one strong man

On Thanksgiving day, Ginny & I put the kids down for a nap, leaving them with my mother as we grabbed our coats on the way out the door. My father drove us, and I asked questions as to how he had been doing. “Same ole, same ole” was all my dad could muster; this unhelpful response said more than enough.

Grandaddy, as I had called him since I could speak, had thrown in the towel three and half years earlier. Presley Mooney, as he was known by the world, was 91 at the time and had been living with my parents for years. Upon their return from vacation, they found a different man. Professionals could only guess that a recent move to a new house had left him overwhelemed- his world enlarging, just as he needed it to be smaller.

Whatever the trigger, he was determined that he “was done”. He stopped eating. Quit coming out of his room. And ask that the blinds remain closed. But his hard-headed mind couldn’t convince his body. Decades of hard work and a steady diet of bread slices- with a touch of peanut butter- had left him in better shape at 91 than most men at 50.

So Thanksgiving day we were all headed to the nursing home where he had found the smaller world he desired. Ginny leaned down and gracefully held his hand, I stumbled to make conversation- asking if these people were being good to him and if he remembered that Airstream trailor he used to take to Lake Degray. He spoke few words, but perked up at certain topics. To be honest, I think he loved us coming, but hated us seeing him this way.

He is and has always been a prideful man. In Sweet Home, Arkansas, he had worked in the coal mines for Alcoa and got paid by the number of carts he was able to fill. He filled enough to buy a convertible Studebaker. He worked. It was what he did. My grandmother, Becky, did everything else. When she passed away with brain cancer almost 20 years ago, he never recovered. He did, however, fight valiantly to come out of a depression whereby he would sit in the same seat all day, moving only when forced to join us at meals. He lived in our house during this low time, and even then, just a kid, I knew that although I had no grasp on what was going on with him, he was a level of sad I had never known.

He had a streak of rage that gained him notoriety in Sweet Home. As in, a “don’t mess with that guy” kind of heads up to the unaware. This switch was flipped almost exclusively when the subject was his family. There are many baffling stories that we still tell and even laugh at now. One of my favorites, occurred when he & Becky were walking my dad, their only son, downtown for a movie. A speeding car rounded the corner at such a pace that Grandaddy had to grab my father’s shirt in order to pull him out of harm’s way. Threatening yells ensued toward the driver who then bodly stopped his vehicle, getting out to confront the shouter. At this, Grandaddy began to run toward him, still yelling curses and cutting the distance between them with each step. The driver then thought better, jumping back into his car and seemingly ending the charade that was now catching the attention of passers by. As the car accelerated away, Grandaddy slowed his pace to reach down for something that my dad can only call a “brick” and hurled it through the now-shattered back window of a car that could not escape fast enough. That’s just one. There are many.

I never actually saw that side of him, as by the time I arrived, he would hold me on his tractor and mow. He worked. He wanted to pass this on to me. He always thought my dad was raising a softy because he let me sleep till 10am on weekends in junior high.

And here we was on Thanksgiving day. Unable to work. The love of his life long gone. And he the one that needed protection. We went to see him even though he somewhat hated it. I am glad I did. I awkwardly grabbed at conversation topics bumbling through some stupid rant about how the kids are going to make us crazy on the drive to Louisiana this Christmas. I hugged him. I told him I loved him. I said I would come again at Christmas.

I got the call today from my dad. I should have expected it, but I didn’t. A strong man died today. I wanted him to live on through some stories.