The last few years of my father’s life were tough. Always a physical guy, he resented the gradual erosion of his physical being and the glaucoma that insidiously robbed him of his sight. He fought it until the end.

If you lived in our rural neighborhood you would have come to recognize him as the old guy wearing goggles and using trekking poles as he walked down the road, getting his steps in regardless of the weather.

Sixty years before that he was a jogger on the Powell High School track, along with Pete Moncur and Wes Metzler. It was before jogging was a thing, but those guys were all former jocks who knew about maintaining your body.

Dad kept up his running for many decades, only quitting in his late 70's, when he could feel the pounding was taking a toll on his joints. Thereafter he became a dedicated walker.

He only stopped lifting weights in his 80s. He  had really become a dedicated lifter when he and my mom and brother moved to Colorado. He could see my brother wasn’t going to be a big man and figured he could make up for his lack of stature by becoming a strong man. The two of them became a fixture in the gym in Pueblo, and my brother has continued lifting as an intregal part of his life ever since. Now he is a bull of a man and someone you don’t want to mess with because he could pinch your head off.

My relationship with my father was complicated. I am pretty sure I was a disappointment to him in many ways. I didn’t want to become a minister. I wasn’t a football star. I didn’t even play. I raised hell in school. I didn’t finish college for many years, rebelled against most every form of authority, married a Mormon girl, got divorced. Fumbled around the oilfield, struggled to find my way. 

I always knew he loved me, and he was a terrific grandpa to my two kids. And I knew he was proud of the fact that I was a good hunter, horseman and fisherman. I kept him going hunting and fishing until he no longer could see the cow elk in the crosshairs, and it became too difficult getting on the water. He went down swinging, however. That lesson is not lost to me.

His final days were spent waiting for Mom to pass. The love of his life for 67 years, he didn’t really want to live without her, but he resented having to stay. When Mom died, I knew he wouldn’t stay long, and he didn’t.

I wish he could know I have taken up his mantle and am now the old guy walking along the road at all hours, lifting weights religiously, driving to Cody every morning to play pickleball and jump on the stair climber. 

When he was lying on his deathbed, I had the chance to spill my guts one afternoon. He was heavily medicated, and I didn’t know if he could hear me or not. But I thanked him for everything and told him I was sorry for all the stupid stuff I’d pulled and how proud I was of him. It all came tumbling out. At one point I looked at his face and could see him smiling. I don’t know if it was the morphine or me, but I like to think he heard me.

Father-son stuff can be pretty heavy, pretty complicated and pretty fraught. I don’t know for a certainty how my son feels about me, although I’m pretty sure he loves me. But I was far from an ideal dad in many respects, especially in the midst of my divorce. I have to live with that. But I love him fiercely and am hugely proud he didn’t turn out like me.

I have two dear friends, father and son, who are estranged from each other. Theirs has been a difficult road, with lots of tragedy, lots of water under the bridge. There are plenty of reasons not to speak, plenty of reasons to be mad and hurt and disappointed. I just know the day is approaching when they won’t ever be able to reconcile. I guess that’s the nature of fathers and sons. Something will be left unsaid.