Last year on my birthday we celebrated my Daddy's life on earth. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to say a few words about my Daddy that day. I thought I had lost the little story that I wrote for him but today I found it. I want to share it with you:
If you know Jack Killian’s sons you might think that my Daddy was the quiet one. But he was so much more than that.
My Daddy was encouraging, supportive, kind, generous, loving, mischievous, funny, argumentative, eccentric and artistic.
My Daddy was artistic and he shared that talent with me. When I was a baby and a toddler I had a red, five year diary. The entries in the diary started with scribbling on pages and then on some pages daddy drew elaborate pictures of farm houses and Santa Claus. Some pages he drew the pictures and I colored them. Instead of bedtime stories he would ask me how to build a brick house. We would list everything you needed. We would draw it in my diary. He taught me to be an artist.
My Daddy was encouraging and supportive. It was the fall of 1986; I had been accepted to
My Daddy was generous. There was this spot in my car under the front seat between the fabric seat cover and the metal frame. That’s where my Daddy would hide $100 in twenties every weekend I would go home from college. He said it was “just in case money.” Even after I graduated he would still leave twenties there each time I came home. This past year at Thanksgiving after Daddy got out of the hospital I was packing my car to go home. I opened the driver’s side door and there on my car seat was a twenty dollar bill.
My Daddy was funny. A few years ago Daddy decided to go through all the boxes of pictures that he and Mom had accumulated over the years. There were boxes and boxes and boxes of pictures. Daddy took on the task of writing the names of people in the picture on the back as well as the date if he could remember it. He spent hours and hours on this project. He loved doing it. He and Mom vowed that if they didn’t know who the people in the picture were they would throw the picture away. Daddy would do just about anything not to throw a picture away. He would save the photos of the unknown family members in a box and ask everyone who came in the house if they recognized the people. Finally Daddy threw away the box. But there were about 20 ancient black and white photographs that he couldn’t bring himself to throw away. The photographs are amazing. They are of interesting looking people doing really bizarre things. Daddy named each person in all the pictures as well as documented what was happening in the pictures. Daddy created a branch of our family tree. He named that branch “The Gordons”. He chronicled their lives. He was so funny.
My Daddy was eccentric and argumentative. Daddy was a conspiracy theorist. He was weary of the government. He believed that the bird flu would get us all. He asked me one day what I thought about him mounting some kind of gun on either side of the driveway. I asked why he would do that and he told me, “So everyone will know how crazy I am.” Recently he painted the hallway in the house. He asked me how I liked the color he chose. I said I didn’t really like it and he replied with, “Well, I do.” Daddy loved to talk about politics. Really he loved to argue about politics. He would find the one thing that would set you off and then he would not leave it alone. He would push your buttons.
My Daddy was mischievous. Daddy was very, very hard of hearing. That’s a nice way to say he was deaf. He wasn’t completely deaf and that was probably the problem. He could hear just enough of a low roar to drive him crazy. Several different types of noise would bother him: high pitched screaming, everyone talking at once, and high pitched screaming while everyone was talking at once. Christmas was hard for Daddy; everyone at the house talking and laughing and the children running and screaming. One Christmas Daddy couldn’t get anyone’s attention so as he sat in his chair he would occasionally set off his car alarm. Everyone would stop talking for a few moments. Children would stop screaming. When it got loud again Daddy would set if off again. It took us quite a while to figure out what was going on. Once we did we all had a good laugh which was probably pretty annoying for Daddy.
My Daddy was loving. Last Thanksgiving Daddy had an accident and was in the hospital. After he got out of the hospital as Kate and I were leaving his house to go to ours he opened the gate for the car as we backed out of the driveway. As I drove by him I looked in the side mirror and I saw him blowing kisses at us! I love my Daddy.
It's been a difficult year without him. I've missed his wonderful advice, his silly sense of humor, his laugh, his strength in everything, his eyes and I think most of all his hand holding mine. When I miss him most I remember what it felt like to hold his hand.
