True Heroes Never Really Die

Like a rain-soaked storm cloud blanketing my mind and infusing every pore, my breath lay strangled in my throat. Every innocent hope was rendered null and left behind only sadness. My young soul simmered to bursting without relief.

My dad was gone. Goddamnit!

Ten-year-old boys are not equipped to suffer such a wrenching loss as death, which was the main attraction that day. One closing act erasing the remnant traces of my father’s life from this earth.

Center stage, garish sprays of flowers seen only at horse races and funerals surrounded the shiny casket. From where I was seated, neatly filed away between Mom and Grandma, I could see the waxen features of Dad’s once strong face protruding from the polished box. Archaic piped-in hymns kept the mood at full-tilt grim, and Death’s boots stomped their indelible print into my miserably shattered soul.

We, family members, were seated well away from the larger gallery of mere spectators, the obligatory witnesses to our collective grief. A week later they would readjust their lives and make do without Ellmore ‘Matt’ Matheson. More than four decades later he continues to occupy a front-row seat in my day-to-day life.

Despite drowning in sadness, my faith was at its peak, for I clung desperately to the vain hope that Dad would suddenly spring awake and climb out of that wretched box. Then we could go back home to the beautiful, oh-so-beautiful humdrum of our lives. 

The crowd queued up to file past the open casket. 

Not me--no sir--no way. 

I WOULD NOT be part of that ghastly parade. 

More than one well-meaning relative stopped, and with a gentle pat on my hand encouraged me to come along and view his corpse. What could they have been thinking? Was convention so indispensable they found it necessary to heap yet more torment onto such a young boy whose world revolved around his father?

The horde of silent whispers grew in my head as one by one the spectators each tried not to look in my direction. Couldn’t they see I had the most skin in this game? And they were worried about tradition! 

Surrounded by family and friends, I felt utterly abandoned, and the only person with enough care or courage to come sit with me that day lay stretched out in the casket. 

He would have, son or not, but he’s gone. 

I was an only child, and now had less than nothing.

Why was I singled out to be cheated of a father?

Where was God while my dad lay dying?

What, besides pure evil could let a child bounce at wicked tangents off the jagged rocks of death? Off and on for decades. 

A previously unknown rage crept up on me like a wolf on the prowl. Life was no longer the life of an innocent.

Hunched around a dying fire for warmth, my innocence and ambient peace were stolen away in such small bites that I couldn’t perceive what was happening till anger bloomed with a life all its own and became the reigning emotion.

It wasn’t until 25 years later that the fiery bitterness finally began to cool and the treasure Dad had hidden in me peeked out into the daylight.

Since that ugly day so long ago, I've amassed an ever-increasing assembly of personal heroes, but they play only minor supporting roles in the story of my life. I look to them to spur my skill, talent, and gifting, and to inspire me to keep striving in character or craft. But the Drum Major stands his post ahead of them all. Barely a day goes by without his lessons and examples working their way to the surface of nearly every decision, action, and exploit. It’s incredible how much soul Dad packed into the short 10 years he guided my growing little life, almost as if he knew his time would be short. 

If I die knowing my life had even half as profound of an effect on my children and grandchildren as Dad had on mine, my life will have been well lived.

My earliest memory of Dad was when I was three or four years old. Somewhere in Europe, I was hanging from the doorway of a car and pissing out into a violent rainstorm. He drew enough bravery out of me to dangle from an open door and do my business.

 

As years went on, he taught me the much more noble art of growing things. I sold produce to our neighbors, grown from my own rather large vegetable plot. Still clear in my mind is Dad helping me discover the mystery of black spots that showed up on the leaves of my plants. Charcoal in the soil. Today no one could accuse me of being a very good gardener, but how many lessons in commerce, responsibility, and hard work grew in that little garden? Over time those lessons grew into factory management and eventual business ownership.
Dad was able to single-handedly correct my pigeon-toed feet by simple, kind, and consistent reminders to not walk like that. 

When I show my toddler son how to throw a ball or must admonish his behavior, Dad still whispers in my ear the right words to say.

On one of our many spontaneous early A.M. fishing trips, I caught a crab, a monster by seven or eight-year-old standards.

As I was awed by its fearsome claws, Dad saw an opportunity for a lesson in courage.

"It's not as scary as it looks," he said. 

"Put your finger in the pincers and see."

I drew back with a fearful, "No!"  

 

Dad exerted the mild pressure it took to get me to do anything and I put my finger in the claw. He was right of course. Just a little pinch. Today I know that most things are fiercer in appearance than they are in reality. 

Anything Dad asked me to do, I would do. And defiance, so commonplace today, was nearly inconceivable then. His ‘suggestions’ had the power to pull daring, hard work, and sacrifice from a timid little boy who would rather not be those things.
Running home one day, from the threats of a bully that was older and taller, Dad turned me around and marched back with me to face Dale Rudd. Up until the very moment that Dad said, “Fight him,” I fully expected he would take care of that menace. It ended up looking more like a dance than a fight (I’m sure Dad knew it would). Lesson learned. Never back down from a threat, the slightest temptation to do so sets me to thinking of Dad as if he is standing right next to me.

He and I built a slot car track out in the garage. It was on a large board with pulleys that could be pulled up to the rafters and out of the way. How many simple things such as the use of tools and more complex things like patience and persistence did that project teach?

One of my fondest recollections is going to work with Dad during my summer vacations. He was retired from 27 years in the Army and now worked for the Santa Ana Parks Department. Eating lunch with him and his coworkers made me feel much older than my seven years. I spent the day catching frogs while he worked. We took the frogs home in Chinese food containers, and on the ride home in the huge four-door blue and white ‘55 Chevy they all disappeared. They were small but not minute. We never did find them.

Above all, I think Dad taught me to be kind. It was his standout trait and showed in everything he did. He never explained, it was just part of who he was. You could be sure not to mistake his kindness for timidity or weakness, for he was never afraid to stand up for himself or a victim of another's abuse. He also had some very strong views on world affairs that wouldn't be very user-friendly today. 

Those days a family outing could simply be to drive around, and on one of these Dad accidentally hit and killed a small dog. I remember sitting in the car with Mom as he picked up that dead Wiener Dog and carried it through the neighborhood looking for its owners so he could tell them he was sorry.

 

If, in the end, I turn out half as kind and compassionate as Ellmore H. Matheson, I'm good.

The bitter memory of not being allowed to visit my dad in the hospital where he died sits aching in my head like an abscessed tooth. Too young they said. I’m glad it’s not that way today. In that at least our society has grown more compassionate. 

Paramedics attempting to force him to ride a gurney downstairs was the last time I physically saw my dad alive. His repeated remonstrations still ring in my head. Every day he was in the hospital, I looked forward to talking with him on the phone. I don’t recall what we talked about, but I know both of us fully expected him to come home. Until the day I returned home to a gray room and a tearful mom.

"Come sit here Mikey," she said patting the cushion next to her.

The day of his funeral is still clear as yesterday. I was 10-1/2 years old. No son should have to bury his father. Unfortunately, for us in this violent, disease-prone world, it happens much too often.

I wasn't scared to view the body but refused to see my hero like that. He was superman-strong and without any doubt loved me. He had the answer to every question. How could he do that from that box? 

It has taken many years of life in the raw to learn that a hero like him could never really die but lives on in every breath, decision, and deed of my life.

Today he is just as strong if not stronger, and now 46 years down the road many of the seeds he planted in the first decade of my life are just now bearing their fruit. That’s a true hero and one that can never really die.

Epilogue 

Many years later as I was an adult but stuck in a tailspin, my mom married another great man. It took me several years to reconcile him as a father to me. But I did.

In discussing this thought with a good number of people, I found it hard to find more than a couple who have had even one GOOD father in their life, and I’ve had two. I understand my tremendous good fortune.

While writing this piece my second father was battling cancer from which I fully expected him to recover. 

He died just as I was finishing. 

Howard “Hank” Smoyer earned the right to be called my Dad. He was not an ‘also ran,’ but another real hero that will never die. It would take another story to tell you why. 

Mixed up in the midst of all my madness and trouble, God used two true men to sculpt my life, and they are carving away still, for true heroes never really die.