Our Fabled Nest

When I started this adventure blog earlier this year, I was hoping to post about our travels and happy moments. I haven’t post in a hot minute because I am honestly not sure what to say. Sure, there has been an adventure and a lot of life since early May. But life for my little family just isn’t the same. My dad left our earthly world for paradise on the morning of May 28, 2024.

This post is dedicated to him and his amazing spirit. He was a survivor. He faced many hardships, losses, health issues, and depression throughout his 61 years earthside. Through it all, he hardly complained. He was a jokester. Always the life of the party. My momma told many stories of their high school days where he would be out tearing up the dance floor being his usual social butterfly, talking to any and everyone. Momma, on the other hand, perfectly content to “hold up the wall”. As a child, he tore up one too many hot-wheel toy cars by chunking them at trees, there was a motorbike incident with a cousin where he managed to scrap up his leg – my grandfather promptly said told ya so and dismissed any complaints. He was a daredevil and a best friend to all.

He and momma married young – she was 20 and he was 21. They had known each other since elementary school but fell in love in high school. Almost 45 years of ups and downs, the good, bad and the ugly but they stuck together. After their car accident on Valentines in 2001, it left my dad severely damaged. He was a hero for momma though. He pulled his little Isuzu off the road just enough, so the truck hit mainly on the front driver’s side. She survived with scrapes, bruising and emotional trauma. Not a single broken bone thanks to his sacrifice. He, too, survived the wreck, then he survived a 20 plus hour surgery. His heart even had to be restarted three times during the ordeal. Nonetheless, he survived. We joked that he was like the Robo Cop- mostly metal from his hips down. He proved everyone wrong and was walking by Christmas. That in and of itself is a miracle. He made sure momma was taken care of for their upcoming 40th anniversary. Back in March, I helped him picked out a necklace and he was tickled to surprise her. It was specific and I can’t explain how important this was for him. For him to keep quite was another miracle and he kept sayin’ I might not be here and I want to make sure she gets it. I brushed it off. A few weeks went by and I asked about a card for her birthday… in his typical fashion “welll shit sis, I ain’t yet”. Don’t you worry, I’ll get it and you can sign it. He agreed.

As a daddy, he was the best! I will always say that. Even though he loved that damn truck more than us kids (we are pretty sure of this!). When my brother was a kid he rolled momma’s car down our driveway into daddy’s truck. He was more concerned with the truck (his baby) than my brother. We knew it was serious then. Thank heavens, brother was fine and so was the truck! We had our differences, but we always made family a priority. Competitive nature, he always strived to win any game we played. Most weekends we enjoyed card games as a family even into the wee hours of the morning. Monopoly was the worst! He hoarded all of the houses and made sure we all suffered! It was good fun though! He was always joking, and an absolute hoot… some favorite quotes were “well shit” and “ooooh damn”. He also strangely enjoyed calling loved ones “Pecker head”. Many nights, I’d call momma to talk, and he’d ask about Pecker head (aka hubs). My sister-in-law received the same kind of love even until the end. My dad became a surrogate daddy for both my hubs and her. He was the father figure I wish everyone could have.

A main reason, my heart belongs to the Appalachian Mountains is because of my daddy. I adore road trips. I love Linville Falls and the Blue Ridge Parkway so incredibly much simply because of him. Whether it was Tweetsie or Blowing Rock, weekend day trips were my absolute favorite. Many Saturday’s momma and daddy would wake us up early, grab Mcdonald’s and head to the mountains for the day. Most often, momma would pack sandwiches and we would stop several times along the parkway to explore. I am grateful to have so many beautiful happy memories. It was never anything expensive- it was always about spending time together.

Now the hard part, Dad was in and out of the hospital three times in the past month. He had been declining and not having much of an appetite. The third time on Tuesday the 21st, I decided to go home instead of our planned trip. Family will always be more important. Hubs drove to the RV from his business trip, picked up me and the kiddos and we went straight to the ER in Catawba, NC. I commend him for doing this for us -he drove roughly 8 hours after working all day. We arrived at the ER around 3am and met with momma, my brother and his wife. Again, the doctors ran every test imaginable, and everything was semi “okay”. He was discharged since they had no reason to hold him. He wasn’t himself and my mother-in-law assisted us with making the choice of calling hospice. Being a nurse and working with hospice, we trusted her decision and I’m so grateful for her! After getting dad home and settled we realized that we didn’t have forever with him. A hard realization, as a daddy’s girl, who always looked up and watched him kick ass. My brother called him “superman”. He kept saying don’t cry, I’m fine and we’d always agree. Saturday, before he passed, he slept all day. We took the opportunity to go on a treasure hunt I am sure he set into motion. My brother and I were able to sit in the warm sunshine and take a walk down memory lane. A lot of good laughs and some tears as we found items I know we hadn’t seen since we were kids. The amount of baseball cards, he organized for hubs and the 2 massive totes of playboy magazine’s my brother is now the proud owner of. Side note – he was right, there are actually good articles! A creepy clown daddy picked up on a fishing excursion he thought I’d love – funny enough as a kid I had just saw “It” and was (is) deathly afraid of clowns. There were all sorts of trinkets that had no rhyme or reason other than to make us smile. We laughed and enjoyed walking through his memories. As he transitioned, he mumbled about “blue collars” and waiting on daddy. My grandfather only used blue collar for his bird dogs and it’s a beautiful sentiment to think he was waiting for Pop. Even though, he was between worlds, if you said I love you, he would mumble it back. He was still being a jokester even with words lacking. The looks he would give us; we knew exactly what he meant. We promised to take care of one another. Promised to make family more important. Each one of us. We told him multiple times, it’s okay, you can watch from above, we got it from here. Momma was holding his hand that morning as he took his last breath.

He’s the reason, I celebrate life so much, even more so now. He was a fighter -never gave up. He was resilient. He knew what life is truly is about: love. When you have a daddy, brother, husband or son like this man, you’ll never have to worry. He always had our backs and now it’s time for us to take it from here.