The Space Between, and After

David Ward, June 18, 1945 - August 18, 2018

I have written already about my father, but it isn’t even close to everything within the scope of  that dash between the dates.

I could write about him trying to teach me to ride a bike, but I couldn’t overcome my own fear of falling.  He didn’t want to give up, but I made him.

This Is Not an Obituary

(There is an old man, reduced to breath and bones and dreams of pain, dying more slowly than he or anyone would like, in a bed in Oak Ridge, the same bed his own mother died in.  He sips some water when awake enough to realize how parched he is.  The only thing he has eaten in days are bare spoonfuls of ice cream.  There is just enough of him left to know he is in pain, but the morphine finally arrived yesterday, so perhaps that will make it easier.  Perhaps his dreams will be more restful.)

On some day in August 2018 (yet to be determined when I begin writing this), David Ward, formerly of Kimper, Kentucky, died at his home in Oak Ridge, Tennessee at the age of 73.  David leaves behind his wife of 53 years, Rhinda, as well as his four children and four grandchildren:  Yancey, who cared for him in his last years and is owed a debt the rest of us can never repay; Rebecca and her husband A.J. and their two children, (the Older with her quiet, cautious internal musings, and  the Younger with her open heart waiting to be broken); Selena and her husband Dan, and their two children (their own Boy with wide eyes and smile, and their Girl with straight back and her love of flowered hats); and Bethany (the promise of second chances) and her husband Tim Hall.  David was preceded in death by his sisters Joyce Williamson and Kay McKinney.  He is survived by his sister Jan Gosser and brother Cecil Ward, and numerous nieces, nephews, cousins and friends (too many people who loved him, and whom he loved, to list here).