Cares Away

The night that I got the phone call was a fairly average one. At the time, our three-person Harris clan was out for some adventure. It was a Friday evening and Greenwood for a porch-pickup, or something like that, was our destination. Carrie had to drop off something at a friends’ house before we left Hope. As we were pulling into their neighborhood, Dad called. We spoke for about ten or fifteen minutes. He was in a great mood, not uncommon for a couple of days away from Deckard’s and a weekend to kick off. He had spoken to Lindsay or was going to shortly after. I can not recall whether or not he rang her before me, but it matters not. That April 24 he got to speak to his children one last time. I am not one-hundred percent sure what he and Lindsay talked about that night, and it would not be my place to say anyhow, but I thank God that it was after they had made amends a week or two prior. They were in a good place.

Tim Harris was not a man of positivity, affirmation, or softness. He could be sweet at times, but not often. Everyone who knew him loved him despite the fact. It was just the way he was. I knew he loved me. Since he has been gone, I have taken the time to consider why that was, not because it still bugs me really, but just to try to make sense of it all. It is to provide context for what he briefly said that last time I would ever hear his voice. A few years before on the day we got back from Riley with our son’s ASD diagnosis, I called Dad to relay the news, “Oh God” he said. He was always unaware, or did not care perhaps, about how he was received: angry, harsh, arrogant at times. That is who he was. You just kind of figured it out. I never really held that against him. That phrase, “Oh God” was repeated by Carrie when we ended our conversation, and I told her about it. Her tone, however, was one of disbelief, not worry or disappointment.

I had just told him about something Ian had done or said. Ian always surprising us… “You know, you guys have done a hell of a job with him.” A pause, then “He’s figurin’ it out isn’t he,” not asking a question but making the statement. “Dad,” I thought, “is that you?” is what I would have said, but I was smiling so broadly I did not respond right away. “Yep, I think he is,” was my eventual reply. My dad, in all of his usual grief and crossness, was giving me approval and validation on one of the most trying issues in my entire life. I praise God for that phone call, but I wish he could see his grandson now. Hear him read one of his favorite Berenstain Bear books. See him carry the baseball bat with him as he runs to first base for the first time on the same dirt I used to trod thirty years prior. See him catch his first fish just twelve short days after he had passed. Hear him yell at the television screen when IU is on. See how he dotes on his little sister that he will never get to hold. See her get baptized, learn to crawl, belly laugh at her brother’s antics, and all of the other blessings that come along with another grandchild. He would have loved those things. I can hear him laugh and see his smile as I write this.

Those are the moments that still break me down. Rarities that otherwise seem harmless: a song, photo, a smell. Recently I cleaned out an old toolbox that Dad used at the shop, and I know I will never clean it. It is the same reason why I will never wash some of the jackets and shirts he left behind. They smell like Dad ought to smell: Marlboros, grease, a little bit of dirt, but none of it in an overpowering or unpleasant way. I purchased some hanging hooks from one of the local hardware stores and put my fishing gear up about a month ago. They hold all of my fishing rods perfectly in the shed. Between the toolbox, which is directly underneath the rods, our fishing gear, and some camp supplies that he unintentionally bequeathed, Dad has a little shrine in his honor. Inside, he would be proud to see all of the Indiana Hoosier memorabilia with which I have decorated the basement. A Lonesome Dove movie poster is professionally framed on the eastern wall. I still have yet to sit down and watch that film without him. He and I used to watch it every couple of years or so when I was little, a big pot of chili on the stove. Perhaps it will bring some closure and I just need to make myself do it.

Closure, kind of a joke really. Time has helped, but it does not take away the punch in the gut I got when I answered the phone for a second time that night. I had stepped outside of the car to take the call and actually dropped to my knees like in some cheesy movie. Time does not keep my sister’s utter devastation out of my head when I had to tell her Dad was dead. Does not wipe away the shocked looks on my grandparents’ faces when I had to tell them their firstborn is gone. I think God toughened me up that night or had the Holy Spirit lend a hand in getting through those early moments. And it is not as though our situation is anything terrible when compared to the devastation other families feel for their losses. It was not after some long bout with serious illness or in some horrific accident that we lost him. He was not old, but he certainly was not young either. They said it was very quick. Like he just fell asleep. He died, drink in hand, on his front porch calling his good friend to see if he wanted to play cards. The rest of us can only hope for such a scenario. I suppose putting pen to paper here is to help others get through similar situations, a side effect of me doing the same with this article. One of the hardest parts was only having the eight or so of us there at the funeral home. COVID was in full swing and had that not been the case, he would have had one hell of a showing. He knew tons of people and I know they would have wanted to send him off in the right fashion. We all had to bear that part, the actual funeral, by ourselves. That is no way to grieve.

The day before the funeral, I was mowing my grandfather’s yard, partially because it needed done and partially because I needed some distraction. I had my headphones on and had to stop by one of the bushes while watching Grandad Harris play ball with Ian. The pain of watching that knowing it should be Grandad Tim, Ian’s grandad- broke me. I stopped there, knelt, and wept like a baby, the mower still running so I would not bother their game of catch. I did not break down telling anyone the news or even to Carrie the night he actually passed, but that day everything kind of hit me. Listening to some of his favorite music and knocking the neck and shoulders off a bottle of Early Times the night of the actual funeral also got me. Yet, it was not the cheap bourbon, his cheap bourbon- the E.T., that got me either. It was the song at the end of the soundtrack that got me. I had listened to the Lonesome Dove soundtrack many times, but I guess never made it all the way to the end. Written by Basil Poledouris, the only thing more beautiful than a young Diane Lane and the cinematography of the film is its score.

When I first started watching it with him, the action and great dialogue drew me in, but I could not appreciate in full the music and other aspects of the film that made it great. I was hanging out with dad, getting some personal time in when we watched it so many years before. That alone was good enough. Sitting there on the glider swing outside of the house I must have replayed that last song ten times if I played it once. It is called “Let’s Remember” and you have to listen to it. It would be a sheer lie, if I said I knew where I thought Dad was that night, whether he was right with God or not. That song put me in my place. Not released with the original score, and written in part by the composer's daughter, it ends with a repeat of the phrase “Cares Away…” In that moment, I had received the message I so desperately needed. It was an answer to prayer in about as obvious and sentimental as it can be with something that was dear to both of it, the dang movie. I just had to listen to it all the way through. I have found that if we all decide to “listen all the way through” most of what we are looking for, or at the very least needing, is right there for us to find. I miss him more than ever but know where I will find him again. People need to hear things like that, and I have been holding on to it for far too long now.