(I took some poetic license with this photo in Photoshop, making this my interpretation of what I hope was what my Father saw at the end. I hold on to that hope.)

My dad succumbed to his bitter anger towards life. He was declining treatment for what began as prostate cancer; the cancer spread to his spine and neck. He was helped through some seriously saintly people at hospice through the end with some good dope, but died alone in his once beautiful home that he had let deteriorate because he was too proud to ask for help and too stubborn to admit he needed it. We tried to clean for him at one point, as we could not even breathe when we went inside the house due to the accumulation of garbage, dirty dishes, stale pipe tobacco and musty, dirty clothes, but all we got in return was a laundry list of complaints about what we threw away that he “needed”. He became a Pink Floyd cliché from Animals, “Dogs” – I told Scott years ago when we listened to the cd, “this is what will happen to my dad”-- :

“And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south,

Hide your head in the sand,

Just another sad old man,

All alone and dying of cancer.”

 

So the last thing he left me after a lifetime of confusion was responsible for his estate. Jesus, if Scott was not in my life, I would never have made it through. The house was overwhelming. It took us 2 months to get it all cleared out. There were thousands upon thousands of photographs of my brother, sisters and I as babies and children, scattered everywhere. There were letters upon letters to my mom, my brother, about how they had ruined his life. All of his divorce papers, from three failed marriages. All of his sadness and hate and anger and hurt was just everywhere. Scott spent all of his days off and many hours after work driving to Deland and working in and out of the house. He is a saint. Eventually, we sold the house, thank god.

Dad had called me about a week before he died and said, “There are things that are more important than love. Respect and honor are more important. I just wanted you to know, I love you, I respect you and I honor you”. That has me a little messed up. It’s all so typical of him, to pull something like that out so late in the game, then go and die. There was no letter in the house for me.

His ashes are in a box in our back room still.

(exerpt from email to my dear friend)