September 16-20, 1972: A Trip to North Carolina
	August 4-6, 1972: My Parents Visit Chicago
	Return to Index for 1972

After a good visit in Chicago, my parents left on Monday morning to continue their road trip by driving to Muskegon to visit with my Aunt Marguerite- my dad's only sister. That evening, they called from her house to tell me they were having a great visit and would be heading over to Detroit to my Uncle Bud's house on Thursday morning.

What happened next, I only know from the accounts of my mother and my uncle Bud, who called me on that Thursday afternoon. My Mom and Dad had arrived at my uncle's house just before lunchtime, and they had a couple hours' visit and a bit of lunch before my Dad went out to the car to bring in their luggage. It's unclear whether my mom or my uncle was with him when he went out to the car, but, apparently, when my Dad leaned into the car to get something he had a massive stroke and keeled over. He was taken to the hospital and my mom called Judy and me. The Bank let me take time off immediately, and my sister and I arrived in Detroit on Friday. We both arrived before our Dad passed away, although he never regained consciousness.

Surely you've appreciated the oddness of it all. No sooner had my Dad spent an hour with his brother, at the end of a single continuous trip during which he'd visited each of his immediate family members, than he died. I can't help but wonder whether he knew something; the coincidence seems too "neat". But none of us will ever know.

Services for my Dad were held in Charlotte the next week, and as I recall my sister drove my Mom home in Dad's car (my Mom didn't have a drivers license). I returned to Chicago and took a plane to Charlotte. By the third week in August it was over, and I returned to Chicago. After talking with my managers at the Bank, I planned to take my actual week of vacation in late September so I could see how my Mom was doing, and that is just what I did.

The album page for that trip home in September is one of the album pages for this year, but I want to use the opportunity in this diary note to record the thoughts I wrote down when that trip was over.

I had mixed feelings, leaving home to return to Chicago that Fall. Behind me I left a Mother considerably stronger than I had expected, and a family considerably more cohesive than I had supposed. Ahead lay a start at the University of Chicago in October to work towards an MBA degree. Ahead, too, lay my job, and what I could make of that. A lot happened during the Summer, and it was a catharsis. I looked forward to a routine, as the Eastern jet came in over Chicago. I am sorry now, and I know I will be even more so as the future unfolds, that my Father will not see whatever it is that may happen to me. I know that he to a great extent lived a second life through my own (without becoming domineering). I know he took great interest in all that happened to me in Korea and in the Army. I was apparently getting the chance to do things that he had not had the chance to do, and to live these experiences through my own eyes was the next best thing.

When he and Mother visited in Chicago, the week before he died, I could tell two things. First, he was genuinely proud of what I had done so far, even though that was not much. Second, he knew that he was not going to see much more of what happened to me. Of that last part I am totally convinced. Looking back on it, I now know that when he said "Good-bye" and drove off with Mother to Muskegon, I was not to see him alive again. I recall distinctly the feeling I had that morning. If he had not died, perhaps I would have completely forgotten about it. But that is what did happen. My Dad will not get to read the future narratives that I may write, nor will he get to see what might happen to me in the future. I wish he could.

Please use the link below to return to the Index for 1972.

	September 16-20, 1972: A Trip to North Carolina
	August 4-6, 1972: My Parents Visit Chicago
	Return to Index for 1972