Dad, Decided to send you a big letter. Here it is.
By: Wendell Stinnett
Tags: Death And Dying, Relationships, Humor, Family, Life Lessons

My Dad, Virgil Stinnett

My dad died four years ago, October 30th.

He was eighty -three.

He loved jokes, corny jokes, stupid jokes. Dad jokes. Clean jokes. Vulgarity wasn’t his thing. He loved to laugh. When he laughed his face would break into a huge grin, and he’d squint his eyes and throw back his head and laughter would roll out of him.

Pranks — he pulled a few. Once he mailed a legal-size envelope and put a post-it note in it. His message, “Decided to send you a big letter. Here it is.” I can imagine him laughing all the way to the post office. I carried the post-it in my wallet until it completely disintegrated. On occasion, I’d take it out, read it, and think of dad — laughing. I also knew his love, his heart, and his hopes for me were as big as the envelope. The post-it note was incidental.

Funny thing is, he had a lifetime filled with heartbreak. His father died when he was ten during the height of the depression. Dad and his thirteen-year-old brother gathered the crop that year and paid some of the bills. They were able to hold the family together for a while with the help of an older brother, who was in the Army. He sent a portion of his earnings home. Despite their best efforts, it wasn’t enough. My grandmother broke mentally under the strain and was hospitalized in a state mental institution. My dad and his brother found work on a farm. They slept in the barn. Younger siblings were disbursed here and there.

Dad attended one day of seventh grade. That was the extent of his formal education, but he was a curious and voracious reader. He taught himself carpentry, auto mechanics, plumbing, and electrical work. At times in my teenage years, dad had three jobs. He’d get up early and drive a tractor and plow for four or five hours in the morning, then he’d go to his oil refinery job and work an eight-hour shift. On the weekends he remodeled houses. The houses were purchased by a physician who lived in our town. Once acquired, dad would gut and remodel, and turn them into marketable rentals. Although he worked from “can ’til can’t” as he called it, he’d didn’t complain.

He used another expression anytime he heard me say I couldn’t do something. He’d say, “Cain’t never could.”

Along the way, my dad buried his son (my younger brother). Two grandsons died — one at four years of age and another at two. It aged him.

At fifty-three he had a massive heart attack and had open heart surgery. Over the next several years he had a series of pacemakers and defibrillators installed. He was forced to leave his job at the oil refinery and he and my mother survived on a meager Social Security check for several years.

They had little savings, but they did own their home. It was a pier and beam house. I remember when I was a child, I watched my father dig ditches with a shovel where the concrete foundation would eventually be poured. He purchased a shell of a house and had it moved and set on the foundation. Over the next fifty plus years he added to it as funds came available.

I talked to dad the night before he died, four years ago today. He questioned me about situations in my life. When I attempted to ask him about his condition he said, “I’m good,” then he laughed.

So, dad, decided to send you a big letter. This is it.