My Dad's Legacy

Fourth of July.  A holiday that through the years has meant many things.  As a child, it was lighting 'snakes' and penny poppers in the driveway.  During my rodeo career it meant lots and lots of performances, usually in the heat.  

Then one day, it meant loss and sadness.  My Dad passed away on the 4th of July and now it will forever have the stigma of that event.

I think about him a lot more now than I ever did before.  Or maybe just in a different way.  My Dad was 44 years old when he and my Mom adopted me as an infant.  That means he was 58 years old when I turned 14.  The same age as I am now and God help me, I can't imagine having a 14 year old right now.

What I have come to wonder about is, "Did he have the same doubts then as I have now?  Did he hear the tick tick of the clock and dread the steady advance of aging?"  If so, he never said so.  Maybe I just didn't notice but I look back on memories and I can't remember any indication of his trepidation into the 'golden years'.  I remember that he got up every morning and went off to open his businesses.  He came home usually after dark for supper, then a little television and a nap in his recliner.  He lived for the stolen hours he could have on the golf course.  And all the while, I never noticed that he was getting old.

I wonder when he knew?  I wonder  what he thought in his private moments, about the loss of his youth, his physicality.  And most of all, I wonder how he reconciled the image he saw in the mirror with the image he had of himself in his mind.

Maybe it's easier for men but I suspect they are just less vocal about it.  You know, most women feel the need to 'cuss and discuss everything stage of this journey.  Maybe men simply suffer in silence.

After pondering this, I have a new appreciation for my Dad.  He died at 82.  I'm nowhere close to that but some days I think I've got one foot in the grave.  I wish I could know now, just what he knew then.

What I do know is....the world was a better place for having had John A Crews and my life was so blessed by his presence in it.  That is a legacy I hope to claim someday.