Some of you know that my father passed away right before Thanksgiving last year. People outside the family may find it strange when we said that his death took us by surprise. He was sick for a year (almost exactly), he lost half his body weight in the last six months of his life, he couldn't talk much towards the end because he had a lot of complications from the medical procedures that were done and botched. If it seems strange that we thought that this was a transient illness rather than a life-ending series of events, it is only because you didn't know my dad the way we knew him.

A Bit of History

My dad grew up on the south side of Muncie. To a large degree he outgrew the prejudices he grew up with. He still had room for improvement in this area, but given the environment that he came from, I can forgive him his work left undone.

He also grew up with a lot of drinking. As a young adult he was an alcoholic. The way that I have heard it, he tried to quit drinking several times, only to start again. Finally, after a particularly bad episode, he quit. Cold turkey. At around the same time, he quit smoking too. My brother asked him to quit, and he did.

Deepak Chopra has said, "All addictions are really a search for the exultation of spirit, and this search has to do with the expansion of consciousness, the intoxication of love, which is pure consciousness." I think that my father was beginning to understand this concept. Nobody would ever have accused my father of being filled with "exultation of spirit", but he found out that joy and happiness were much easier found outside the bottle and smoke than inside.

Ten or fifteen years ago Dad had a hip replacement done. The hip had bothered him since his thirties when an ornery gelding kicked him square in the hip. He landed it just right and broke the big keyring in Dad's pocket. Whether it was due to the kick or not, the hip became arthritic and caused him a lot of pain. He had the procedure done at St. John's in Anderson. (If you need to stay in a hospital, I heartily recommend them rather than Ball Memorial.) It took a lot of thought and prayer before Dad decided to have this surgery: there was the chance that something would be done incorrectly and render him lame, and the outside chance that he would die for some reason under anesthesia, and the cost was significant since he didn't have health insurance.

Dad came through that surgery with flying colors. He amazed the staff with his quick recovery, he breezed through the physical therapy, and he was back to work in record time.  Whether it was because of the pain he had been through with the hip before or something else, after the surgery he was fearless in his recovery.

Fairly recently, maybe as a result of the hip injury, Dad had lots of pain in his lower back. Doctors said that surgery was necessary for him to continue working and living a somewhat normal life. Dad chose to visit an alternative healer, someone who used herbs and energy (ki?) for healing. It irritated some of those close to him that he made a complete recovery and had no more pain after this.

During his last health crisis, he again visited this alternative healer. He received the treatment, but again, some people were extremely vocal and demanded that he follow through with allopathic (traditional Western Medicine) treatment. Without going into needless detail, the surgery and recovery went just about like his previous hip replacement. The follow-up treatment of radiation, which he was told that he would NOT need, caused lots of problems and probably is what led to his death. In the end, after lots of complications and bungling, the surgeon simply stopped returning phone calls.

Character

My father was always stretching himself mentally. As an auto mechanic he had to continually upgrade his knowledge. He had to study and be willing to do things differently than in the past. He had to continually purchase new tools, new equipment, and use new materials and processes. I think that he took the same approach to living. He tried things, he experimented with life. He found things that worked, but he didn't assume that they would always work. He wasn't afraid to make mistakes if it meant that he could learn more about the problem at hand.

It seems to me that when people with an engineer's mindset apply their skills to the spiritual world, interesting things can happen.

Dad and Mom studied alternative fuels when we were growing up. They considered building a still to make alcohol fuel and even attended a conference and bought plans and some equipment to get started. In the end, as often happens, life got in the way and they lost focus on this idea. In recent years Dad liked the idea of doing bio-diesel conversions on late model cars. As far as I know he never did one, but the idea appealed to him.

I'm not sure how well known the fact is, but the automotive industry has been recycling your motor oil for quite a while. I'm sure there was a time when it was disposed of in landfills (or dumped in the country somewhere) but now it is usually hauled away and used for other purposes. Several years ago, Dad bought a furnace to heat his shop that instead of burning natural gas or fuel oil, burns waste motor oil. He collected nearly enough every year from oil changes to heat his shop through the winter.

As my sister, brother and I were growing up, one of the things our family did every year was plant a large garden. Dad would till the ground and he and Mom would do most of the planting, then we kids would do most (ok, maybe half) of the maintenance. We spent many long hours weeding in the summers. Ironically, my brother was the one who hated this job the most, and now he owns an organic farm and grocery.

We had horses and chickens for a while as I was growing up. This was a huge amount of work for Dad, but I think that he really enjoyed having them. We didn't ride the horses a lot, but there is something fundamentally satisfying about being around them and taking care of them. I think he missed them when they were gone.

Of course, a large part of Dad's life was his business, Ring For Service. He was a master at his craft. Maybe not a master at running a business, but he was widely respected in the area for his knowledge and diagnostic skills. My mom made a comment after his funeral that it was strange to see so many burly mechanics crying in church. They came from their jobs at various shops around town to pay their respects, lots of them still in their uniforms. It seemed appropriate.

Well, there are lots of random memories that I could share, but the point that I really wanted to make was that my dad was one of the strongest, healthiest, most intelligent people that I ever knew. He loved challenges, loved to solve problems. I guess we all thought that he would figure this out, find what was wrong somehow, and fix it. In the end, he regretted having the surgery, but didn't try to blame anyone for his problems. I think that he accepted the consequences for the decisions that he made.

Finally

Of course, in retrospect, it looks like the non-traditional path may have been better. There's no way to know that though. I think, rather than worrying about doctor's mistakes and people trying to push others into the choices they want them to make, the messages to take away from Dad's passing are these:

• Don't take life too seriously.
• Enjoy the little things while you can.
• Make your own decisions and take responsibility for them.
• Risks are worth taking if the stakes are high enough.
• Mistakes might be mistakes regardless, but the results are not cast in stone.

Of course, we will miss Dad. Most of us have faith that we'll see him again when we make that journey ourselves someday. I look forward, finally, to getting his opinion on a few things.