Daddy Joe

This weekend John and I traveled down to Rocky Mount, NC to visit with his grandfather, affectionatly known as "Daddy Joe." Daddy Joe is at the tail end of his 96th year of living and, while not the independent and mobile man that he was when I first met him years ago, he's still such a special person in John and my life.

Daddy Joe in 2008 on the Golf Course

This past week has been a hard one for him. Mid-week he fell in the hall of his apartment and dislocated his shoulder only to have his girlfriend, Harriet, pass away while he was in the hospital. Harriet and Daddy Joe had been together for 25 years.

My favorite way to describe Harriet is as a "firecracker." A woman after my own heart, she hailed from the glory days of Brooklyn and never lost that beautiful New York way about her. I'm almost positive that's what drew Daddy Joe to her. She was a bit louder than the southern girls I'm sure Daddy Joe was used to and she had a quick whit and wicked sense of humor that never failed to make me laugh. She was a tiny woman, I'd be hard pressed to believe she even reached five foot, and I constantly fought the urge to stick her in my pocket and take her home with me. She was a lovely soul and I'm saddened to know we'll never cross paths again. For reasons only Daddy Joe and Harriet will ever know, they never married, but it was a decision he clearly feels some level of regret for in these evening days of his life. While Daddy Joe is handling the death of Harriet like only a man who has outlived too many of his loved ones can, it is easy to see he is deeply pained to have her gone.

Thanksgiving 2010

Daddy Joe has always been a strong, stubborn, career oriented man with a hard exterior. He's blunt, to the point of being mean sometimes, but effortlessly charming when he wants to be. He's old school in all the ways that you would expect a man his age to be, but he's not oblivious to being left behind with the times. He conciously holds tight to tradition and the ways of a more civilized time. He struggles to hear these days, and a combination of poor eyesight and a certain level of dementia has left him easily confused, but he still cracks a joke when he gets the chance, and seems more eager to talk about his early days than he ever has been before. Perhaps the thing that stuck with me the most was his vocal regret about how busy he was in his youth, and how little time he spent on the things that were important. As a doctor Daddy Joe was very much consumed by his work. When he lost his first wife, I'm guessing it became easier to drown himself in his career than focus on the fact he was now a single father of two. It's clear he regrets that now, but he offers his regret as a cautionary tale, and one that I won't easily forget.

Life is getting harder for Daddy Joe as the days go by. He speaks openly of wishing the Lord would just call him home, and as a man who spends most of his days napping, is limited in his mobility, can hardly hear, and barely see, I sympothize with him. Selfishly, I hope he can find it in himself to live long enough to meet our little Kaiya, his very first great grandchild, but realistically I know that it's easier for him to yearn for the company of the loved ones he knew and are no longer, than to be excited for the ones that are not yet and that he's unlikely to ever really know. Ultimately, I just wish for him peace. Peace with the decisions he's made and the life that he's lived, and peace that can only come in knowing that you have people who love you and will never be the same without you.

Screen shot of our skype date with Matt and Lauren. Only Sean, Becca, and Russ were missing from this shot.

So, as we all move into the New Year, strive to live purposefully and without regret and most of all, remember to make your loved ones your priority because as your life winds down, it's the moments with them that you'll treasure most.