Old Man's Paradise (For My Father)

A year ago today, my Father died on the sofa at home, surrounded by his wife and we three grown children who had traveled from both coasts to be with him at the end. While I miss my Dad, I would not have wished an extention to his 83 years of earthly life. He was the most active and hard-working man I have ever known. I had to go out and build houses with him to get to know him growing up. I remember leaving in the gray of morning my sixth grade summer to pound shingles on the house we were building for a fellow teacher who worked at the girl's reform school where Dad was English teacher and librarian. By the summer I graduated from high school, I ran my own crew of eight building a barn and a house. No worries. I'd learned the carpentry trade from my Dad. I had six summers and school vacations of building skills under my leather carpenter's belt by that time.

Still, I did go down to the nearest pay phone and called Dad for advice the evening before we hoisted that huge beam to the peak of the second floor living room. He said, "Make sure you've got two ropes on it, Skip." I did. The monster beam winched into place without a hitch. If it had fallen, it wouldn't have stopped until it hit the slab 30 feet and two floors below. Now everything else he taught me can never be forgotten. It is hardwired into me, a part of who I am and how I see life.

The stroke that laid Dad low so quickly and dialated the pupil in one eye would have put him at the least in a wheel chair, and at most in a nursing home bed, perhaps for months, or even years. He would have hated that. Better he go as he did, after a sudden illness and surrounded by those who loved him. He had been working on the plumbing in the house a week before his death, and had won the "Lawn of the Town" award for his landscaping efforts the month before his passing. A quick death is the kiss of God.

I knew for years one of my generally annual visits to see him would be the last. All of his brothers and many of his friends had already gone. It was only a matter of time. He knew he was getting to be "the last leaf on the tree". I knew it, too. I mourned my father's passing in advance, in part with the lyric that follows. I will always believe that Dad held out until he knew I was on my way for a month long visit before letting go and slipping away. Curious how the longest vacation I have ever taken coincided with the death of the hardest working man I've ever known.

Things had gotten more and more difficult for him as the years bent his frame, as old work injuries, and new ones he regularly inflicted on himself in attempting to work as he had done in his youth, kept closing in. "I can only lift 50 pounds anymore," he would complain. "I can only work four hours at a stretch before I have to come in and lie down for a while." We'd read those letters and know all was well in the world. Dad was working, so the world must be spinning in its proper courses.

It was fortunate my Mother was a nurse. She kept Dad alive and patched up for those final dozen years as he broke a leg when a pile of lumber fell over on him off saw horses, then took the dive down the basement steps that battered his face and left his forhead with a huge black and blue patch, then tore his rotator cuff trying to use a large drill to pierce concrete, then fell off another roof or ladder. I did not fear for my father's safety, nor encourage him to retire to a rocking chair on the front porch of the final of many homes he had either built or remodeled. I knew him too well. He would have counted himself most blessed to die in a "work related accident". Such a thing would have been an entirely fitting end to a life marked by both a keen teacher's intellect, and the calloused hands of a carpenter and gardener. So my prayers weren't for Dad's safety so much as for my Mother's endurance. It isn't easy keeping a guy patched up who works like he's a third his actual age.

My father is gone now, but certainly not forgotten. He wrote me every week for many years, with his letters giving his musings on life, listing his intended projects around the yard and house, and telling me what a wonderful wife my Mom was to him. Sometimes he'd tell me, "Now I don't want to give you advice..." then go ahead and do it. Sometimes, it was helpful. Other times, he didn't know enough about the situation for the advice to work. But always I knew he loved me. Perhaps the most important words my father spoke to me was contained in one of those letters. He had seen the results of the ministry I was engaged in. He wrote, "Skip, God is still in the business of saving souls--and He is using you to do it."

I often wish I had written him back as faithfully, but perhaps that is a debt I owe now to my own sons some day when I'm older, and they are far away.

One of those weekly letters Dad sent apparently slipped behind the desk in the hallway. We located it, still unopened, several months after his passing. Sitting down to read it was rather like listening to a voice from beyond the grave. Dad wrote, "I can't hear anymore. Soon I'll leave this life. God willing, in heaven I'll get new ears." I'm sure God will give you new ears, Dad. That comes with your new body. One thing I know for certain: When God turns my Father loose in Paradise restored, He won't have any worries about the grounds not being tended. Dad will take care of that.

I post this in memory of a great and good though humble and largely unknown man. He was someone full of faith and wisdom, not perfect, certainly--but a grand old warrior who won and wore his scars well. I am proud to call him my father. If I become half the man my father was, I'll be doing well.


Old Man's Paradise

My hands shake.
Its hard to hold a pen to sign my name.
My ears ring.
It seems my vision changes day to day.
Can't see through my new glasses,
And these dentures hurt my gums.
I forget to take my pills,
When did I grow so dumb?

My back hurts.
I stumbled and fell again last week.
I can't sleep.
I don't hear a single word my family speaks.
When our preacher starts his sermon,
I know his lips still move--
Can't hear him, but I hear God
Beside me in the pew.

Sometimes my thoughts get tangled,
And tears run from my eyes.
I used to be so strong.
What did I do wrong,
That I should live this long
In an Old Man's Paradise?

I can't drive--
Except the riding mower here at home.
I've lost weight.
My daughter says I shouldn't stay alone.
My mind weaves dreams and memories
Of when I was a boy.
The sight of my great grandson
Is my greatest joy.

I still work.
I putter fixing screens and mow the lawn.
I still pray
Through endless silent nights that stretch so long.
My cane's beside my bed,
And my walker's by the door.
I've written it all down,
But whose this letter for?

Sometimes my thoughts get tangled,
And tears run from my eyes.
I used to be so strong.
What did I do wrong,
That I should live this long
In an Old Man's Paradise?

I used to stand so tall,
Now I hobble, or I crawl.
But the Good Lord hears my call
In this Old Man's Paradise.
Though life's not always nice,
Each day I thank God twice
For His sun that shines like ice
In this Old Man's Paradise.
In this Old Man's Paradise.

c2009 Skip Johnson

"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, befoe the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find no pleasure in them'". Ecclesiastes 12:1 NIV

P.S. I was trying to figure out why all but one of the blogs on this new blog my dear wife, Judi, just set up for me were about old people. I think it is because Dad has been on my mind on this anniversary of his death.