Trader's Market

My life changed forever on April 21, 1993. Many people know that my dad died that day—in the morning. I was at my sorority house at OU, taking a shower, and preparing for my last day of observing an English class at Whittier Middle School. [The world is full of wicked little ironies, considering I'm currently the principal at Whittier.] After I received the horrible news that my dad had passed, my best friend Holly leapt from her top bunk bed, threw on her clothes and her taped-together eyeglasses (spare pair), and she drove me, in awkward silence, to Oklahoma City.

At home, our cul-de-sac was still blocked by emergency vehicles when we arrived. Holly rolled down her window, and we were waved in. [A time I can recall NOT wanting to be a “VIP.”] She pulled her white Pontiac Sunbird to the curb in front of my house, and I was ushered inside so quickly, that I don’t even know what happened to Holly.

The next thing I knew, I was taken to the laundry room, where my mom and my sister were huddled together, still crying. We hugged in that little room just off the kitchen, where they were stolen away waiting for me. My dad was in the living room. Still there. Still. And there. On the floor. [My dad was a dead man in a living room.]

The paramedics and the firemen, upon arrival, had pulled him from his recliner and had attempted CPR on him before my mother, in her inevitable shock and confusion, finally located a copy of his Living Will and asked them, at his last wishes, to stop.

In the meantime, someone, who meant well I’m sure, had taken his blanket — his off-white one with the-little-red-tulips-and-green-leaf design, the one that he always laid across his lap when he got chilled — and had placed it over him, covering his head and face too.

I left the utility room stating my intentions to see my dad. My sister clung to me and followed along. My mother followed us too. She really couldn't handle it, but she was the mother. She had to go.

The three of us [held together] moved, and friends and family members jumped-up and cleared a path from the laundry room to the living room for us. I asked someone to let us look away long enough for the "body bag" fashioned blanket to be removed from his face. Someone obliged. And my sister and I, my mom standing and crying behind us, collapsed on the floor, beside Dad; beside ourselves.

I looked at my dad hard, with the strongest will I could muster. I don’t know why I did that, but to this day, I can still see his quiet face in my mind. I wished he was just sleeping. Open your eyes! Open your eyes, Dad! Sometimes, I close my eyes and wish it still, hard.

When I was young, I used to watch football with my dad. In fact, we watched many games together throughout my life. He was an athlete and a diehard Sooner fan, and he taught me everything I needed to know about the game - -first down, off-side, holding, safety. Sometimes he taught me about football on the way home from my ballet class on Saturday mornings, while we picked up lunch at What-A-Burger, and just before kick-off on ABC. Sometimes he taught me about football on our way back to OKC from Norman after he took me to a home game. In fact, football is probably the sport I learned first and have always known best, because my dad — the boy from Atlanta, Georgia, who played in some of the first little league baseball games, and who grew-up to have two insufferably feminine daughters — made sure his girls knew about all of the really important stuff; Football was one of those lesser but still very necessary life lessons.

When I was 10-years-old, my best friend Jennifer and I bought Joe Montana posters at our elementary school Book Fair. I couldn’t wait to take mine home to show my dad. He thought it was cool, I guess. He thought the schoolgirl crush I had on #16 was a little over-the-top, I'm sure, and he wasn't a huge Montana fan himself (after all, Montana went to Notre Dame). But the knowledge I had of Montana’s win-loss record with the 49ers, his completion stats, his favorite receivers (Dwight Clark), etc., were impressive to Dad. And remember, these were the years WELL before Google and ESPN.com.

My parents gave me permission to hang the full-sized, full-color Joe Montana poster on my bedroom wall, where he, dropping back for a long pass, quickly became the anchor -- the centerpiece -- of my "poster wall collage," a staple of decor in every pre-teen’s room.

It was the first of many artifacts that proved crushes I had on professional athletes and celebrities through my teen and young-adult years. It proved I loved football like I loved my dad. Completely and forever.

There on the floor, on the morning of April 21, 1993, my sister and I sat crouching over Dad. We heaved full breaths of sadness, also full of memories, injustice, and love. I don’t know how long we sat there; I don't know how we breathed. Time finally decided to stand still. [Wicked time.]

At someone’s urging, we eventually relented and brokenly told Dad we loved him; we grabbed his hands (they weren’t cold and creepy); we hugged him tight (even though he couldn’t feel it or hug us back). Then, the funeral home arrived and took my dad away… forever. My mom, my sister, and I cowered back into the laundry room while that part happened. It wasn’t necessary for us to see him leave. It wasn’t natural.

Natural was the four of us at the dinner table with Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather as background noise, drinking milk that had become room temperature, and waiting for the steaks to cook on the grill.

Natural was a summer vacation at the beach.

Natural was Wednesday night buffet at The Greens.

Natural was, believe it or not, living with Cancer for years. Natural was the following mindset: “Dad’s going to make it.”

Natural was the notion that shark cartilage and alternative treatments would cure him, no matter how ridiculous that might seem.

And Natural, before and during Cancer, was Dad sitting or napping in his recliner, sick or "un-sick," watching TV.

It makes sense that sometime that morning my dad must have turned on the TV in the living room. In fact, he was probably watching it while he ate breakfast with my sister. (He wasn’t feeling well.) And he was probably still watching it when she went back upstairs to finish getting dressed for school and to blow-dry her hair. [The sound of the blow-dryer drowned out the sounds of emergency sirens whizzing through our neighborhood and blazing up to our front door minutes later.]

I walked into the living room, intrigued by the TV, or maybe hoping to get lost in it for a little while. It was still on; just as he had left it. In the midst of all the chaos of dying and powering-down of life, the TV was still powered-up, but silent. The morning show personalities’ mouths were moving and heads were bobbing, but there were no words. [There are no words.]

Joe Montana was on TV. Maybe that's what captured my attention. I reached over and found the remote, thinking about how my dad had probably used that remote just a little while ago… just a little while before he left in the car with those people from the funeral home.

I turned up the sound while balancing lightly on the arm of the sofa. I couldn’t make immediate sense out of the talking heads even when I increased the volume, but thankfully, one of those helpful little captions popped up on the screen -- right under Joe Montana’s obviously older but still ruggedly handsome face. The caption read quite simply: MONTANA – TRADED TO THE CHIEFS.

Everything we know, or have ever known, can change in a moment’s time -- in a hearbeat, or with the blink of an eye -- whether we’re looking, listening, paying close attention, or not. Life is sad, funny, dark, and light that way…, and, moreover, life is chock full of wicked little ironies -- many, many wicked little ironies. [I don’t like April 21. I don’t like it at all.]