The Week of Dad's Death: May 31, 1996: Back to Being Billy

I don't know how much attention we paid to it last night, but the Jazz creamed the Sonics, 118-83.  John Stockton scored 14 points and dished out 12 assists, helping Karl Malone score 32 points.  I have no memory of this game and I seriously doubt that it registered with Dad.

He was barely alive.

When I came home from Eugene, Dad thought I looked like hell.

I don't know why, but I hadn't had a haircut for months and I had let the beard I wore back then get shaggy and shabby.  The odd thing is that I didn't think much about it, but when I look back at pictures from those weeks I was home to help Dad die, I'm embarrassed.

Sometime, as Dad's condition worsened, he asked me to get a haircut and remove my beard.

"I want to see you the way I remember you when you were a kid."

I went uptown the next day and when Nanette asked me if I wanted a trim, I told her, "No.  I want way more than a trim and I want the beard off, too."

"Your dad's request?"

How'd she know? 

"Yeah.  And I think he's right."

I came back from Nanette's and when Dad saw me,  he caressed my face.

"God Damn It.  That's better, Billy."

When Dad and I just talked about ballgames or what was going on in Eugene or when he wanted me to do something, he called me Bill.

When he was proud of me, like if I made decent putt when we played golf or if I stroked a timely hit in a baseball game, he always cheered, "Atta boy, Billy" and when he called me Billy, I could hear a little bit of the Tennessee and Kentucky, the home states of his mom and dad, in his voice.

But, in the last days that Dad could speak, "Atta boy, Billy" changed to "Thanks, Billy".

Dad needed help in ways that were embarrassing to him.  Maybe it was easier for him to have Mom help him with some of these things, but when I was up all night with him, I helped him.

When he needed some cleaning up during the night, for as long as he could talk, it was, "Thanks, Billy."

When I brought him a Popsicle or a grape during the night when his mouth and throat were parched, he ate what he could, and always said, "Thanks, Billy."

You can see what was happening.  It's common.  The dying parent becomes the child, in need of what a child needs: feeding, cleaning, wiping, help walking.  I had become my father's parent in these ways.

But, he didn't call me Daddy.

He called me my childhood name. 

It was his perfect way of saying thank you.