Who Cares What Nansi Thinks?

It's Sunday again. I spend a lot of time with Mom on Sunday afternoons. Wednesday and Friday evenings are more abbreviated. Wednesdays I take the Friday supper order. And Friday I take supper to Mom and her roommate.

Today Mom was full of memories about my dad. I remember my dad. He had a terrific sense of humor. He had a great singing voice. He was a mechanical genius. He started his adult life in the Army Air Corps (later to be called the Air Force) as an airplane mechanic. That skill eventually lead him to a job in the Apollo Space Program. He was a mechanic and union shop steward.

Mom tells people that he was "Head of P.R. for NASA." I've heard her tell people that Dad went all over the country searching for titanium to build her knee replacements. She remembers him as this super hero who did no wrong.

Mom has a rich fantasy life.

My parents lived in utter chaos for as long as I can remember. Dad was an amazing talent, but he always chose the short cuts. He'd build swimming pools without the proper permits. He always paid his laborers in cash, never withholding the appropriate taxes. He seemed to exist in an underworld that operated just outside of the bounds of the law.

At the same time, Dad was a prominent member of the area's largest Baptist Church. I remember the day of Daddy's funeral. They had set his casket at the front of the church. I wanted a quiet moment with Dad before the crowds came in, but the Pastor was already standing at his casket. He sobbed and said, "Brother, I wasn't expecting to have to do this without you." I had no idea that they were so close... but here was our Pastor pouring his heart into my Dad's casket.

Dad was a friend to the rich and poor alike. Ministers flew in from all over the country to attend Dad's funeral. At the funeral these men of God took turns eulogizing my father's righteousness. After the funeral, two different people came to me and said, "Look, I'm sorry to have to bring this up at the funeral, but your dad owed me money, how can I get it?" Good luck with that, I didn't even know how we were going to bury him.

Dad left my mom worse than destitute. She had $80 to her name, they repossessed the car a week after the funeral and the house was already in foreclosure. Of course, there was no life insurance.

I think the largest shock my father faced was his own demise. He absolutely believed that he'd never see death. He was completely convinced that the world would end in his life time. He would say that when people asked him if he had a retirement plan or life insurance. In the end, he'd made no plans at all. Worse than that, he made disastrous choices with what few assets my parents did have. Thanks to the S & L's of the 80's, the house was triple mortgaged. We lived in dire fear that the I.R.S. would come knocking... but they never did.

Mom was mad at Dad for years after his death. She came to live with me after the funeral. She'd wail about the desperate situation in which he'd left her.

When she went into the nursing home, she began to mourn him. She cried for him a lot. Then she reinvented him. Today she wanted to draw a parallel between Dad and my husband. "Doesn't he remind you of Daddy? Daddy took such good care of us, like Mike's taking care of you all." "Yes, Mom, they're identical. "

What's the point in setting the record straight?