way to mom. But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that as I hit adolescence I became both more angry at dad and more scared of him. It didn’t work out after that year though. When I moved back, things were different with dad. We still didn’t get along. But he never hit me after I started high school either.

To be clear, there are some people who suffer horrible abuse at the hands of their fathers or whatever substitute passes for father in their house. What my dad did to me was minor in comparison to the psychological and physical scars that I’ve seen on some kids. Nevertheless, what I experienced, no child should experience.

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What do I wish I had for a father? I totally would have liked Ward Cleaver or Mike Brady. Sure it’s not realistic, but that’s about all I knew besides what I had. I didn’t have very much contact with other dads. Holidays with uncles. Getting the occasional ride home from someone’s dad in Cub Scouts.

That’s not completely true. I had one other model for what a father could be: John Sloane. He’s pretty awesome as Jason’s dad. John does everything a dad is supposed to do. He even did a few dad things for me. For instance, when I needed someone to help me learn how to drive, Mr. Sloane Senior took me out to practice driving. My dad refused to get in a car with me in the driver’s seat.

Anyhow, I really don’t have first hand experience for what a father is like, day in day out. Among other things, when I become a father, that could really bite me in the ass.

Years ago, he married a woman with two kids when he hadn’t even had a good role model for a father himself. A few months after that his first child was born and two more were born before he’d been married four years. Married four years and five kids in the family. More or less he was in over his head. He did what he knew.

My dad couldn’t read up on how to be a good father. His reading skills are elementary. He only got as far as the 8th grade. He’s not a person to ask advice. He couldn’t see how what he did would hurt me. He thought he was curbing my bad tendencies and setting me on the correct path.

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Tomorrow I will drive to Lynden to bring a check to dad. I’ll also be signing some paperwork that puts me and my brother in control of dad’s house. Mom worried that someone would try to take advantage of dad. So rather than leave everything to him, Joe and I are trustees. It’s for his benefit.

A quarter century after I moved out of the house for a year because of this man, I am in charge of seeing that he is okay. And I am fine with that.

Andy has good intentions. He’ll help you out if you need help. His next door neighbor has multiple sclerosis and can’t drive long distance without pain, so dad drove him an hour each way for a doctor’s visit. He was mom’s primary caregiver, even when mom was not nice to him and criticized every little thing he did. He loved mom. He’s a doting grandfather as well.

Once I was an adult (i.e., mid 20s), our relationship changed for the better. I wasn’t an angry kid, and he didn’t feel like he was responsible for me. We don’t have a lot to talk about, but we don’t have anything to argue about either.

How he raised me is a thing of the past. It’s not that I’ve forgiven. I’m no longer actively angry, just sad about this hole in my life. It’s hard to describe how I think of him. He’s both the person who hurt me gravely years ago, and the man who loved mom and treated me well as an adult. Kind of a cognitive dissonance, and it actually helps.

He’s not my father, and yet he is my father.

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.

Jason and I went to see Black Snake Moan last night. Movie was eh but Christina Ricci was looking pretty good. She spends most of the movie in a cut-off sweatshirt and panties. She's lost a lot of the roundness in her face.

On leaving the Pacific Place garage, Jason exited onto 7th Avenue. This goes the opposite way from the way we wanted to go. I figured he'd circle around. But he didn't. Then he headed up Pine. Figured he was going to go to Boren and hang a left. But he didn't. He got in the lane to get on the express lanes. Which sort of makes sense cause they do go faster. Only there's no exit to my neighborhood. But I wasn't in any hurry.

We get off at U-District and cross the University Bridge to get back to my place. A cop car pulls in my lot after us. I started to think What th… then realized it had to be Joe, my brother.

He'd called (my home phone, not my cell) to see if I was home so he and his partner could stop by on their break. They ended up following us to my place in a coincidence. So we shot the shit outside for a few minutes, freaking out a couple of residents who came up and asked if everything was all right.

Also hung out with them on their actual break at the coffee shop.

First time meeting his partner, who is kind of a dork in a former frat boy way.

All in all a good evening.

Surgery yesterday. Mostly okay, but they think he has an infection now and he's going back to I.C.U. Joe will be calling me back in a couple of hours to let me know how serious.

He went to see the doctor today and while there had a heart attack. I suppose short of being already in a hospital, that's the best place to have one. However, my mother reports he doesn't look good. Sje called early this afternoon to tell me. I want to visit but they are restricting visitors to just a few so as not to agitate him (also sedatives for agitation reduction as well). I should have the opportunity tomorrow though.

I almost couldn't keep from breaking down on hearing the news. It felt so much like when my other grandfather died. His last hospitalization was for something much more serious (not that this isn't) but receiving the phone call certainly felt like when my mom called to tell me Grandpa Weiss was in the hospital. The overwhelming premonition that tomorrow would be my last chance to see him alive came over me. It's passed now, but I still can't help but wonder if it will be long. I can't see him living independently for long. He's going to start needing care on call 24 hours a day soon. He won't like it. He'll take it though. Hhe'll stay independent as long as he can, but no longer than is good for him.

So tonight will be able trying to distract myself to keep myself from crying all the time.

See, the thing is, he's my idol. More than anyone else in the world, I want to be like him. At some point he will die, and I'll be living up to a memory instead of a man. And that is going to suck for me. And it's going to suck for a lot of other people too. I don't know a single person who is more loved than he is.

Hopefully, this won't be the last, and the next time he is back in the hospital like the last couple of times you'll all get to read another version of this entry.

It can now be revealed. My brother Dan and his wife Brenda are expecting a child. This will be the first kid of that generation in my family. None of my cousins in the Hathaway or Weiss families have kids. A few cousins from my step-father Andy's Bender side of the family have had kids. But I'm not actually related to them. So this will be a first. First great-grandkid for my grandparents. First grandchild for my mom.

The big thing is that I am off the hook. While I'm sure my mom won't stop asking me if I'll be getting married soon and having kids, the full court press will likely cease. Hoo-rah!

I've known for a couple of weeks. But I couldn't say anything because Dan didn't tell mom before they left on vacation. And if I wrote anything here about it, I knew for sure that mama_sloane couldn't keep it a secret from mom. And well, my mom should hear it from Dan and not 3rd hand from someone else by way of an online blog (heh, are there offline ones?). Actually, I do know my mom at least occasionally reads this herself, though to my knowledge she doesn't have an account and she isn't on my friends list. I hadn't been hiding it, but neither was I pushing it on her to read nor was she making a point to tell me she was reading it. I mentioned this to someone, who replied that I need to update my filters. I don't actually see a need. There's really only one thing in here that I think is sensitive mom reading. She may not like the sex content or my politics, but it's not something I feel a need to hide.

Don't know what's wrong. No results on tests yet. Haven't asked what happened, cause I don't want to know.

I'll be getting up early tomorrow to take Gram to Swedish.

Sorry for bailing on a couple of people today. Have a lot going on in my head.

I will be out shortly. In times of emotional upheaval, I like reverting to angry, stompy music. For those who see me out and have read this, please don't ask how I am. I don't need to be left alone, but I don't really want to discuss this stuff either.