Happy Birthday, Dad.. Too many times I’ve sat down at a…
By: Courtney Peter
Tags: Birthday, Dads

My Dad would’ve turned 64 today. He would’ve been singing “When I’m 64” by The Beatles. I would’ve called him to wish him a Happy Birthday, and he would’ve said “It doesn’t get any better than this!” A famous Russ Peter line. I’d like to think he would treat himself out to some fancy seafood, but I also know he was a homebody who would’ve been perfectly content with a greasy pepperoni and green olive pizza from a local pizza joint. For dessert, maybe a hot fudge sundae but he’d give me money and say, “I’ll buy, you fly.”

Too many times I’ve sat down at a computer trying to write something sufficient enough to tell people about my Dad and how wonderful he was to me, my family, and everyone around him. Writing something about him and putting it on the internet is a weird phenomenon because I don’t know what I want out of it — validation that he was real and I’m suffering is what it truly comes down to, I guess. I’ve gotten past the stress of formatting it properly and I just want to write.

He often said, “The older you get, the faster the time goes.” He’s so right. His 56th birthday was his final birthday on earth, and we spent it together with my siblings at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City watching Iowa Football. Some of my fondest childhood memories took place at Iowa sporting events, with him. I’ll never forget in 2004 we were in attendance for the Iowa/Wisconsin B1G title game. As my Dad would tell the story, “It was a dark night with a light mist on the field…” and he’d wiggle his fingers trying to symbolize how mist moves on a football field, grinning his infamous grin 😂 . He’d then burst out in laughter because I was on crutches trying to mend an EXTREMELY swollen ankle from a basketball injury, but my ankle was so frozen by the end of the game I could storm the field to celebrate the victory…without my crutches.

In my junior year of high school, I tore my ACL during basketball pre-season. At the time, it felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to me and I was in a dark place, mentally. We were living in Michigan and two weeks before my surgery my Dad surprised me with two tickets to the Iowa/Michigan State football game in East Lansing. Iowa was 7–0 at the time, and it was my first time seeing Iowa play anywhere else except Kinnick. We were surrounded by MSU fans in our Iowa gear and I specifically remember saying, “We’re roses among thorns.” He loved sharing that.

It was close all game and Iowa scored on a last second touchdown… I screamed and JUMPED so high and my Dad and I were hugging and he started laughing and said, “Courtney I don’t think I’ve seen you jump so high. Maybe you should tear your ACL more often.”

My Dad was a Hawkeye through and through and in fact, there is a Hawkeye on his head stone. In 2017 I had an encounter with head coach Kirk Ferentz at the College Football Awards in Atlanta. He was standing by himself and something inside of me told me I needed to introduce myself and tell him about my Dad. I was emotional explaining what those memories meant to me and this man who didn’t even know me had TEARS in his eyes and HUGGED me.

With every day and holiday and birthday and family get-together and milestone that has passed since his untimely death, I’m reminded that the only way I can physically hear my Dad’s voice is on one of the 7 voicemails I have saved on my computer and iPod. In five of those voicemails, I get to hear him say he loves me. In a time where social media and photography dominate our daily lives and for me, my job, I hate that I can count on two hands how many pictures I have with him. I drove his vehicle in the first 6 years after his passing and I refused to clean the coffee stains he left by the cup carrier. I used to write every memory or character trait I could think of in my iPhone notepad out of fear of forgetting his quirks. Come to think of it, I don’t even remember the last time I wrote down anything new. The receipt I found from his visit to Festival Foods in OshKosh has faded. I haven’t used the iPod he gave me as a gift for my ACL repair surgery in several years. The locket that has a small clip of his hair is almost completely rusted over. These are just a few of the physical reminders I have, and they’re dwindling.

A physical reminder that I look at everyday, however, are the 10 collective scars on my knees where my orthopedic surgeon repaired my ACLs. As I mentioned earlier, I tore my ACL during my junior year of high school and then it happened again my freshman year of college during pre-season… almost two years to the date. The first time it happened I remember waking up in recovery, crying, and I didn’t know why. I was confused and tired, and I remember both of my parents standing beside me holding my hand. The second time it happened, it was just me and my Dad.

My parents sat me down a few days after the doctor shared the official news with me to share that my Dad had been laid off from the company he devoted his entire career to. My Dad said, “I believe this happened so that I can be here for you and to help you recover from this.” He didn’t shed a single tear in front of me, but I know his heart was broken and he was stressed. He was a middle-aged man who was concerned about feeling valued or worth hiring.

The day I was able to come home from the hospital after my surgery, my Dad scooped me up and we drove to the grocery store. One of my Dad’s love languages was food and making sure “we would have a good meal” and that anyone who ever came over did not leave hungry. He tried pushing me around in a wheelchair and I felt so queasy I couldn’t finish the trip. Showering was a struggle, too, and it had been days since I washed my hair. He took me to the hair salon just so I could get my hair washed.

He helped me maneuver all over the house. He moved my CPM machine anywhere I wanted just so I could have a change of scenery. My leg needed to be elevated at night when I slept and I remember waking up to him standing in the doorway looking at me, and he said, “I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable and asleep.”

A few months after my surgery, my Dad accepted a job in OshKosh, WI, and my Mom was going to move there with him after my freshman year was done. My Dad would drive home every couple of weeks to visit us during the winter. I’ll never forget he sat me down and gave me a white box with a pink heart necklace inside. When he gave it to me he started crying and said, “I feel so bad we’re doing this to you — leaving you. I want you to have this.” My Mom later told me my Dad was adamant about finding me the perfect necklace.

That year, my team made it all the way to the NJCAA National Championship Tournament. I had to sit on the sideline for 30+ games all the way from Benton Harbor, MI to Peoria, Ill. I sent my Dad a text message, who was living in OshKosh at the time, and all it said was, “I’m sad.” He drove from OshKosh to Peoria just to support me and be there for me. I didn’t ask him to. He was the reason I loved basketball, he was the person I wanted to make proud.

I tell myself it’s okay to be sad and angry and all the things a person experiences when they unexpectedly lose a loved one. My Dad always wanted me to maintain perspective because there is ALWAYS someone who has it worse than me. Our pain and experiences are relative and I try so hard to remember that there is some HORRIBLE SHIT going on in our world — I know I don’t have it that bad. I just miss him so much that sometimes my heart physically feels heavy inside of my chest and the only relief is to cry. Sometimes I’m so sad that I can’t cry and the pain builds up inside of me and it feels like a weight is anchored on my neck and on my chest. When this happens, I have a panic attack and sometimes it has gotten so bad that I have to go to the emergency room. It feels like I’m drowning and can’t breathe.

This past year has been a living hell for a lot of people in a lot of ways. For me, there have been more days than not where I don’t want to be awake. I don’t want to be dead, but I want to be asleep because I won’t have to feel my heartache. My grief has manifested itself in anxiety and depression that escalates when I’m alone. The circumstances of living through a pandemic resulted in more “me time” than I would’ve preferred, and I’ve had to confront my anxiety every single day. Doing things that used to bring me joy have become increasingly difficult or bring me pain. I suffer from unexplainable fatigue and phantom pain all over my body.

Looking back, my Dad was right, in a way. Maybe my ACL was torn and maybe he got laid off so we could have those few special months together. It was the last time we’d ever live together under the same roof. He passed away almost a year after. His acts of love and selflessness not just in those few months, but my whole life have forever been engrained in my heart. He was so good.

He’d be the first one to say he wasn’t perfect. In fact, in a letter he wrote to my family he said, “Each of you are like me in that none of you are perfect. But it is in the best tradition of families and God’s grace, that while none of you are perfect, each of you are perfect for me and for our family.” I’m not going to get to see my Dad become gray. He won’t be there when I get married, and he won’t hold my kids. I can’t call him whenever I want to tell him about my day, and I can’t text him to tell him “I’m sad.” I won’t get to jam out to The Beatles with him, and I won’t get to watch another Iowa Hawkeye football game with him ever again. But, he loved me and my family so much and we know that because he TOLD us, every single day, and I get to wake up remembering that. When my pain and heartache becomes too much, I remember how lucky I am to have loved and been loved by someone so much that it hurts that bad.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I’m doing the best I can.

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me…When I’m 64.”