Note: This blog was written but not published in January 2019, two weeks after doctors diagnosed Dad with terminal cancer. He died seven months later.
It’s been 13 days since we found out my dad had six months to live …
It’s been a rough day. I’ve been melancholy from the moment I woke up. I thought for much of the day it had more to do with my achy back (again) or the fact that I have to return to work tomorrow for the first time in 12 days.
Then, it hit me as I was ironing clothes, it’s Dad. I started tearing up for what must be the 253rd time in the last two weeks. It didn’t last long. Focus. Try to be positive. Embrace the time you have. I’ve told myself that a thousand times since we got the news.
Before I delve into sports, a major theme in our father-son relationship, some positive news. Dad went to see a doctor who is a family friend. They’re going to try some things conventional medicine never would.
Skeptical at first, my ears perked up as my sister-in-law, who has been a super hero taking care of Dad, rattled off several of the treatments they’re going to try. Many of those were ones my doctor, who doesn’t always subscribe to all the conventional “wisdom” of modern medicine, used when I was incredibly sick with Epstein-Barr Virus.
We all know this a long shot, of course. Cancer is a vicious beast, relentless and spirit-crushing. But the doctor and his colleague think at the very least they can halt the cancer where it is and possibly give Dad more time. Best-case scenario would be remission. Again, that seems like a long shot.
But, for my dad, that’s hope. And, as the wonderful “Shawshank Redemption” taught us, “Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.”
Even with hope, my father has been more emotional than I’ve ever seen him. Until he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in August 2017, I’d never seen him cry. I’ve seen him sad, maybe on the verge of tears, but I’d never seen tears.
I remember the day he got the call, June 8, 1984, that his dad had died at age 64. A massive heart attack, the end for most Webb men, while push-mowing the lawn was the culprit. Dad was clearly stunned, but he was in and out of the house in 10 minutes to help my grandmother.
My brother said a few months after grandpa died, he asked Dad, “Why did grandpa have to die?” That, apparently, brought my dad to tears.
One of thing moments I’ll always remember is a conversation with my dad about his father. I asked him why he said “I love you” as much as he did to my brother and I. He spoke about his father and how he knew they loved each other, but concluded the story by saying, “Dad only told me he loved me one time, and that was the last phone call we had before he died. He said, ‘Ernie, I sure do love you, son.’”
It also explained why there was never a shortage of kisses until we were too old for that and why there was never a shortage of hugs to this day.
As for sports, that was the main bond between my father and I until I got out of high school. When I felt like we couldn’t talk about much (teenage boys don’t have time for that), we could always talk about sports.
When Dad realized how much I loved baseball, playing catch became a daily routine. My brother and I were lucky that he always worked from home during the week. Both of our parents worked extremely hard, and Dad often worked 16-hour days. He still took an hour nearly every day to play catch.
Not surprisingly, Dan and I ended up being pretty good at baseball, and we both played into high school. He also felt like his oldest son was far too competitive, to the point of crying for hours after a season-ending loss. Of course, the competitiveness came directly from Dad, who once launched a Monopoly board off a balcony when he was losing. Allegedly.
By the time I was 11, basketball had become a passion. In the summer of 1987, Mom, Dan and I spent a month in California visiting her side of the family. Dad, as he usually did when we went on this vacations, stayed home to work. This, however, was much longer than we usually stayed.
When we returned home from the airport, we realized just how much Dad had missed and loved us. He’d built an awesome tree house in the backyard and a basketball goal on his workshop.
We learned to play basketball on that goal, spending hours shooting H-O-R-S-E and going two-on-one against Dad. We both played him well into college, and he occasionally found a way to win (often cheating when he did) well into his 50s.
Years later, when I moved in with him in my mid-30s to change careers, the only stipulation he had was that I start working out again. I was more than 300 pounds and needed the lifestyle change, so that seemed reasonable. Always the loving father, Dad, who was in far better shape that I was, went all-in with me, walking/jogging on the dirt roads around his house, lifting weights and, of course, playing basketball.
And, yes, of course, he found a way to get one last win over his son, at age 65. And, yes, of course, he cheated to pull it off (his go-to strategy was butchering the score. In this case, I led 13-10. After he scored, he said it was 12-9 his).
Without his support, there’s no way I lose more than 100 pounds. And, at the rate I was going, he might have saved my life.
I could write millions of words about our experiences in sports. He took us to our first Major League Baseball game, in 1985, during the Royals first World Series championship season. The smells of the ballpark are still in my nose. His obsession with the outrageously priced nachos ($2) endures.
A few months later, we shared my favorite childhood memory, Game 6 of the World Series, which we watched from a hotel room in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, during a business trip, and the following night, listening to Game 7 as he honked the horn along I-44 while the Royals crushed the Cardinals.
Several years later, I returned the favor and took my dad to his first college basketball game. We couldn’t have picked a better one. At age 52 in 1997, he watched from third deck of the Hearnes Center as Missouri stunned the best Kansas team I’ve ever seen in double overtime.
Nine years later, I took him to his first college football game. That didn’t go as well. Missouri, who appeared to have turned the corner that year, got a reality check at home against Oklahoma.
The following year, however, my girlfriend at the time managed to score tickets to Armageddon at Arrowhead. Along with my brother, we watched Missouri knock off Kansas to become the top-ranked team in college football.
The other memory that stands out is a recent one. In 2015, the Royals overcame decades of misery to win another championship. I didn’t watch any of the games with Dad, but I will never forget his phone calls, especially during Game 6 of the ALCS and during Game 5 of the World Series. I think those games and calls took both of us back to 1985.
Our latest memory came Monday when we watched the Liberty Bowl together. Missouri, as they do, choked and lost the game. Dad and I have endured enough of those through the years not to be surprised. At one point late in the fourth quarter, my dad yelled at his TV, “Come on, guys, win one more for the Gipper.”
It’s the only time that day I was sad. It’s also the only time in the past 30 years that I really didn’t care that the Tigers lost. Just getting to spend some time with my Dad was a win.
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS SERIES 2022
Part V: Bloomer where you’re planted
Part IV: How the heck did I misspell that?
Part III: A partridge and an electronic sign