Dear Dad
A eulogy for my father—a Seeker of life.
”Here today, gone tomorrow!”
Steven Ronald Dransfield
March 24, 1947 - February 14, 2021
Dear Dad,
Before I could speak, you put me in your work boots. They went so far up my tiny legs that the tops of them had to scrunch down for my feet to even reach the bottom. You lifted me up by my hands, raising my feet with yours, clunking my feet forward one step at a time. Smiling your kind, gentle smile. The moment you stopped, I clung to your knees.
Clinging to you was were I spent a lot of my time back then.
Old enough to go to school, we started to see you less. You still lived with us at home, but only sometimes. No one really ever told us why.
All I knew was that when I did see you, you let me waste all your shaving cream making “birthday cakes” on your hands, blowing out that cold foamy ‘flame’ a thousand times over. You sat me on your knees and flushed me down the imaginary toilet as many times as your arms would possibly let you as I screamed with laughter. You tossed me on your back and spun me around, asking my brothers where I had gone.
I wasn’t old enough to realize the challenges we were already facing. But I was old enough to know that you were exactly what I needed to see me through them. Light, love, and laughter.
Not much later, we moved away. Not far, but it felt like it. You’d come to visit every weekend in your big blue astro van. We waited at the window after school until we finally saw it turn the corner, rock over the dip, and come to a stop on our crumbling curb. A fat rolled up sleeping pad in the back that would have made a lot of modern van-lifers jealous. A dirt road dirtbag ahead of his time. We knew you couldn’t come inside. Still, no one told us why. It just was. So we heaved open your sliding door with all our strength. You greeted us with bulk tubs of cheese balls and 2 liter bottles of off-brand soda, and we sat in the sun telling each other stories.
You took us swimming often. Probably the highlight of my existence. Spinning us in circles one after another, singing “motor boat, motor boat, go so slow” and tossing us high into the air. You wrapped my arms around your neck and “torpedoed” under the water from one end of the pool. Again, again, and again.
You drove us down dirt roads, and taught us that barbed wire fences were guidelines, not restrictions. We climbed hills, picked flowers, and skimmed over icy lakes in our sneakers. We crawled through mud, swung from trees, and got cactus needles in our butts.
You filled me with a sense of adventure for life.
And then……time started to stretch. Life started to change. And you started to drift even further.
We had a farewell for Brian a little while after he finished high school. He convinced you to shave your long, matted, Porter Rockwell hair, and you wore a light brown sport coat. You hugged me and asked, “what grade are you in now?”
“I’m about to finish eleventh,” I said, as we both filled our plates with watermelon and too many potato chips.
You asked, “were you with us when we went to Craters of the Moon in Idaho?”
“No, I think that trip was just you, Mike, Brian, and Ron,” I replied. You beamed about what a memory it was, and how we should all go back there together. We all promised that we would someday.
We all sat down around the couch as Aunts, Uncles, and distant relatives made small talk.
You looked at me and said, “so, what grade are you in now?”
It wouldn’t be the last time you asked.
In the years that followed, I clung to photos of us like I clung to your knees as a baby. Almost every one of them with me in your arms. I felt the slow growing hole in my heart start to ache as those memories became mine alone.
A few years passed, and we came to visit you at Aunt Jennie and Uncle Roger’s house. They told us about your trouble eating, and your love for your mean little lap dog that loved you back just as much as any other animal ever had. You showed us your art and played the harmonica, just like you had when we were little. We opened your yearbooks and you pointed out bookmarked photos of your own face that you no longer recognized, but you were told that they were of you. They told you every day.
You proudly displayed a big framed photo of us on your wall. You looked me in my eyes with a bright loving smile on your face and said, “these are my kids!”
The last words you spoke to me were just over four years ago. You were small and frail, and you gestured more than you spoke. As I reached down to hug you, Jennie reminded you that I was your daughter. In my ear, you pressed out a very soft “I love you” that stopped me in my tracks.
You knew what love was when you no longer knew your own name.
I realize that those words might not have really been for me. But it felt like they were. And that was enough. You didn’t know me anymore. But whoever I was, you understood that you loved me.
On the morning of February 14th, 2021, I woke up from a vivid dream, the contents of which I'll keep close to my heart for now. I violently scribbled them into a note on my phone that still shows the timestamp from that morning. Two hours later, I answered the phone to the news that you had passed away a few hours before.
I don’t believe it was a coincidence that you left on Valentine’s Day. It was one last whisper to all of us. One last, “I love you.”
I always imagine how you’d sound over the phone if I called to tell you about a production gig. The way your voice would rise. You would have laughed and told me you couldn’t believe it, then you’d stop and say actually, you really could.
It’s that feeling when something sits right on the tip of your tongue and you just can’t wait to share it with someone. That someone you know who will love and appreciate it even more than you. That feeling has lived with me most of my life. Just out of reach. Now more than ever.
As I fossick through all your old boxes of things, I’ve come to realize I only ever saw a tiny glimpse of you. A perfect cartoon hero of a dad that died that way in my mind a long time ago. A man who has taught me more about life by example, both good and bad, than just about anyone else.
To moonwalk in the parking lot. Turn work into play. Sing along to the songs on the radio. Turn down dirt roads and go places you would never think to go. Find a way to smile when things are hard. Love everyone. Be silly, play, explore, be kind, be creative, and most importantly, hold on tight to the people you love.
I wish I could have asked you for the stories behind all the photos. To talk about all the stories we share now.
Instead, I hear them through the warm clicks of your film. In the production photos and the postcards home to your parents. I piece them together, stretching them into fairytales. And for the rest of my life, I get to make those stories my own. I get to write you into a script and pull a moral from the story. And I gotta say, it just might be your best work yet.
After losing you for the third time, it almost feels like I finally have you back.
A tattered old blue letter postmarked Monday, October 2nd, 1979, addressed to “Mom & Dad Dransfield” sits on top of a box of your old things.
Sender’s name and address:
Your boy, Steve!
Here today, gone tomorrow,
but is probably running around somewhere
in England. Try Durham. No?
(Well I must be in Scotland, then.)
Wherever you are Dad, I love you back. Thank you for making me who I am. For instilling in me—above all else—a sense of adventure, curiosity, laughter, softness, and love. Your spirit and mine are one and the same, and I couldn’t be prouder of that. I know you would be too. Thank you for giving me my heart, and for leaving on a day that would always remind me of yours.
See you in the funny papers, Valentine.
Your daughter forever,
Jany
