August is a melancholy month
Pardon me if I publish a variant of this every year.
August is a melancholy month. Mother’s birthday is August 6 and Dad died on August 13. Mom would have been 106 this year having died April 14, 2020 at age 101. On August 6 every year I send out birthday greetings for her to my children and to my nephew and niece. They in turn send texts saying how much they miss her. One of my granddaughters called me to see how I was doing. I love her for thinking about me.
Dad’s memory doesn’t engender the same emotions. Not that he was loved less but the feelings are somehow different. He was a strict disciplinarian who tolerated no excuses. I learned to never openly disagree with him but say “yes sir” and then do or think what I thought was best. Perhaps the only time he revealed a different side to me was when he was in his 80s and said “Please tell me when I become a fool.” He was getting solicitations that he said occurred only because of his age. Obviously, those scams were working or else they would not exist. Dad said that only a fool would agree to whatever was being solicited. He never became a fool.
He died on August 13. He knew that he was dying. He told me that although he wanted to live until November 19 which would be his 89th birthday, he had changed his mind and just wanted to make it to August 30th – my daughter’s due date with his newest great granddaughter. She was born at 6AM on August 13th and Dad died at 6PM the same day. But he knew of his great granddaughter and knew that my daughter to her everlasting credit named the new addition “Savannah”. Dad graduated from Georgia State College which is now Savannah State University. That the then all white state legislature took his school’s name to give it to an all white college in Atlanta always irritated him. Dad was a great man and I wrote about him on Father’s Day. He worked two full time jobs and retired from both. During the day he taught biology and eventually became a high school principal. At night he was a postal clerk. He did his best to be a dad but was time constrained.
Mother took the active role in all our lives. She too had a dominant personality and was generous with her advice. I would never consider living in Atlanta because I knew that I would have little peace. When my brother was living (he retired to Atlanta), they would talk several times a day. Even though he had a washer and dryer, he took his clothes over to the house to do his laundry. Several times a week, they would have dinner together. When he died, mother was devastated. He was the favorite. She called me and said that instead of our customary once on Sundays at 5 o’clock call, I now had to call her every day. So at 7AM we said good morning and at 7PM we said good night. Often my phone would ring at all hours of the night so I made Everette Harp’s “Night Calls” her ringtone. I miss hearing her voice and when I hear “Night Calls” I still reach for the phone. Only now there are tears in my eyes.
haroldblackphd.com 