When Eli can’t call Papa Jim anymore

Eli climbs into the car as he’s done literally thousands of times in his life, gives me a small hug with a “Hi Dad!” and puts on his seat belt. The routine of exchanging between his mother and myself for visitation hasn’t really changed in 17 years other than vehicles being a little different and/or his brother being there too.

We pull away from the McDonald’s (after checking he had his snack of McNuggets before I got there) and turn right on U.S. 60 to make the several hour trek home.

As I’ve done every exchange since 2005, I picked up my phone to call home so Eli could talk to his grandparents…

…and realized there was no one to call.

Dad died just before midnight on September 10, so Eli would have nobody to talk to about his upcoming weekend visit. No one to tell he was going to get chicken strips at Mel’s Hard Luck Diner. No one to tell what show he wanted to go see this weekend. No one to tell what video game he just beat that morning a few hours after buying it at the store.

And there never would be again.

I was fortunate to be there during Dad’s last week, and perhaps sometime I’ll be able to write down the final day he was able to have with his sons to share it with you, but for now I’m still working through a lot of grief. After losing Mom last year, losing Dad now made me realize just how much I hadn’t finished working through grief from losing her, and suddenly everything related to grief just exponentially magnified.

Due to Mom’s death last year, I also wasn’t caught unaware of surprise moments of grief, because I’d had those surprise moments through the last half of 2021 and most of 2022. I wasn’t quite prepared for the intensity, if I’m being honest, but I expected to feel sadness in specific situations.

I hadn’t anticipated the moment where Eli wouldn’t be able to call Papa Jim for the first time.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming: I’d had several moments, usually one per day, where I’d find myself reaching for the phone because of something happening in life and wanting to either share it with dad or get his advice. Those moments stung, but because I kind of expected them after mom’s death, they weren’t enough to really make me need to stop what I was doing.

I pulled off the road into the parking area of a closed business and pretended to look for something in my phone hoping Eli wouldn’t notice I started crying.

He did.

“Are you crying because we can’t call Papa Jim because he died?” Eli said with his usual straightforward honesty. “Don’t be sad, Dad. It OK, because Papa Jim in Heaven.”

Then he grabbed my phone and opened Hulu so he could watch a Minions movie while we drove back to Branson. (Sometimes I wish I could really understand how his brain processes things.)

I took a minute to just watch Eli watching Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, before I rubbed my eyes and worked the car back onto the highway.

Two minutes hadn’t gone by before God reminded me of how this time dealing with loss was going to be different than when I initially lost Mom.

The phone pinged, and the movie paused, and Eli said “you got message from Miss CJ.”

It was CJ Newsom at the Americana, sending us a message saying if Eli wanted to come see Awesome 80s (one of his favorite shows) we would have seats ready for us. Eli, of course, quickly changed our evening’s plans to go see his friends Matthew and Adrianna and Mister Chris and Miss CJ.

I hadn’t planned to end up in deep thought over a simple text message, but it made me realize the scope of the support system God had put in place for me. I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure how I survived the few days after Dad’s funeral. I left straight from the graveside service to come back to Missouri, and I’m not sure all those hours alone in the car were the best course of action. However, I’d had a good friend from childhood, Tim, help me the day before the funeral to keep me in a functional mindset, and it gave me a good base to use for the trip home. I don’t know if I would have made it back without Tim’s kindness the day before and the day of the funeral.

What resonated deeply with me about CJ’s message was the sudden realization about the unusual way the Branson area was rallying around me in ways I’d never really had during other traumatic times in my life.

This isn’t meant as a slight toward anywhere else. When Mom died and I was living in Springfield, my friends were there for me, and they were invaluable. I can’t really thank enough folks like Christopher Richele at the Blue Room Comedy Club who told me to just come to any show, any time if I needed a laugh, or the musicians across town who asked me to come to their shows to find peace in music. Tom Ladd, my boss at the time at KWTO/Jock radio, was a real rock, and made sure to keep me busy with play-by-play on sporting events to help those idle evenings.

However, Branson was different; the support came from all over, and came in ways I’d never experienced before in my life, even from complete strangers.

For example, when I arrived back home and shared on social media I had made it home safely (as I was asked to do by multiple friends), I started getting messages from people I had never met asking if they could help. Churches I’d never once attended asked if they could bring groceries to my son Dale and I. Local counselors offered me their assistance and they weren’t fishing for new clients: they just wanted to make sure I was OK.

My phone blew up with text or Facebook messages from Chris & CJ at the Americana, or Clay Cooper, or Jacqui at King’s Castle, or the Duttons, or Ellen Petersen, or Mike at Grand Country, or Jody with All Hands on Deck, or so many others saying if I needed to get out of my head for a few hours and just lose myself in some live music, they always had a seat waiting for me.

Restaurant owners in town would comp my meal and not tell me until I went to pay and they told me they were praying for me. Several of them would reach out and ask me if I was eating, because they were worried I wouldn’t be, and reminded me Mom wouldn’t want me to starve just because I was sad. (I know it’s not P.C. to say they were older ladies, but I really think there’s just something special about Ozark grandmas showing concern for someone who’s hurting through really good home cooked food.)

It was a cocoon of kindness, support, grace, and, well, food on a level I just never have seen since I took my first adult steps into the world, moving to New Mexico from Pennsylvania a year after I graduated college. I’ll admit I had a little trouble adjusting to a stranger coming up and asking me if they could pay for my bottle of water at the convenience store or my groceries at Countrymart.

And on a quick political note, this kindness wasn’t partisan or divisive…it came from liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, pro-Larry Milton, anti-Larry Milton, etc. It was the residents of the Ozarks showing at the core, what matters most to them is taking care of each other, even if the other is a transplant to the area working hard to try and fit in.

I’m trying to prepare myself for what I know is going to be a very hard day for me…the day the phone number I’ve used to call home since we moved to Newburg, PA in 1986 is disconnected. (Due to Pennsylvania’s arcane estate rules, we can’t turn the phone off yet.) I still call the number to hear Dad’s answering machine message. I know the day I call and get those three tones before the computer voice tells me “you have reached a number that has been disconnected and is no longer in service” I’m going to lose it.

But the people of Branson, the people of the Ozarks, have shown me they’re ready to be there to help me through it in ways you would think are made up if you read it in a book.

And I’m thankful God’s placed me right here to have it during this season.