The Book According to Dennis

The weather was beautiful, the day we buried my dad. The sun shone over the rolling hills of eastern KY; I had seen it many times before, yet that day was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. My dad was in the air, I could feel his energy. The quick wit and authority made everything go just right.

The morning of the funeral we had to organize a bunch of things. My father wrote Harley for years. My mother had organized to have a Harley-Davidson carry his casket to the burial site. There was so much to do that morning, and it was the middle of December. A time when you would think it would be dreary, cold and wet. This day was not like that at all. Surprisingly, when I woke up that morning the sun was shining, which instantly set a mood of calm, and also carried some reference. I remember saying to my daughter, it’s like pop pop told heaven if I needed to shine today.

My younger sister Teddy and her daughter were dressed identical for the funeral. They both wore white button downs and black skirts. She always gave me 10 cans the hell about the way I dressed, so I just wore whatever the hell I wanted to that day. We had gone shopping at Harley-Davidson prior to the funeral. I knew I was going to be on one of my fathers motorcycles, so I wore something to protect my legs, Doc Martin black boots, and was able to wear a Harley-Davidson T-shirt on 11 December. I could only imagine my father smiling down on me, happy that I got to do this last ride with him.

We started out a couple hours before the actual service, I wanted to make sure that everybody was able to pay their respects and say hello to other family members. I was so caught up in what was going on that I had no ability to relate to anyone. It was almost like I was surprised that I wasn’t feeling as bad as I thought I should feel. Anticipatory grief prepared me somewhat, we have been watching my father slowly slip away for years. Soon after we arrived at the church a flock of my father’s confidence, friends, more of our family started to arrive. The majority of them arrived on motorcycle, most of them in leather jackets, chaps, vests. The embroidery on these that are typical Harley-Davidson embroidery, but the detail and some of these things were unbelievable. Bright orange persimmon colors with the black white and yellow all over in these gorgeous patterns many with eagles and wings. Funny enough, the three were wings on the glass casket case that was rightfully toted by a Harley trike hearse.

My brother in -law Owen and I rode my fathers Harley to the church. As we were getting ready for the ride Owen opened the storage space located under the seat. I got out a pair of my fathers sunglasses. As I wiped off the polarized lenses, a little black book caught my eye. Owen paid no attention to it, hell maybe he hadn’t seen it at all. I snagged it, put it in the pocket of the jacket, I was wearing, that had been want he wore on every ride. We started to the gas station, the ride was amazing already, simply beautiful. Owen pumped the gas, I said hi to a friend From high school.

The moment seemed surreal. Almost as if I was seventeen again, and father was not dead, and this was not a gas up to drive to a burial site. Life had quasi stopped and rewound in a matter minutes.

I heard a snap, then a second one. Owen was looking at me with shocked, curious eyes and looked a bit lost. “What’s up brother?” I smiled and said.

“ Did I give you the keys, I mean I know it’s just a fab, but I swore I put them in my pocket?”

I checked, patted myself down, even reached down in the ankles of my boots... Nothing. “No Owen, I don’t think you did.”

This caused panic in both of us immediately. Here we were, two hours before the funeral was to start, and we couldn’t start the cycle. I felt my neck begin to sweat, I took out my phone and called my mother.

“Mom...”, my voice has to have sounded timid.

“We need the other key fab...”

“What Kennedy…?!” My mom gasped. “ I have no idea what your father kept that thing...”

“Ask Teddy, I was getting impatient.

“TEDDDDDDYYYY..... Teddy!” Mom hollered. “We need the other dang key fab!... ok sissy, we will look for it.”

Call dropped, that’s Eastern Kentucky for you, I was lucky to have obtained any service. Owen looked worried, we were stuck. Meanwhile, my sister Teddy, our mother and the kids looked frantically in the house for the spare fab, to no avail. We were marooned. Owen called Teddy. “They had to have fallen out of my pocket Ted… I remember putting them in it. “...

Silence. It was irritating.

“That’s exactly where...”

Another pause.

“Ok... Ok. Call me back. “

He hung up the phone.

“She’s going to retrace where we were.”

We had driven 10 minutes away, on some of the most twisted country roads, I only knew because I learned to drive on these exact roads. There were many turns, and many places to lose a key fab. At the time all I knew to do was pray, and I was never the praying type, till recent times. I looked at the sky and was once again mesmerized by the quality of the weather in December. I felt like I should be worried, but I was not. The phone rang.

Owen’s eyes got wide, You have got to be kidding me, are you serious?!”...

Life seemed less bleak.

He softly hung up the phone, set it on the seat of the motorcycle.

“Teddy found it. “ Owen was breathing again.

“What?” I was not expecting those words to come out of his mouth.

“ Teddy found the key fob, she found it in the middle of the street at the top of the hill by the house.”

His face relaxed.

So did my mind.

The transport thereafter was flawless. Not one hitch, issue or attitude problem. Dad’s service was beautiful. Even in the wake of a pandemic that had rendered hundreds and thousands of people sick, and everyone required to protect themselves with masks, people suited up and showed up, from all walks of life. It became so prevalent how much my father meant to so many people. I walked around the crowd of people surrounding the church. There were so many rules being broken during the pandemic it made me uncomfortable, however it also put me at ease. This was my father, standing right in front of me. Looking at me through each and every one of the people I met. Every story either brought tears to my eyes or made me smile.

The day that I buried my father was the day that I learned what the true legacy meant. I learned that my father befriended people that were nothing like him, I witnessed the way he changed peoples lives for the better. In just a few short hours I laughed more than I had in years.

You go through your life thinking you really know your parents. We think that we know it all when we’re children, even into young adulthood. In these moments I took the time to sit back and realize everything that I did not know about the man that raised me. We had a tumultuous past my father and I, I have been a daddy’s girl my whole life, until I wasn’t anymore. I became estranged with both of my parents after college, I found my own way, and it was not what they had planned. It caused a drought in our relationships, there was a lack of understanding and communication that no relationship should have to endure. I spent a lot of time being selfish as most children do, thinking I knew everything I took no time to even think about what they had to go through to build a life for our family.

My father was a coal miner, that sounds like the title of a movie, better yet an album. Needless to say it was really difficult work, he was gone from before it got light in the morning until it was dark at night, the time we got to spend together with few and far between the older I got, and my mother was a nurse. Like every American family there was plenty of love, and there was also plenty of arguments. Alcohol thrived within my father or at least that’s what he thought, I spent nights filling up smaller bottles from a half gallon just so it was easier for him to drink. He was diagnosed with black long before I was in college. He thought that battle, and won. When he was first diagnosed with cirrhosis it wasn’t that much of a surprise, he hadn’t taken care of his self and he seemed to live in the fantasy world where he really had as many lives as he imagined. However, never in any of these times did he stop being my father.

Oh, not too mention at the same times he was being mine and Teddy’s father, he befriended so many people. If people needed help he put in the extra work, so he could help. If people needed an ear he had the ability to listen. There was one friend of my fathers name Kelly, he told me of a time when my father, who was about six or seven years older than him, was on the playground with him at school. There was a priest outside on the playground, and his friend Kelly explained that the priest would say strange things under his breath and make inappropriate hand gestures. Things that would not fly in today’s society. Kelly said that my father told the priest to leave the kids alone and quit talking the way he was talking. The priest kept on, then surprisingly enough my father took a garbage can and threw it at the priest knocked him clear out. Kelley told me that he never saw my father get reprimanded, and the priest never came back. He was under the impression that the priest had been doing some really awful things within the school, and had my father not stood up to him, he probably would’ve continued to perform such lewd and inexplicable acts.

When I heard this it made me see my father in a completely different light. I always knew my father was a good man, a hard worker, wise beyond his years at a very young age and incredibly intelligent. Yet I had no idea of his level of compassion, or how much he really cared especially for people that had less than him. There were more than one story of my dad saving somebody’s life at the mine, there were hundreds of stories that told me how hilarious my father wise, how well he could get himself out of trouble not to mention the story of how he snagged my momma, that’s a great tale.

The day turned in tonight, and like most funerals the wind down can be quiet and somber. It had already been conveyed to Teddy and me that we were to receive an inheritance that evening. The conversation came up somewhat abrupt, I think it made my mother extremely uncomfortable to talk about money in a time like this, it made my heart hurt for her. The inheritance was set up in several ways, that way not only us but our children would be on The receiving end as well. I personally was allotted $20,000, I honestly think my father really wanted me to spend most of it on a motorcycle, And I want a motorcycle however that wasn’t what was on my mind. All I could think about that’s how much I wanted him to still be here, and to be sitting With all of his friends telling me the stories alongside them instead of in the surrounding energy.

They say money changes everything, and I can see that can happen for sure. However, I think anyone who has lost a parent would agree, even in the most estranged relationships, one would opt to be able to talk to their parent or parents again. The night was long, Normally my mother and father went to bed at about 8 o’clock and got up around 4:30 in the morning. That had been the scenario since I was in high school. The last time I looked at the clock it’s at 11:32 pm. My whole body hurt, it was like I got hit by a freight train. When I closed my eyes I could feel my lids pressing against each other I cried so much in the past week. However, there was a smile on my face as I sat on the couch at my parents house, I could smell my father, sitting on his seat holding the remote control. I haven’t even had a chance to take off my clothes, I hadn’t even tried to even change, and if anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t like to stay in my day clothes. And I walked around the corner of my parents double wide trailer that we called their home. I stepped into my bedroom, and now housed a lot of my mothers crafting supplies present wrappings and extra clothes. I sat down on the edge of the bed leaned over, put my head in my hands, and sighed.

“Daddy, I love you.” the words slipped out of my mouth without me even thinking. I began The process I’m putting on my pajamas. I started to take off my father’s jacket, and remembered the black book that I retrieved from the motorcycle before anything it happened. The loss of the key fob, and all of them separate existences I encountered had a loud this small treasure to slip my mind. I sat back down on the bed and cracked it open, it had a small strap that kept it close together and a ribbon that kept the page marked. It looked like it had been in pockets, motorcycles, Oil had been spilled on it, and it still had the faint smell of beer.

On the first page at the top it’s said thank you and my father’s hand writing. Under that was a list of names. As I begin to read through the list of names they seemed strikingly familiar.

Now I know that I said before we all think we know our parents. I thought I knew everything before this moment. I thought I knew the way my father’s mind worked. I thought I knew how he loved, what he stood for, and what he couldn’t stand. I had a clue, I Donely be in the scratch the surface of my father and honestly if anything comes from me riding down the story I hope it gives some type I’ve recite two children who have lost their parent or parents.

The names in the book were all the people he felt he needed to think before he passed away, as I read further in the book they were also people that he owed more than gratitude. It came to my attention that most of the people if not all the people that I had come in contact with that day I played a very Integral part of not only mine and my sisters life that my mothers life as well. When my father needed help he knew how to reach out, If not for himself he made sure that my mother my sister and I want it for nothing. He did that through exchange a friendship, hard work in the coal mines for years, riding a Harley with a group of people that did countless amounts of service work and drives for children. It gave me a whole new View of my father. I’ve never had a little black book, I always thought that it was where you kept all your girlfriends numbers, especially the people you never wanted anyone to find out about. As a healthy throwback look at my hand I realized how proud my father was, and how much I was like him. I realize that I have taken the time in my life to break a cycle that he was too afraid to break. However, within that fear he was not only able to provide for his family but be of assistance to countless others. Like I said I thought I knew things, and I found out I’m very happy that I didn’t. I’ve never had a little black book, if this doesn’t make you wish to go get one just to remind yourself of whom you all your gratitude, I don’t know what will.