Well, lets see where to begin on this journey of bad news. First off, I should say that my Dad rode horses alot. He owned his own and they were his, my two sisters shared that love with him. I didn't or at least I don't remember loving the horses like they did. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed horses, in particular our horses. We had one called Stranger, he was the coolest horse. We could give him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he would eat them. Oh my if you have never seen a horse eating peanut butter you have to picture this, they have such big mouths that the peanut butter gets stuck on the top of their mouths and they are continuously trying to get it off. It is way too funny to watch. And then of course my Dad would give him a bottle of beer and he would of course drink it. He would grasp the neck of the bottle with his teeth and tilt his mouth up to the sky and he would just poor it down his throat. It was amusing I must say at least for a 10 year old to watch anyway. So time goes on and Dad takes me to herding cows with him. I get to ride stranger, just hold on Dad says, Stranger knows what to do. He's a good cutting horse. Well yeah he is a very good cutting horse, he almost dumped me twice. Dad says it is because I didn't have my boots on. Well I didn't have boots to wear so I was wearing tennis shoes. It was a good day, but I was tired very quickly from riding on a horse. Dad took me to where my Mom worked at a restaurant so that I could eat something. Then he told Mom that he needed some money because he needed to buy me my first pair of cowboy boots. And she gave him the money and we went and bought them. I have no idea what they looked like I just remember actually getting the boots. Funny how your mind doesn't let you remember everything, just bits and pieces. All of this took place in the summer, and in October, of 1971, I had turned 10 years old in August, the worst thing ever happened to me. My Dad died. He was 40 years old. He just died. He was there one minute gone the next. Let me tell you it sucked. I remember the day just like it happened yesterday. It is hard to forget when one incident changes your whole world.
It was a nice day, Dad was getting his horse ready to go roping. He was headed to Prosser to go roping with his friends. He did that alot. Sometimes us kids went this was not one of those times. Mom was going. So my Dad, who was never demonstrative, got ready to leave he gave me a hug and told me he loved me. I was stunned, even at 10 I remember thinking wow Dad what got into you. I mean don't get me wrong, I always knew my Dad loved me. He just didn't say it. But we all knew. It was just one of those unspoken things. But anyway, so Dad and Mom leave in the horse trailer with the horse. Several hours later, my sister and I were sitting on the porch and I looked at her and told her that Dad wasn't coming home. I didn't know why. I just knew. A couple hours after that and here comes my Mom and my Uncle driving up in my Uncle's pickup. No horse trailer, no my Dad, just my Mom, crying, holding my Dad's cowboy hat. No one got my Dad's hat but Dad. I knew at the age of 10 what it is like for your whole world to fall down around your ears. The way you had always lived was gone, in a heartbeat, or truthfully it was gone in the lack of a heartbeat. My Dad died from a Massive Coronary. In plain language, he had a heart attack that no one could come back from. His heart quit, it stopped and it was never going to start again. My Dad didn't exist anymore except in pictures and memories. It wasn't really fair. He was young. Why my Dad? I asked myself all the questions, I never got any answers, or at least I never got the answers to the questions I asked.
My Dad was dead. Dead at 40 years old. Never coming home again. I was never going to see him again. Dead. Permanent. Gone. It was insane, it was terrible, heartbreaking pain that tore through a person and made them feel nothing, just nothing. Tears oh my god the tears came and they went, and then they came again. It was a time of what do we do now. Where do we go from here. So many people in and out of the house. People calling, letters being written and being received. It was STOP, for me it was just stop. My Mom was crying constantly, my sisters and my brother would cry. I know I cried, but I also know that they cried. My Uncle spend alot of time at my house, so did my Aunt. My Granny and Grandpa, my Dad's parents, they pretty much got through the funeral. And then the only time we saw them was pretty much when us kids went over there. I never knew what had happened with them for many years. I know now, I'm not happy with what happened but I can't change it and they are the ones that had to live with what happened. So anyway, I guess a little later on about six months or so, maybe a year, my Mom went to my Grandparents to ask them for some help. My Grandpa said no. He didn't like her much I learned years later. But why wouldn't he help his grandchildren? I don't know, I can't answer that because by the time I found all this out he was long since gone, passed away, so I could not ask him. I just know that my Mom never let us kids know about it until after we were adults. She was pretty smart my Mom. She knew it would have an effect on our relationship with them and she did not want that to happen.
Okay so this has dredged up alot of hard feelings. Feelings that I have not faced in a very long time. It's not easy writing this and feeling these feelings again. So stay safe and healthy till I write more.
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