The Simple Tools of a Remarkable Life

The following non-fiction piece is mostly about my Dad. He died in 1989 at the young age of sixty-seven from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Most people we love acquire wings when they depart their earthly bodies. Our memories tend to glorify them by embellishment in small ways. Maybe the reader is the rare person that hasn't done this but I am owning up to my Dad's wings. They are present but he doesn't fly quite as high as my stories.

By the way, my Mom died in 2003 from Alzheimers Disease. Her story is present in my writings where she has her own wings. It is a far different journey.

The following was written in 2000 and I will leave it as it was then.



The Simple Tools of a Remarkable Life

My mother and I usually spend one day a week with each other. It is a chance to talk about what is going on in our respective lives. Now that my Mom is 78 years old and I am 45, we can do this. It is hard to believe that two people, who used to constantly argue over everything when I was a teenager, can actually have a friendly and loving relationship.

Over our ritual glass of white Zinfandel she asked, "What ever happened to the tool boxes that Dad fixed up for the boys?"

I had to admit that I didn't know. My boys, 20 and 25, are adults now pursuing their own destinies. The toolbox held ordinary, practical hand tools used in carpentry.

Later that evening as I curled up in bed, the memories of two weeks in August almost ten years ago flooded back.

Dad, I remember you sitting on the side of your rented hospital bed, looking pale and tired. You had 3 tool boxes open and you were sorting through your tools and choosing wrenches, screwdrivers, and hammers, to go in each one.

What was going through your mind? You had to know that this was the last time that you would touch those important pieces from your life. The work that you did with them had paid for pot roast on Sundays, the party and special yellow, lace dress that I had wanted for my twelfth birthday. Also the baseball uniform and fees for my little brother's ball league.

You have tears in your eyes, the first I have seen in my life. I didn't think that you even knew how to cry. I wanted to hold you and comfort you like I used to with my boys when they were small, or at the very least help you. God seemed to reach down and hold my eager hand back. This was something only you could do.

I know that you have to be wondering what these tools will mean to your sons and grandsons. They may never use them, preferring the easier way with a "handyman" that comes in. They probably won't mold and shape the wood as you did, making beautiful shelves and cabinets out of sheets of different trees. I knew each piece had love hammered in to last it's lifetime. It wasn't about what you were building,
you loved your work and built with integrity and respect for the wood.

You had two surgeries on your back from injuries sustained while in the Army and continued to work when the pain kept you from standing straight.

How you must miss the garage that you built at our family home. It was your sanctuary. Even as a child, I would watch you for hours, running your saw and hammering, wanting only to be in your calm, steady presence.

You didn't quite get finished with the job of sorting, you just grew paler and I could see the white-hot pain fill your face and knew it was time for a drink of your morphine mixture. I exchanged my daughter's hat for Kathie R.N. so I could insist that you take it. You didn't want to sleep and miss a moment of what was left of your life here.

I am so glad that I had those last few weeks with you. I would hook up portable oxygen on the wheelchair so you could speak to neighbors, watch birds, and smell the flowers. We talked a little, but most of all we enjoyed our journey, a father and daughter being together.

Sometimes the silent conversation was the best, the meeting of the eyes when I checked your oxygen cannula, and an exchange of feelings still locked up in me. Dad, there are days I feel so close to you now that I could almost reach out and touch you. There is the familiar scent of Old Spice in the air and I know that you are near.

You and Mom are members of "The Greatest Generation". You knew true courage and had a Purple Heart because of embedded sharpnel. I often asked you about your experiences in World War II and you refused to talk about it.

You would frown and say, " I served my country and did what I had to".
(added note) My youngest son says the very same thing after serving in Iraq. I wonder if Dad knows and smiles.

I knew that you were on the front lines and the first to go into one of the concentration camps to free the victims of the Nazi's. The human suffering that you must have seen.

Dad, I know how softhearted you were. So the idea of what you witnessed must have made you ill. I remember you talking about the days you grew up on a farm and there were too many pups and your Father told you to shoot them. The look on your face when you said that conveyed such bitterness toward a Father that would ask that of you. No wonder you left home and eleven sisters and brothers, at the age of fourteen to work another farm.

Mom and I were talking about your war experiences the other day and she said it had taken years before you would talk to her.

She told me, “He said that he saw so many friends killed in front of him, literally blown apart. He would write to their widows and wonder when someone would be writing the same to me.”

These are things, as your daughter, that I can not imagine. I have had a spoiled comfortable life. Although as an R.N. I have seen some awful wounds but we were treating the person.

My memories of you start with me trying to climb on your lap when you were stirring fudge. You told me I whined, "move daddy, no place to park".

You taught me honesty by never lying. I don't remember a single time you lied.
You always worked so hard for so little money. Mom helped you go to an adult school becuse you could hardly read or write and you struggled. How you wanted college for your children so they could have a "better" life.

Dad, that was the one of the few times you were wrong, my working as a professional was a part of my divorce and my sons don't want a working spouse.
My grand children have an "at home Mom" like I did. I remember coming home to the homebaked smell of bread and cookies. Mom was at the kitchen table and listened to details of my day. That is until it was uncool to tell her.

But both of you were always there if I needed to talk.

As for the toolboxes, they are "safe and sound" in attics, collecting dust and unused but someday your grandchildren will cherish them.

Your legacy is in memories; mine, Mom's, and all of the people that knew you. I will pass the stories and of most importance, the love and respect you taught me, to my family.

You only completed grade six and I heard you say the teacher made you sit with a "Stupid" hat on in front of the class. That must have hurt. But that memory was wiped out by a frequent saying of yours,
"it is not what a man says that is important: it is what he does".
That fit you perfectly.


Written for Carl L. Carpenter 1922-1989
By: Kathleen Carpenter Stehr
March 26, 2000


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