Two years ago, today, my daddy died. I remember that evening so well. It was the day before my oldest son's 21st birthday and the entire family was at a restaurant. We had just finished singing "Happy Birthday" and were serving cake, when I noticed I had a missed call from my 82 year old aunt in Childress. I excused myself to go call her back. She answered and in her sweet west Texas accent, said, "Whitney, honey, these people are telling me that Jerry is dead." And just like that, I no longer had my daddy.
My aunt is the most precious lady in the world and she was in absolute shock. It seems that the police had found daddy's phone and her number was the first one that came up. She lives several hours from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where daddy was living at the time and she was scared. I assured her that there must be a mistake and called the detective whose number she gave to me. It was true. He was gone. He had died drunk and all alone, in a filthy run down apartment, just like I had always feared.
I had not seen my dad in two years because of a drunken incident that happened at our home. That is a story for another time though.....I guess I always thought that he would figure things out and stay sober enough to have a relationship with us. I wrote to him, sent him pictures and prayed constantly for him. He knew that if he was drinking, neither me nor my sister and would be in his life. Not having a relationship with him while he was drinking was a terribly painful decision for us to make, but based upon his past history, to protect our own families, it was necessary.
I'll be brutally honest. Just a few weeks before he died, after receiving multiple screaming, threatening phone messages from him, I told my husband that I would be glad when Daddy was dead because then I wouldn't have to deal with his abusive drunken phone calls and threats anymore. I was wrong about that. Not only was I not glad, I was devastated. When he died, my hopes for answers, and a future relationship with him died, too. Or so I thought.
The next morning, my sons and I set out on the five hour drive to Broken Arrow. We drove straight to the police station to get the keys to his apartment. I asked the officer who had been at Daddy's house the night before if he needed to see my identification, but he just smiled at me and said, "no" and handed me a ring of keys. When we got to his apartment, none of the many keys on the ring would open the door. I called the manager who met us and let us in. He confirmed that none of the keys on the ring were the correct keys, which was strange because this was the set of keys that had been given to the detective by the neighbor who had found my dad dead, the night before. Still, at that point I didn't think too much about it.
I had no idea what we were going to find, but what we actually found was much worse than anything I could have imagined. I remember opening the door to his apartment and thinking, "he's probably alive and well, sitting there on the couch, and this is all a ploy to get me to talk to him"......I almost believed that was true, but it wasn't. Instead we were met by the odor of urine, whiskey, and days worth of unwashed dishes. Mail was piled up about a foot deep on the table, and the entire apartment looked as though it had been ransacked. It broke my heart that my sons had to see that, even though they were technically adults. I knew then, deep inside, that not only was Daddy really gone, he had been consistently drunk for a long time or his apartment would not have been in that condition. The other thing that literally took my breath away, were the pictures of me and my sister and our families that were everywhere in the apartment, on tables, on the floor, and hanging on every wall. No wonder the officer didn't need to see any identification from me. He knew exactly what I looked like. It was a bit surreal to see pictures of us everywhere and yet, it was comforting in a strange way, because I felt that perhaps it made Daddy feel like we were with him. And that was the first step to me beginning to have some insight as to how his mind had been working.
It was impossible to know where to start. I walked through the apartment in a state of shock and disbelief. I quickly realized that Daddy's Camry was missing and I asked the landlord if he knew where it was. He told me that a man who lived in the complex (the same man who found my dad and gave the police officer the wrong keys) sometimes drove it and informed me that Daddy also owned a 1976 red Lincoln which was in the parking lot. This presented yet another problem. I was prepared to take the Camry back to Texas, but what was I going to do with a huge Lincoln that didn't run well? And by this time, my father had been dead for almost 24 hours. What kind of person just helps themselves to a dead man's car? I knew then that I was going to need more help. I called my husband and my mother and Poppa who both agreed to come the next day.
We immediately began looking for the metal box that Daddy had always kept quite a bit of cash in. We found the box, but there were only car titles and old papers in it. I knew this was odd because for as long as I can remember, Daddy kept his money at home, only depositing enough for his rent and utilities. I began sorting through the piles of mail while my boys started throwing away old food and unwashed dishes in the kitchen. It was evident that no mail had been opened in months. I was trying to put the pieces of the last few months of Daddy's life together through the bills and notices piled up on the table, but the only thing I determined that night was that his life insurance had lapsed just a couple of months before he died.
During this time there was a knock on the door and I opened it to find a man standing there, holding a Bible. He had no teeth, yet was dressed in an electric blue suit and shiny shoes. He introduced himself as Daddy's neighbor, and walked right into the apartment. He appeared surprised that we were there. He told me that he was sorry for our loss and then said that he had been "taking care" of Daddy for awhile. He told us that my daddy had fallen and hit his head on the kitchen counter several days before and proceeded to point out blood droplets on the dirty kitchen floor. He told me that Daddy had been lying on the couch for days, unable to get up, which explained the urine smell. He said that he made Daddy food and tried to get him to eat but he wouldn't eat much; all he was doing was drinking. I found this interesting because if he was unable to get up, someone had to be getting whiskey for him. He then said, "When you clean things out in here, make sure you check the freezer for money." Again, it was an odd comment. He said several other things that were strange, and then I asked him about the Camry. He looked a bit taken aback, almost defensive, and said, "Well, Jerry lets me drive his cars because I don't have one." I told him that I would be taking the Camry back to Texas in two days and requested the keys from him. He didn't seem to want to give them to me, but finally handed over not only the car keys, but the keys to Daddy's apartment and mailbox. I asked him why he had given the officers the wrong set of keys and he just looked at me, mumbled something that didn't make sense and left the apartment. Later, after the shock had worn off and I had time to reflect on that night, I realized that by giving the officers bogus keys, it enabled him to have access to Daddy's apartment for the rest of that evening.
To be continued......