Webb: My last Fathers Day with the old man

This blog was written, but not posted, on June 18, 2019, about six weeks before Dad passed on Aug. 5. 

Sunday was the last Fathers Day I’ll spend with my dad, at least in this life. It’s been two weeks since he told us he was stopping treatment for bone cancer and ready to move on to the next phase, which undoubtedly is Heaven (more on that in a later blog).

For several years now, I’ve spent Fathers Day with Dad. Sometimes, that day was full of youth baseball as we watched my talented nephew work his way toward a college scholarship. We’d attend a game or two with my brother’s family, then eat together.

My favorite Fathers Days, however, were the trips to Joplin Dad and I went on several times in the last decade, beginning in 2011.

Those trips were more than spending time with my dad. We’d visit my grandfather’s final resting place in Joplin and several of the houses and communities that defined the Webb family in the 1970s and 1980s.

We’d drive by Dad’s childhood home on the south side of Joplin, cruise past the house we lived in on the north side of town shortly after I was born and relive a lifetime of memories as we checked out our small house on Pennsylvania Street. The latter was a block away from my grade school and two blocks north of the swath of land obliterated by the 2011 tornado.

Our trip included a drive by the first place he and my mother owned, a small house outside of Neosho, Missouri. Dad always said he was happiest there, working two jobs during the week, cutting wood on the weekend and coming home to a lovely wife and two beautiful baby boys.

Of course, we sandwiched a trip to a casino between all of it. Once a year we made the trip, and once a year I might as well have lit $40 on fire. It’s the most expensive soda I’ve ever purchased.

We also drove by our house in Anderson, Missouri, a place where my brother and I overcame Scarlet fever in the early 1980s and my dad leaped off a tractor moments before it pinballed down the side of steep hill.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make the trip this year. Cancer has ravaged my father enough that he can’t handle trips that last more than 30 minutes.

Instead, we went fishing, as we’ve done hundreds of times as father and sons. This time, it was father, sons who are also fathers now, grandsons and granddaughters, daughters-in-law and a family friend.

We caught plenty of bass in a large pond in Osage County, the edge of the water dotted with Webbs spending one last Fathers Day with the family patriarch.

While disappointed we couldn’t make it Joplin this year, the outing did bring back a treasure trove of childhood memories with the old man.

I will always remember the first time he took my brother and I fishing. I was 8 or 9 and my brother 6 or 7. During a break after one of his craft shows in southeast Kansas, Dad took us to a spot outside of Coffeyville, Kansas, his father had taken him thousands of times over the years.

I also remember that my brother caught a five-pound drum within 20 minutes of casting his pole. I didn’t catch a damn thing. Ever competitive (another family trait), I was pissed enough to walk away, which prompted a story from my father about the time he did that and came back to find his pole being yanked into the water by a fish.

That “failure” ruined fishing for me for several years. I’ve never eaten fish anyway, and the disappointment of not catching anything further demonstrated that it wasn’t worth my time.

That changed in 1989 when we moved to a small place outside of Burlingame. Dad took my brother and I to a small pound two miles behind our property. We used cane poles on this trip, pulling in at least 20 perch each during an hour long session. Pardon the pun, I was hooked.

Over the next few years, we’d jump in our small boat and navigate Dragoon Creek, catching an array of fish, notably catfish. On some of those trips, we’d finish the day walking along the river, loading up buckets full of delicious morel mushrooms.

What I remember the most about those trips, though, are the conversations we had with my dad. This was our time to connect. We’d talk about sports, girls, music, family and dozens of other topics. It was a lifetime of wisdom over a handful of hours on a murky river that I can smell to this day.

As I thought about these memories on Sunday, I wasn’t sad. I didn’t think about this being his last Fathers Day with us. I didn’t think about the vicious illness he’s battling. I was just grateful to have such a wonderful man to learn from all these years.

I think my smart, loving wife summed it up perfectly in a Facebook post about the fathers in her life, especially a section on my dad, brother and I:

“My husband chose to take on his dad role, with courage and love beyond what the kids probably realize. … My other brother-in-law has shown his children the value of faith. And my father-in -law, a driving force in his sons’ lives, inspires them to be the great dads they are.”