No Hands At All

This will be my last post for a little while--maybe. Tomorrow I must be at the hospital at 6 a.m. for surgery on my right hand. Carpal tunnel is what they are correcting. Can't do much for the arthritis that bends my fingers in awkward positions. But who knows, perhaps I can hunt and peck the keys with my left hand.

I know I shall think a great deal about my father during these next weeks. You see, my father had no hands at all. Acutally he didn't even have an entire arm. Before he ever met my mom he was a brakeman for the railroad. Brakemen of old (perhaps today too?) were so agile and could walk along the box cars on the top, jumping from car to car. That's where my dad lost his arms. He fell in between the box cars while jumping and while he did not die, his arms lay across the tracks and his right arm was severed at the shoulder and left arm at the elbow. He was 21 years old, handsome, unmarried and talented in many things and suddenly he was "handicapped". A cripple.

They didn't have the wonderful prosthesis they have today, but they offered him a hook. He refused. What a devasting blow it must have been to him to suddenly have to depend on everyone else. He came from a big family, but he was very independent and he learned on his own how to get along.

As a child I didn't think of how hard things were for him. He was just my dad. When I am unable to write with my left hand or key at the computer in the normal two hand fashion for the duration of healing from carpal tunnel surgery, I will remember watching him write a letter--pencil held in his teeth. And I shall realize all the more how able he was. He could not tie his shoes. When I put my shoes on I know I will better understand how difficult things were for him and wish I had helped him more. I still remember his shoes, always with strings removed, no way to close them, so he walked with open, rather flopping shoes. And he never wore socks because he could not put them on.

I cannot tie my shoes either. The many back surgeries have left me unable to bend that far or lift my leg high enough. And I cannot wear socks either, as I am unable to put them on. But, my dear friend, Bette, has often put my socks on my feet and tied my shoes. He never had that luxury. He never asked and I don't remember anyone ever offering. But, I didn't think about it. I was a kid, he was my dad and that's just the way life was.

He also loved sugar and cream in his coffee when anyone was around to fix it for him, but he usually drank it black and cold because he could not handle a spoon. To manuever the cup to his lips he leaned over the table edge, used the stub of the left arm to steady the cup and then placed his lips on the edge and tilted his chin down until the liquid was there and he slurped his coffee in. I don't recall him ever spilling it.

And he could drive a car. Amazingly he could drive a car. Gear shifts were on the floor, no automatic transmissions, no electronic turn signals. What a juggling act it was. He could steer with the stub of his left arm, and what a shock it must have been to drivers behind him when he prepared to turn, signaling such by sticking that stub out the window. He would use his knee at that moment pressed firmly under the steering wheel to keep the car in the proper lane. The juggling really began as he started into the turn, took the left stub from the window and reached clear across his body to the gear shift on the floor and deftly and quickly shifted down and I can't even recall how he steered to make the car turn at that time. Kids don't wonder...he was my dad, that's just the way it was done.

There was only one thing he asked help for: someone to shave him. For some reason I was the one he chose out of 5 kids at that time, later there would be a 6th. When I was 8 or 9 he began to have me shave him. He would say, "Joyce you shave me better than anyone else, can you shave me today." I thought that was great fun then. I was a barber and I did shave him carefully, glowing under his praise of my barber skills. Never once did I ever think about how he bathed himself, how he cared for personal hygiene while using the bathroom. I was a kid, and he was my dad. And that's just the way it was.

He taught me to sing. We often would sit outside in the old porch swing and he would teach me new songs. And he would take me to the city where I would sing on the radio. He was so proud of me. During the war they realized my dad could do things...he was made foreman at a ship yard and he would take me to sing at war bond drives at that ship yard. Yes, he was so proud of me. I can't even remember now where it was. That was so very long ago. I think I must have been 5.

As I grew older and became a teen I no longer could say he was my father and I was just a child . I didn't want to be seen with him. I was suddenly so ashamed of him. And he stopped asking me to shave him. I became embarrassed over this father who could do everything. I didn't want my friends to see him eating off his plate like a dog. That was the only way he could. I didn't want my friends to see his shoes flopping off his feet. And I didn't want them to see him writing with a pencil held in his teeth. The last time I shaved him I was 14 and I had a date. And I can remember when he asked that I was not gentle, I was angry, I was embarrassed, and I deliberately dragged the razor hard across his face, cutting him in the process. He never asked me again.

I think back to that time now and my heart aches. How can children be so cold toward someone who never asks? How could I have been so unknowing that it never dawned on me that he was different? He was my dad. And that was just the way it was.

My mom and dad divorced after 19 years of marriage and I only saw him twice after that. He was not so tall and he was not so handsome anymore and I only saw him for a few minutes. Later he died of throat cancer I heard.

And my heart ached to think of all the years I could have been so kind to him. But it was a troubled marriage and children respond in different ways and mine was to just stay out of trouble by staying out of the way and mostly not paying attention to details. And today I am so very sorry.

With Christmas only 3 days how I wish I could tell him how sorry I am. My heart aches to go back to those childish years and try to help him. I would gladly put socks on his cold feet, and tie his shoes so they would not flop. I would heat his coffee and put cream and sugar in it. And I would be so proud of his abilities. And how I would love to hear him sing. I can't even remember his voice, yet he taught me so many songs I remember even today, and he developed my love of singing. Sometimes I sing the songs he taught and I think of him and I am so sad we can't go back and do it over.

And tonight I make a Christmas wish. I pray my father is with God. I think he must be, because he was a giving man, a non complaining man, neither of which gains him a place with God. But he taught me many spirituals and hymns and so I want to believe he accepted God's free gift of salvation through Jesus, his son. I want to see him when I reach heaven. I want to hold him close. I won't cry because God's Word says there are no tears in heaven, but if I could I would because my heart wants him to know I love him and if he were here today I would do all I could to make his life so very easy, so very happy, and just as he told others so many times how proud he was of me, I would tell others how very proud I am of him and how I rejoice in the childhood years when I shaved him and watched him draw funny animals with a pencil in his mouth and sat in the swing and learned his songs and rode on the train to the city to sing on the radio. I was just a child. And he was my dad.
Happy Christmas dad. God, my Christmas wish is that you give him a hug for me and tell him I finally realize just what a remarkable man he was.

And I would urge all of you who read this post, who have a dad or mom still living to make sure you look at how difficult things may be for them and that you remember you can't go back and make it all right. Tomorrow may be the only time you have left to tell them you love them. This Christmas may be the very last Christmas on this earth for them. As you gather for that wonderful Christmas meal or open gifts under the tree, give them the best gift ever by telling them you love them so much just for being your dad and mom.

I leave you once more, hoping you realize, Happiness is to know.