If my father had lived he would be one hundred two today. It would not have been an unusual occurrence given that his father was one hundred eight years old when he died. Longevity seems to have been common in Daddy’s family. Sadly his life was cut short by a car accident that would mostly likely not resulted in his death in today’s world of automobile safety that includes seatbelts, air bags, and steering wheels designed to collapse in a collision. Anyone of those things would have saved my father from having his chest crushed thus stopping his heart at the age of thirty three.
I loved my father but only knew him as a child. I have often wondered how our relationship would have evolved as I grew into an adult. I suspect that I would have continued to enjoy the love of music and books that he had already planted in me. I can imagine having interesting discussions with him and traveling to many places together. Still, I wonder how different things would be.
There came a time when I was no longer able to recall how my father’s voice sounded. He died before we had a movie camera that recorded both movement and sound. He was a silent image to me even though I remembered his liveliness and his love of laughter. One of my aunts told me that if I ever wanted to hear his voice I need only listen to my youngest brother who also happens to be a physical clone of Daddy. I have take great comfort in knowing that and it is not surprising at all to me that my little brother is a great storyteller and comic just like our father. Genes will have their way in each of us.
Two of my brother’s sons visibly resemble my father as well. In fact, not long ago, I looked across the room at one of my nephews and was startled for a moment because he looked so much like the man who would have been his grandfather. The other nephew shares the same kind of features and through him I have come to believe that I know how my father appeared as a child even though there are no photos of him before he was in junior high.
One of my grandsons shares an uncanny resemblance to my father in both appearance and personality as well. He and I joke that we got my father’s hair which was already beginning to thin and recede at the age of thirty three. We’ve got his cheekbones as well. My grandson even attended Texas A&M University like my father and majored in Mechanical Engineering as well. It is uncanny how much alike they are.
I sometimes find myself imagining how much my daughters and grandchildren would have loved him. He was a sweet, thoughtful and entertaining person who loved to chat with boyhood friends as well as coworkers and neighbors. He seemed to attract people wherever he went because he was genuinely interested in them. He was a kind of Renaissance Man who was an artist, a poet, an architect, an engineer, a fisherman, a collector of books of every topic, an historian, a most interesting and loyal man.
My mother’s doctors told me that she would have probably been quirky rather than dangerously debilitated by her bipolar disorder had my father lived. The stresses of raising me and my brothers alone ultimately overcame her. My father had a way of helping her to feel safe even when her illness sometimes manifested in silly arguments that Daddy knew how to tamp down. She fell apart when he died and as a child I wondered if she would ever be the same. Somehow she pulled herself together, but the stress ultimately overtook her ability to cope without medical intervention.
I know that it is silly to pine forever, so I learned how to move forward. I do not dwell on my father and the might have beens. I’ve had too much to do to loll in sorrow. I understand that it is unlikely that I would be the same person that I now am even with a few tiny changes in the direction of my life. If he had lived I would be a slightly different person. I would have gone to different schools and interacted with different people. Each tiny redirection would have impacted me, but my father’s early influence on me was already imprinted on my soul and had much to do with the choices I made and the joy that I found after he was gone.
Each time September 2 rolls around I feel the need to honor Jack Little. He was a very good, loving, generous man who taught me so much more than he may have thought he had done. His influence loomed large on the person I ultimately became and I think of him and feel grateful to him in spite of the long absence that became the reality of my relationship with him. I know his faults but they were small in comparison with the talents and morality that he shared with the world during the brief time that he was alive. Perhaps it was his mother who best captured the essence of who he was when her eyes would fill with tears and she would proclaim to me, “Your Daddy was always a very good boy, a wonderful son and father.”
Happy Birthday, Daddy!
All It Takes Is A Little Love 