Five Years

They say time is relevant. What is a lifetime to some is nothing more than a blip to others. But in the grand scheme of things, time doesn't matter. We all are at its will. My father was no exception. But in his case, time was something he had too much of and not enough of. He left this world five years ago today, and not of his own accord, but after a battle that lasted six years. He left it at the mercy of a disease that showed him none.

I remember the diagnosis seventeen years ago. I remember thinking it was no big deal. After the initial syptoms showed up, it still had not sunk in. Only when he spent almost ten months in and out of hospitals, in 1999, did I finally begin to see the reality of it all. And by that time, the father that I once knew was gone. Of course, his mind was still there for the most part, but his body had abandoned him.

I never dreamed, at the age of thirty-four, I would be wheeling around in a wheelchair, the man who I thought was invincible. I never dreamed that I would be sneeking him a taste of Thanksgiving dressing, because he was not supposed to take anything orally. I never dreamed that only four years after that, I would be listening to a piper, while my mother accepted an American flag, which had been folded into triangle. And I certainly never dreamed that five years after that, I would be sitting here, typing these words on a keyboard. But although I never dreamed of those things, they still came true.

Sometimes, five years doesn't seem like that long. I can still see my Dad sitting in his chair, when I visit my mother's house. I can still see him fighting to take steps, as his disease began to take control. I can still see the peace on his face, as I closed his eyes for the last time. And I can still see the funeral director close the lid to his casket, after I had placed an old baseball that we used to throw around inside with him.

But in other respects, five years seems like forever. I've moved on with my life and Mom has adjusted to life on her own. I'm sure that she still cries at times and I will admit that I do, too. But the frequency of those times has lessened as the years have come and gone. What was once pretty common, is now something that has to have a trigger to set it off. And tonight, oddly enough, that moment happened.

Tonight, I was reminded of deer hunting with my Dad. The moment was innocuous enough. I was watching an episode of King Of The Hill, in which Hank takes Bobby on his first deer hunt. And just like that, I was taken back in time, when Dad took me. When I was with my Dad on our hunting trips, I felt grown up, no matter how old I was. But my favorite memory was our last hunt together.

I was twenty-one at the time and we had gone down to Roosevelt, Texas. We stayed in an old one room school house. I got my limit on the first two days, so that night I went into town and had some dinner and a few beers. By the time I got back, Dad was asleep. I grabbed my rifle and put it in its case. I picked up Dad's gun and was in the process of moving it to a safer area of the room, when I noticed he had left it loaded. Well, as any father would, the first thing he taught me about gun safety was to never leave a loaded gun laying around, so I emptied it.

The first thing I woke up to the next morning was a kick to the ribs. Dad had gone out and within an hour, he had his scope trained on an eight pointer. When he pulled the trigger, all he heard was a click. The deer heard it and ran. When Dad grabbed one shell and chambered it, the deer heard this and stopped. Dad dropped him with that shell. For the rest of that day, he couldn't decide whether to chew me out, or praise me. It was one of the funniest moments of our relationship.

But it's also one that, tonight at least, has made time irrelevant. And because of that, I still miss him as much today as I did five years ago.