Losing and Remembering My Father

My father passed away over 13 years ago in December of 2002. He was 65 years old. When he passed, I remember someone in my office telling me she had lost her mother a few years prior and she said that even thought she's gone, she's still there. She still misses her.

I know what she means. Even after 13 years, there are times when I miss him. There are days when I'll think about what he might say to me about something. Or I might simply want to call him and talk to him. But I can't.

I moved to Los Angeles about 6 months after he passed away. I remember a couple months after I moved here seeing a 1973 Ford Mustang Grande drive by on the street. My immediate instinct was to pick up the phone and call him to tell him I saw one. And almost as immediately I remembered he was gone. It sucked. Here I was living this whole new life and I couldn't talk to him about it.

First the significance of the Mustang. My very first car, (which he picked out for me!), was a 1973 Ford Mustang Grande. It was at that point a 6 year-old car. The previous owners had just given it a new paint job because they thought they would be keeping it for a while. Then a family member gave them a newer car so they put this one up for sale. It was copper with a brown hard top. The 1973 Mustang was also the last year of the BIG Mustangs. Starting in 1974, Mustangs were smaller due to the attempt by the Big 3 automakers to make economy cars and stop making big gas guzzlers as a result of the energy crisis.

As you can see, smaller. So the former above was my first car. I loved it. I had loved Mustangs since I was a kid. I had fantasized about owning one. And now I did. This car got me through my four years of college. Which was exactly what my father wanted it to do. A car to get me through those years and then after I was on my own. It was $1500. I used $1000 of my high school graduation money and my parents gave me the remaining $500. 

My dad taught me how to change the oil on that car. I did once, maybe twice and then never again have I changed the oil. I've added oil and I've changed the air filter. But I never again changed the oil. 

That car also had its share of issues. During the course of the next four years, I replaced the battery, the shocks, the muffler, all four tires, the bearings on the rear axles. Oh, and I was in an accident in which the driver side had to be redone.  There were probably other things, but its been over 33 years since I stopped driving that car so I can't remember.

When I finally bought a new car about a year after college, my Dad bought it form me for $500. He said it was a classic and it would be worth something. He would fix it. By this point, it was rusting through the floor boards. In fact, I don't even think it was working at all.  But it was a classic and he wanted to fix it up.

Cut to 2002 (18 years later). My parents are selling the house we grew up in and that Mustang has been sitting under a tarp in the garage untouched all those years. He never did anything with it. Couldn't afford to. So he sold it for parts in 2002.

I've gone a bit off topic. This was supposed to be about still missing my father even after 13 years. Seeing the Mustang made me want to call him. But I couldn't. There are other moments when I want to hear his voice. I actually do hear it. Right now, I can hear him saying my name in my head. He went too soon. It wasn't fair.

I still remember the first time, I wanted to call him and I suddenly realized I couldn't. It was exactly pone month after his death, January 15, 2003. I was in Philadelphia for the NFC Championship Game Philly v. Tampa Bay.  (I worked for the NFL in New York City at that time). It was a Saturday morning and I was shaving in my hotel room. I was thinking about the events of the day and I wanted to call him and share some of the cool stuff and people I was meeting. And then it hit me. He was gone. It hit me hard. I stood there with shaving cream on my face staring in the mirror and started crying. I can't call him anymore when something cool like this happens in my life.

I wish he was here. But I am grateful that my memories of him are all of him healthy and active and not old and sick. 

I should disclose he had ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. He was diagnosed with it in 2001 and passed exactly one year later in 2002 from heart failure. Fortunately, he was still up on his feet and moving on his own. Although, he no longer drove a car, and he had to use a walker.  We were prepared for him to move to a wheelchair very soon. He was at that point.  So on the plus side,  he never deteriorated to the point that many ALS sufferers do.  So the memories are all good of him up and about and still in control of his body for the most part. 

I still think about him all the time.