My Father...Michael David Jones died at the age of 62. Wednesday July 4th 2007. He had cancer at the time, but the coroner said he died of a stroke. He had cancer 4 times in his life and at the time of his death was not only not eligible for radiation treatments (There is a maximum exposure limit and he had reached it) but was facing a future of more operations, and more Chemo, and was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I now know that he had quit taking his blood thinner and apparently choose to bow out gracefully rather than wither away in a bed...His terms, not anyone else's. Before he had surgery a month or so before he told me,” Don’t worry...I ain't gonna die in no fucking hospital."...and he didn't.
I had not been able to sleep that night, and had suddenly gotten pad and paper at 2:30 in the morning and written down a passage from the movie that was on TV... I was watching a movie called The Guardian and there was a scene that really accurately described the life of my father. I quickly got up, grabbed my notebook and wrote it down.
The lead character asks his bartender…Its hard gettin’ old isn’t it? To which she replies…Hell I been old all my life. If my muscles hurt it’s because I used them, and I still do to walk down the hall every night to get in bed with someone who loves me. I got a few wrinkles here and there, and I look this way because I drank and I smoked and I danced, and I sang and I sweat and I screwed my way through a pretty good life…Gettin’ old ain’t hard man…Gettin’ old is earned.
I wrote it down because I thought it was something my father would enjoy. I wrote it down because I felt like it was something I was going to need. I didn't know why at the time...I finally fell asleep about 4:30 in the morning, but abruptly awoke again at 6:30 feeling like I was supposed to be awake for something, but yet I didn’t know what. An hour and a half later I found out.
I got a call from my sister-in-law Ashley who tearfully told me my Father had died. I started trying to round up my other two brothers as my youngest was already at the scene trying to get Mom back to reality (She woke up next to him...and he was gone). Mom was just somewhere else and didn't know why the Firemen where in the house.
It was rather difficult to get in touch with my brothers...I mean would you answer the phone at 8:00AM on the morning of the 4th of July? I mean I probably wouldn't have, but I was already awake and talking on the phone to a friend of mine who lived on the east coast, and was annoyed that the other line kept ringing.
When Ashley gave me the news, I clicked back over and very matter-of-factly told my friend that I had to let him go...My Dad just died. I had to go to my Brother Jason's house, and I sent my Mom (My birth Mother, not My Mother and my Father's wife) to tell my other brother Ian. I did get a hold of some other friends and family members and we all got to the house as soon as we possibly could.
When I got there, there was already 20 or so of us Joneses there, and the coroner was back in the bedroom with Dad. Somebody asked Mom for something and she answered that she would have to get it from the bedroom and began to walk down the hall to the bedroom where my father still lay in bed. I looked around the room as if to say, "Why are you letting her go to the Bedroom?"
Nobody did anything so I walked down the hallway behind Mom. We got to the door and that's when she saw Dad...and I saw Dad. I watched my Mother weep over the body of her dead husband not having any idea what I was supposed to do, I mean who was I to stop her, or tell her what she was doing was wrong? I stood behind her looking at her and my father together for the last time.
It was strange...Dad's eyes were open, and he looked as if he were surprised. Mom kissed him goodbye, and I walked her back down the hall to the kitchen then proceeded to go outside to smoke and take a break from what was going on inside.
When I got outside I saw the coroner standing by the garage and went over to inquire about his pay rate at 8:00 AM on the 4th of July. I don't know...He was the only independent party there at the time. I continued to make small talk pretending that he actually gave a shit when he suddenly said, “I want you to know how Lucky, you and your family are...How lucky your Dad was.” Okay, I thought...This should be good. He proceeded to tell me," I do this for a living. I get a call and I have to go out and remove a body from a home...I do it a lot...but hardly ever is there anybody even there. Most of the time there's somebody there to let me in the house, but sometimes it's just the Police doing that."
By this time there was about 40 people there. The coroner said," Most of the time I feel sad that this person, whoever they were didn't have anyone who gave a shit enough to show up when they died...But all of you guys here for your Dad like this...This is just amazing. He was a lucky man to have you all, and you are lucky to have each other." He excused himself and went back in the house to do his job.
A few minutes later, My Father left his home for the last time. So there we were...All of us...Standing around crying...Looking at each other...Holding each other...When somebody said," What are we gonna do now?” What the hell did they mean? I mean Dad's dead...What the hell?
Then a close family friend said, "Look...We were gonna have a party and barbecue today right? I say we should still have it. I mean Mike would have wanted that, he wouldn't have wanted everybody to be standing here crying that's for sure...Lets have the party."
So we did...and more people came...and we talked, and we sang, and we swam, and we cried, and we yelled, and we screamed, and we played, and we laughed, and we told stories, we watched 4 generations of family and friends, we said things Dad would have said...We united as a family again, and formed a bond with each other that can never be broken having gone through that experience together. Dad dying, made us better...I mean Dad living made us better too, but something that hurt so bad, turned in to something good...Something we will have for the rest of our time together.
Upon hearing the news, my first wife drove up from Arkansas and stayed at the house with Mom for a week. She cooked, she cleaned, and she bought us booze and cigarettes. My second wife Kerry got there as soon as she could and did everything she could to help (I still consider them both members of my family somewhat like sisters).
People we knew stopped by, they hung out, they brought food, they brought stories, they brought memories, and they brought love. We knew it was important to make sure everybody who wanted to come to the funeral...could.
We had the visitation on Friday night...We stood up there for 4 hours talking to everyone who came through the line that was all the way around the parlor, down the hall, through the other parlor, out the front door, and into the parking lot of the biggest funeral home in Alton, IL...It was like that for 3 plus hours...They all waited...They all told us stories...all while a jazz trio including a guy that Dad had given his first paying music gig when the guy was 16, played in the balcony.
One guy came up and told me a story about going to High School with Dad. That when they had school dances in the late 50's and early 60's the blacks would all be on one side of the gym, and the whites were on the other. He told me, "Your Dad was one of the only people that would walk across that gap, in front of the whole school and talk to us on our side of the gym...and back then that took guts, and a lot of black folks never forgot that, and that he was one of them. He saw the obituary, and came to the funeral to tell me, his son, what my father had done.
My two ex-wives parents came and expressed their condolences. People he worked with, some I knew, some I didn't, most of whom hadn't seen me since I was a "smart mouthed 3 year old with curly hair and big blue eyes" came to talk to us, and me...now a 39 year old Man...Less the curls but still the mouth and eyes. They all told me how proud my Father was of me and how he had kept them up to date over the years as to my many accomplishments, and failures. My children saw me cry for the first time in their lives and held me...And tried to comfort me.
Saturday we had the funeral. My cousin Brian (Who is a Minister) presided over the ceremony, My Uncle Tom (Also a Minister) presided grave side. Myself and my three brothers all eulogized my Father, each in our own way. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I cried aloud and sobbed the entire 10 minutes I was at the pulpit.
When I got done I joined my mother by the casket and watched each of my brothers do the same thing, then slowly walk over and each time we would all embrace (We had done this a lot over the last few days…The five of us…in a circle…hugging and crying).
Afterwards we placed Dad in the Hearse and proceeded outside. I being the oldest son of my Father drove his car behind the hearse...I asked my oldest son to join me. He did.
As the funeral procession began to pull out on to the road and head out to the country, stopped the car...looked around... revved the engine up to about 6 grand and dropped the clutch. We peeled out and got a little sideways right there leaving the funeral home parking lot...One last act of defiance in Dad's honor...
We buried him at the cemetery by the house...Next to Grandpa...Then we had another Party.
I had forgotten how proud of me my father was. I had forgotten the feelings he expressed to me...feelings he had when he found out he was going to be a Father...That he was going to have a son...How many times he told me he loved me…The feeling I had now also had having three sons of my own...How he hoped that I would be a better than him...How I wasn't... (My birth mother had always told me that I was a selfish prick, just like my father though, so maybe there was still hope for me).
The rest of that year was horrible for me. I couldn't hold a job, I was drinking excessively doing drugs, overeating (at one point reaching 375lbs). Shortly afterwards I found out I had a 13 year old daughter I never knew about in Colorado…Shortly after that I met Cindi Crismon again.
The girl I had promised to marry in 5th grade (I think I did it just so she would kiss me), the girl who used to sneak in my window in 6th grade just to lay next to me and hold me, the girl I first slept with at 14...I was her first, she was my second...That girl was mine again...and I realized I had always loved her, and that she had always loved me. She looked at me the same way she did when I used to pull her pig tails in 3rd grade...She looked at me the way I had been when I was a kid, with hopes, and dreams, and ideas...When I thought one day I could rule the world.
She made me realize what a pessimistic, pathetic jerk-off I had become, and that I didn't like it.
We got married in January of this year. We have 6 children together and are happier than I ever thought I could be. We have a beautiful house, full of laughter, and I know when I die someday, she will cry for me like my Mom did for Dad. That the holidays in my future will be filled with my children and grandchildren, and that I am gonna need a bigger house, a bigger table, and a better job, and that I will never be taken out of my house with nobody there...That I will have a family who loves me there when I die...That I am a man my Father would be proud of...That what he used to call me, (Number One Son) is something I have to live up to…To honor him, and that one day...I will be a better man than he was, and that if I am, my children will all be better than me.
I Love you Daddy...Thank you for everything you ever taught me and tried to teach me. I miss you everyday, but because you died I am a better man.
Regan
(Your Number One Son)
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