Dance with my Father

I'm gonna take a quick break from all the sturm und drang that is my cancer blogging and talk today about my Daddy.  It's Father's Day and it's been rough on me for the last 24 years that he has been gone. Today I am feeling all the feels and so I just want to let it out for a bit...back to cancer soon...maybe even later this week if I finish my "I started this 3 weeks ago" blog...

Hello Darlings and Happy Father's Day!

I'm sending love and best wishes to all the dads out there.

I lost my Daddy in 1994.

I miss him every single day.

Every
Single
Day

I woke up this morning and so wished I could call him or better yet be with him at his house so I could get up and treat him to breakfast.

I found a photo of him and me when I was a baby and posted it on social media and then the tears started.

Going through these last few years has been rough not having him around.

I miss his wisdom and I miss his humor.

I think he would love having an adult relationship with my kids and I think he would be very proud of how I handled my divorce and building a life alone and most especially how I have handled my cancer.

Many of you who read this blog knew my dad.

Bobby was a man of great charm.

To know him was to love him.

He wasn't always easy to deal with (ask Super Sharon his former assistant) but most of the time he was someone you just wanted to be around.

I think he could charm a snake just with his grin...

My dad told great stories.

I think it is where I get my love of being a storyteller comes from.

I only wish I had made him write some of them down.

And oh how he loved horses and cars.

He was never happier than when he was in the saddle or driving.

When he had his heart attack and the docs told him he might not be able to ride or drive he said "well then let me die..."

He never sat pretty in the saddle.

Far from it.

He had a way of riding that we called "the funky chicken" because his arms would flap about.

He was put on a saddle as soon as he could sit up and he developed more horse sense than any man I ever knew.  And he wasn't too bad with the cattle either...

He won a World Cutting Championship (in the most ugly way possible) and was once featured riding hard on the cover of Fortune magazine.

He would come home from working cattle and would pretty much be a filthy dirty mess...but he loved every minute of it and I'm pretty sure his soul roams the Laureles division of the King Ranch looking after the cattle and the turkeys and deer.

Daddy loved to hunt but was always respectful of the animals he killed. We ate them or he gave the meat to friends. Hunting was sport but he also treated it as part of the circle of life.

He once killed an elephant (the elephant was old and sick and he was asked to put it down because he was a crack shot). He said it was the hardest kill of his life. He didn't speak much of it but he was gifted with the tusk (this was in the 60's) and some of the hide. He had boots made from the hide and he loved them so much we buried him in those boots.

He loved to hunt so much that he turned a car into a hunting vehicle.

He took a Tornado and had the roof and doors removed and had the King Ranch Saddle Shop make him rifle scabbards to go on the sides.

He would fly that thing (yes it had wheels but he made it FLY) around the King Ranch and once took his good friend Captain Pete Conrad for a ride in it. Pete was an astronaut. 2nd moonshot. Walked on the moon. He took my dad to a lift off for one of the Apollo missions and when my dad felt the rumbling of the Saturn rocket he asked Pete:

"how the hell did you handle all that rumbling and roughness?"

Pete answered: "because I drove across the King Ranch with you in your hunting car---it was great training!"

Yeah, to ride with Daddy was always an adventure.

When my stepmother gifted him with a Porsche one Christmas he couldn't wait to drive.

He made up an excuse to drive into Ingram and I was the unlucky and unwilling passenger.

We made it to Ingram in 8 minutes.

It usually took 10...

not kidding...

I came back from that little trip white as a ghost and as mad at him as the time he made me ride "Space Mountain" at Disney World.

No wonder Pete thought riding a Saturn rocket was a breeze compared to my dad driving a car with no door and roof across the south Texas landscape.

Speaking of that car---once he turned it into the Bat Mobile.

He came to pick me and Noel up from high school dressed as Batman (with my step mother dressed as Batgirl) in the "Batmobile".

Noel hid...

I ran to the car and my friends wanted a ride.

Only my dad could drive across town dressed as a comic book character and not be embarrassed.

I think it made the small town paper...and some of my friends probably still remember it.

As for the Batman costume it was a gift for his 40th birthday and my cousin Tio had a Robin costume to go along with it. I have photos...they are great...

My dad was an enigma of sorts---he was such a rough and tumble cowboy who rode horses and shot guns but he's also the man who chose my prom dress and cried so much when he saw me at Neimans in my wedding gown that I had to go and fetch him from the adjoining salon.

He collected western art yet loved Lalique crystal.

He loved scotch and red wine and good cold Mexican beer.

He loved a very rare steak and always had his beloved chilipetins on the table to go with it.

He loved to sing but usually only in Spanish (El Rey was a favorite)

He loved cars so much he once owned and ran a car dealership

He collected guns, cars, western art and children---there were 9 of us!

I had a complicated relationship with him.

When he said one thing I often had to prove him wrong

Like my wedding day when he said "are you sure" my answer was to grab my gown and his arm and said "the trumpet is playing let's go" even though he was right and I should have run out the church doors.

A particular conversation changed what I studied in college...

If truth be told I really just wanted to study to be a teacher.

I love teaching and I love kids.

If I had my way I would have been an art/art history teacher.

But a conversation we had when I was 13 changed that course for me.

After my father married my stepmother my mom would not allow us to travel to Houston every other weekend for visitation so my father leased some ranch property near Kingsville. We stayed in the guest house because the main house on the ranch was under dispute from the heirs to the property. They were fighting about it so they leased the property to my dad until things could be settled.

The ranch itself was in a bit of a mess and my dad was helping them by culling wildlife and grazing cattle there.

He took me out for a drive and we discussed why the ranch had not been properly managed which led us to a discussion of what would happen if he had a ranch of his own (we did have property in Montana) and he died.

Who would run the ranch?

And he informed me he planned to groom my brother to be his successor.

THAT DID IT.

My brother?

I looked at him and said "why not me?"

and I knew the answer....

because I was a girl.

And I was supposed to grow up, get married, have babies, cook perfect meals and serve cocktails and be a lady...

So I went to Texas A&M and studied Agriculture and confounded all my professors and showed up to Animal Science class dressed in a mini skirt and heels...and once rearranged a set of steers all while wearing stilletos and tight jeans and a typical 80's top with my hair in a perfect version of big 80's hair.

A few of my classmates called me "Hurricane Anice".

I'll take it....

My dad never expected me to run his ranch but he was beyond proud the day I got my degree and despite his University of Texas loving soul he resigned himself to the fact that I was an Aggie and loved it.

And I still ended up getting married and having babies and cooking perfect meals and serving cocktails and I'm a lady...and I never ran the ranch...

My dad loved women.

He really really loved women.

And when he saw a beautiful woman he would say "now that's a chickipoo" (he called beautiful women "chickipoo")

Last night I went to go see "Book Club" with Twirler Girl.

We loved it (very cute movie if you are a woman over a certain age).

Candace Bergen is in it.

My father took my sisters and me to Paris (see my blog "La Femme Parallel" for those adventures) and we were lucky enough to get to fly on the Concorde.

The Concorde had a private lounge and we were waiting to board our flight while relaxing in the lounge.

In walked the most glamorous woman I have or will ever see.

She was a statuesque blonde wearing a full length mink coat and heels and sunglasses and she was on the arm of an older gentleman.  Back in that day you could go to the gate or the lounge even if you weren't flying on the flight. The man was clearly going on the flight but she was just there to see him off. She had eyes only for him.

My dad took one look at her and said "Now THAT is a chickipoo" and I could only stare.

I said "she looks like a movie star" and Daddy said "she is....She is Candace Bergen".

I had no clue who she was but I knew she was beautiful...

My poor stepmother was 5 months pregnant and had swollen ankles and watched my dad's eyes pop out of his head looking at the movie star.

But Daddy being Daddy he walked over to her...kissed her and told her SHE was the most beautiful woman in the room.

That was Daddy...

An appreciator of beautiful women but he knew how to take care of the women he loved.

I don't have any personal items belonging to him.

My stepmother never let me have anything but I have memories that no one can take from me.

And this is my fondest one...

it was the night before he died.

My daughter was 2 months old

Daddy was in the hospital and had had an angiogram and was scheduled for bypass surgery the next day (the surgery he would ultimately die from).

Daddy was so excited to have a granddaughter and he bought my daughter several over-the-top baby gowns and dresses that basically made her look like a giant meringue confection.

I dressed her up in one of the confection dresses and took her up to see him.

He opened his arms to receive her and held her for the hour or so we were there.

He was the happiest I had ever seen him and he was delighted to be holding and kissing his grandchild.

When it was time to go and I was taking him from his arms he said:

"She's the best thing you have ever done"

and at that moment any and all disappointment I had ever had from him vanished.

Because I truly succeeded in his eyes by producing this beautiful perfect child.

I kissed him and we told each other we loved each other.

The next day he had surgery and never woke up.

My last memories of him are of him in a coma but I truly prefer to remember that moment he handed her over to me.

I did something perfectly in his eyes.

I had strived all my life to do it.

And I finally did.

My dad was complicated, charming, funny, difficult, imperfect and easy to love.

And he will always be the first man I ever loved and even though we had a complicated relationship I feel blessed to be his daughter.

I have more tales to tell but there is a steak on my counter that needs cooking in his honor and some red wine I need to pour.

So to all who knew and loved my Daddy I hope you had a little remembrance of him as you read this...

and now I will go make a rare steak and think of him...

Happy Father's Day Daddy....I love you...

Inspiration Song: "Dance with my Father" by Luther Vandross. Because I wish I could dance with my father once again:

If I could steal one final glance
One final step
One final dance with him
I'd play a song that would never ever end
Cause I'd love love love to
Dance with my father again


Bye Darlings....back to cancer blogging next time but for now I just wanted to give you all a glimpse of the wonderful man I called my Daddy...