My dad died two years ago yesterday.
I know, I know – great opening, Glenn. Stay with me.
His name was Dad, which is what I called him, and for three years before he passed, he lived in a memory care facility in North Carolina while I lived in Florida, which is approximately 600 miles and one pandemic away. Memory care is one of those gentle euphemisms that means: the person you love is still here, but they’re leaving in pieces, and there’s nothing you can do about that except show up.
So I showed up.
It was March. COVID had made visits complicated, and something — call it instinct, call it guilt, call it whatever you want — told me to get in the car and drive north. No agenda. Just go.
When I walked into his hospital room, I had my long hair going, my cowboy hat on, and roughly zero expectations. He hadn’t seen me in a while. Memory care does what memory care does.
He looked up at me.
“There’s my son,” he said. “Glenn the cowboy.”
I’m not going to make a joke here. That moment is not available for jokes. He saw me — the real me, the me he’d always known — and said so out loud, and I will carry that for the rest of my life.
I visited a few more times that trip. I could tell things weren’t right. At some point, I even pulled my mom aside and told her: make sure you always say I love you. Every time.
The man was tying up loose ends.
I drove home on a Saturday. Somewhere in South Carolina, my phone rang. It was my mom. Two days after I’d last seen him.
He was gone.
I thought about turning around. I sat with that for a while on I-95. But there was nothing to go back to, not really. My sister flew in. My mom had what she needed. I kept driving south, which felt wrong and right at the same time, which is how grief usually works.
— — —
Fast forward to last night – two years later, almost to the day.
Before bed, I did the thing. You know the thing. The thing where you say a quiet hello to someone who isn’t here anymore and then, because you’re human and you can’t help yourself, you ask for a sign.
If you’re there, show me something.
Nothing. I fell asleep.
This morning, my Facebook feed was a parade of fathers. Videos, stories, memories – other people’s dads, other people’s losses, all of it landing with that particular weight that grief carries even when it’s not yours. And then: Joe Buck, talking about how he made one last right turn to visit his father in the hospital. His dad died two minutes later.
One last right turn.
I sat with that for a while. Because I made that turn too. I drove 600 miles on a feeling, walked into a hospital room in a cowboy hat, and my dad, my dad who was leaving – looked up and called me by name.
He wasn’t waiting for a doctor. He was waiting for me. He said his goodbye. Then, when he was ready, he went.
And here’s where it gets a little funny.
I spent all day genuinely moved … videos, simple memes, Joe Buck’s last right turn story, my own. Real emotions. Actually touched. The whole deal.
But here’s the thing: I asked Dad for a sign last night and got nothing. Then I opened Facebook this morning and got an entire grief film festival.
So I have to ask …..
Was that the universe, reaching across two years to hand me exactly what I needed on exactly the right morning?
Or was it the Facebook algorithm, which has apparently decided I’m a middle-to-old-aged man with unresolved feelings and exceptional retargeting potential?
Honestly? I really don’t know. Higher power or new-age tech … maybe both? I’m not sure it matters. Bottom line is that I believe that he reached out in answer to my question.
Either way, Dad – I love you and miss you. Every time.
(Callie provided editorial oversight for this column, mostly by sleeping on my feet while I wrote it.)
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Think Dave Barry with a camera. Photographer Glenn Shuck’s humorous and heartfelt take on First Coast life – sometimes through his camera, sometimes through his words, always with the perspective that comes from years of watching our community evolve.
