Alpha-Yankee-Mike

On January 5th my Father passed away.

Just typing that sentence still feels so surreal.  This was a man who I swear could have outlasted the sun and stars.

He lasted nearly fifteen months longer than doctors initially gave him.  But he was used to that.  I've only known a couple other people who had his determined will to survive no matter how hard the fight.

You can plan for a loved one's passing for months and even years but the moment that call comes in, you feel your heart drop, and that wave of crushing sorrow that no dam can stop or deflect.

The sadness is just love's way of screaming out for the departed soul, after all.

I count myself as impossibly lucky to have had him as a father.  In my entire life he never once belittled what I decided to try or what I dreamed.  From art to music he stood by me, let me make my mistakes, celebrated my successes and never once said I was wasting my time.

He struggled with immense stresses, but still never lashed out in anger other than verbally, and even then it was rare and short lived.  When he fought for who and what he thought was right, he was unmovably fierce, but despite his plays at a gruff exterior he had a huge heart.  

His love of the natural world came from his father, and mine comes from him.  He had a soft spot for animals.  He'd feed his birds - I call them his birds, even if they were just the wildlife around here- both large and small, and they grew so used to him they'd land right next to him to pick through the seeds or peanuts he left out for them.

What you know of someone is amplified when you go through their papers at a time like this.  Learning more of his career in the armed forces, finding his degrees, his licenses for short wave radio and later his operational discourses in setting up radio towers in CFB Cold Lake.

You learn of the first house they purchased, just how proud he was of that house, and even the month and year he decided to go into making his own beer, which to this day I will argue was unsurpassed.

I can only hope to be as giving and kind hearted as he was.  Even in planning for his passing he was thinking of others.  He stated he didn't want to have a service here because one of his family didn't like to travel.

We plan on having a shot and a Guinness in his honor after the cremation at an Irish pub nearby.  His ashes will come home, emblazoned with his name and HAM callsign VE6-AYM, which he was very proud of.  Surrounded by photos of family, and  set with his Master Corporal stripes and revelry.  

A life well lived, sir.

Travel the heavens and those stars.  You have earned that rest.

I love you so much, dad.

And for the last time, VE6-Alpha-Yankee-Mike, out.

-T.J.