It could be worse (by Ben)

Sixteen years ago today, my father, James Benjamin Freeman Davis, died. This anniversary is of particular note to me because I was sixteen when he passed away. This means that I've now lived longer without him in my life, than I lived with him.

As the family story goes, he awoke with some chest pain and went to the doctor to get an exam. They decided to perform an emergency angioplasty, inflating a balloon in the arteries of his heart that would relieve the pressure and prevent future problems. The procedure was unsuccessful, and he was rushed away for a multiple bypass. This surgery went well, but a mild heart attack shortly after the hours of surgery was too much for his heart to handle and hours of CPR were of no avail.

In the years since, I've gone through the traditional stages of mourning. And in recent years, I've arrived at where I mostly long for that friend. I'd like to re-hear stories that he told me growing up, now with my adult perspective. I'd like to know about his family, and his take on life. I'd like to remember good times together. The kind of stuff I assume most grown kids do with their fathers at one time or another.

This disconnect with my past, and the loss of that close limb in my family has been one of the many triggers that has led me closer to genealogy. Not knowing my father well enough has made me want to know more about what made him, and me, and my kids. I'm more fascinated than ever by the history of my extended family, and the lands that surrounded them. I even had a fellow genealogist stop by his grave to take some pictures since I haven't ever been able to make the trip back to Michigan to see his final resting place.

I'm still sad that I didn't know him better. He wasn't a perfect man, but he was a good one from whom I would still be deeply learning. I remember him well enough that his best attributes still shine bright. He was hard working, brimming with a willingness to serve anyone at anytime, intelligent and funny, never one to pass up a good pun or prank. And of course his constant optimism which is summarized, of all places, on his tombstone which reads: "It could be worse"

We miss you dad.