Dear Daddy, I’m
writing to you because I’m afraid that there are things I want to say that ...
That she might not get a chance to
say.
That she might not be able to say.
It’s hard to look at your dad
on Father’s Day and tell him what he means to you, what he’s meant to you all
your life, when you know he won’t be here for another Father’s Day.
Suddenly, just before
Father’s Day 1998, Lewis Frank’s cancer was back.
Lewis Frank, long-time manager of
L&S and Heilig-Meyers Furniture stores, had retired but discovered he wanted to keep
on working forever. So he was back at it, managing a K-Town Furniture outlet in
Kannapolis.
Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the
prostate cancer he’d discovered six years earlier was back.
‘‘Doctors predicted it
would be slow growing,’’ says his wife, Ann, ‘‘that he’d die
*itwith it, not *itof it. But it changed. It became fast-growing, and when things started
really going down hill, it killed him in three weeks.’’
Three weeks ...
None of their three children
– now parents themselves – still live here, though they’re not far away.
Susie and her husband, former Salisburian Roger Meade, and their son, Joshua, who just
graduated from high school, live in Asheville. Steve and his wife, Susan, formerly of
China Grove, live in Lenoir with their children, Lauren, 14, and Brent, 12. Rindi and her
husband, Steve Haynes, also a Salisbury native, and their children, Scott, 16, Ashley, 14,
and Katie, 8, live in Winston-Salem.
And, of course, they had to have
daily reports. So a neighbor, Mike Freeze, who has e-mail, wrote them daily to keep Ann
from having to give ever-worsening telephone reports that Lewis could hear.
And maybe that’s what made
Susie think about writing her dad a letter for Father’s Day.
‘‘I can put on
paper,’’ she told her mother, ‘‘what I couldn’t say.’’
She filled three pages with love
and gratitude and memory.
First and foremost, she wrote,
‘‘I deeply and sincerely *itlove you. You have been a great dad – constant,
caring, patient, cheerful, there to advise me but able to watch if I needed to stumble and
learn from experience. You are a fine example of a dedicated husband and father to the
world, and all your children appreciate you.’’
And she wrote more.
That he’d always inspired her
by his constant faith in God, creating an environment that let her develop as a Christian.
‘‘What greater gift could a parent give than to lead their children to
God?’’
She wrote about his compassion and
kindness and unselfish treatment of others – and remembered a family story about how
he worked to earn enough money to reclaim his mother’s engagement ring, which had
been pawned during the Great Depression.
She thanked him for the passion
for music he passed on to her son, Josh, his dedication to exercise that made her an
aerobics instructor, his positive influence when he quit smoking – and the pride she
felt in having him for her dad.
And she told her sister, Rindi,
what she’d done.
Rindi couldn’t get to her
computer quickly enough.
‘‘I’ve had a flood
of memories lately,’’ she wrote. ‘‘I remember well how many times you
took me to McDonald’s or Village Inn after a full dinner when I was a teenager with a
bottomless pit and could always eat more. I take delight in seeing this in our kids as
they enter the teenage years. I will always remember when you taught me how to drive in
the Hornet, and I wouldn’t even push on the accelerator. I only slowly let off the
brake! ... I guess I’m still like this, but at least I don’t get speeding
tickets.’’
She wrote him that she was so glad
he brought them up in the church – and so thankful that he was so understanding and
encouraging to Steve and her when ‘‘we were so right for each other at such a
young age. I know this is not right for most people, but you saw this differently in our
case, and it has proven to be my largest blessing.’’
She takes comfort, she wrote, in
the memories of living life every day, of eating supper and visiting, of doing laundry and
watching the birds.
And she thanked him for the
example he set – and for always being there.
Ann mentioned the girls’
letters to her son, Steve. Radio station developer and musician that he is, he crafted a
virtual song of praise to ‘‘My Dad,’’ who taught him by showing him
about business and by sharing his love of music and friends and Christianity.
‘‘There were no sermons,
no preaching,’’ he wrote, ‘‘just the daily lessons of how to live
life, lessons that said more than all the sermons.’’
Lessons that are being passed on
now to another generation.
And when Father’s Day was
over, the letters were still there.
‘‘Lewis was clearly
touched and very proud,’’ Ann says, her voice breaking, flooded by her own
memories of nearly 50 years of marriage to a man who was never negative – and brought
that out in those around him.
Like spending Father’s Day
making sure Ann would never again step through the ceiling in the garage.
Getting something from the
pull-down-steps storage area, she stepped on the wrong spot and her leg went all the way
through – and her sons-in-laws issued an order.
‘‘You’re not going
up those steps any more,’’ they told her. ‘‘We’re going to take
everything out and put it in the garage.’’
And that’s what the children
and grandchildren did last Father’s Day.
‘‘The guys came with
their hammers and worked like they had planned this for years,’’ Ann says –
and Lewis read his letters.
And kept on reading them when
Father’s Day was over.
‘‘He would read them
every night before he went to bed,’’ his wife says, ‘‘and he would
come out to the sun room and read them first thing in the morning. And they were in the
hospital with him at the end.’’
The letters and the whole family,
his wife says.
‘‘The children, their
spouses, Lewis’ sister, his brother, and Pastor David Nelson, and they had all kissed
him and loved him, and Lewis suddenly looked at some spot in the ceiling, and he looked
like he was absolutely thrilled, and his heart stopped and he died. Rindi said, ‘I
felt like I saw Daddy go to heaven,’ and Pastor Nelson said, ‘You did.’ And
we walked out of there with no tears. We were just goose-bumpy and thrilled ourselves. It
was something else. I’ll never forget it. He was seeing something, and it was
wonderful.’’
And the letters now, on
Father’s Day, a year later?
They’re wonderful – and
in a large envelope on the bookshelf in the sun room.
‘‘I can reach and get
them fairly instantly,’’ Ann says.
And she does.
‘‘Dear Daddy ...
‘’ |
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