“As long as you’re alive, Dad is alive.”
My old man said that several times on Father’s Day in 2012 while talking to John Henry, an uncle and my late grandfather’s brother-in-law and best friend.
I’ve thought about that statement occasionally in the 12 years since. For my father, John was the last connection left to his dad, who he admired a great deal and developed a close relationship with after struggling immensely as a boy and young man.
“Dad didn’t have many friends, but he and John Henry were very close,” the old man said. “They lived similar lives. Both were in World War II. Both were truck drivers. They were good, hardworking men.”
I don’t have many memories of John. The only one from my youth is visiting him with my father in the early 1980s when we all lived in Joplin, Missouri. I vaguely remember a green house and that he reminded me a lot of my grandpa.
We didn’t see much of Joplin after my grandfather died in 1984. That winter, my grandmother stayed with us for a few weeks at Christmas before moving to Washington, where she died a few years later. They lived in Goodman up until that year, and without a reason to visit them, we were rarely in that part of the state again after Dad and Mom moved us to Lebanon in 1983.
John lived in Joplin for much of his life, so we didn’t see him for a long time. In fact, I don’t think we saw him for 30 years.
My father wasn’t even sure he was still alive in 2012 when we traveled to Joplin for our annual Father’s Day trip. That trip usually included a stop for breakfast at a diner he and my grandfather frequented when the old man was a kid, stops at our previous homes in Joplin, Neosho and Anderson, and, of course, a visit to the casino just across the state line.
On this trek, however, Dad wanted to stop by the house John lived in and see if he was still around. It was a little surprising to discover that he was still spry at the tender age of 88. We visited for more than two hours, and I listened as Dad, John and his wife, daughter and a few grandchildren talked about the good old days.
The most prominent memory of that visit will always be my father saying “As long as you’re still alive, my dad is alive” multiple times. I often wondered if we didn’t stop by his house in the years after because my father didn’t want to discover he had joined his dad in the afterlife.
For years when I thought of the statement, I’d check in with John’s daughter or Google him to see how he was doing. John made it to age 98 before passing away in January 2023, ironically living more than three years after my father died in 2019.
I realize now that John Henry will always be with us, just as my grandpa and dad will always be “alive.”
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART III: How the old man finally found his way
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART II: How I came up with “Goodbye, Butterfly” for the book title
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART I: The first Christmas I can remember