Dad.

The human being also known as Paul Douglas Dickerson ended his conscious existence and life sometime during the day of November 5th 2010. He was alone, in his bedroom, in Moody Alabama.

He was also my father.

The reason I state, “ended his conscious existence” was because he was committing slow-motion suicide for several months, if not several years, before the culmination of his actions finished things once and for all.

Additionally, the reason why I am writing the aforementioned sentences in a somewhat clinical unemotional manner will become obvious if you read on.

My dad was smart. Very smart. Mom often joked that he was an alien, which explained his many brilliant actions and observations. He was a businessman, and owned his own company. His specialty was refurbishing and repairing welding machines for companies across America. He had very rare knowledge of this domain, and this information made him a lot of money over the years.

My dad started his company after he was laid off when I was about 11 – no, correct that, he was fired, because he thought he could run the company better than the people he worked for – and he was arrogant enough to tell them that. For anyone else such a situation would be a humbling experience. Not Dad. He started his own business, and the worse thing that could have happened did so.

He was successful. Incredibly so.

What happens when a situation gives a somewhat arrogant person the idea that they could succeed without anyone’s help? You get a much more arrogant person. Not a good thing – it was, in fact, made him all the more certain how absolutely right he was… always.

Dad was… well, really really good at everything. Just ask him, he could have told you so. He tried to instruct everyone on EVERYTHING. He was never wrong. People who didn’t do what he was told were stupid and needed to listen to him. I clearly remember a moment where he tried to teach me how to play pool – I was 38 at the time – and I nodded, listening to his instruction – and then proceeded to beat him at 8-ball. He was as angry as I had ever seen him.

I never heard him say he was wrong and apologize. Ever.

My brother-in-law went to work for him – after 15 years of doing so, he looks 10 years older than me. We’re the same age.

About four months ago Paul Douglas Dickerson started going crazy. This is not a casual statement: he really did start to go mad. He kicked my mother out of the house they had lived in for over 22 years. He threatened her life. She commenced divorce proceedings. He started walking around his house brandishing a gun. He lost 80 pounds of weight and drank hard liquor from dusk till dawn: vodka and grapefruit juice. His drink of choice, for as long as I knew him.

Dad became Jack Torrance, from The Shining – with a little bit of Howard Hughes.

I was on the periphery of all this, because I had decided a long time ago to focus my time and attention on my own family – my wife and three sons. I had made that decision as the result of a trip to see them a few summers ago, on Memorial Day weekend. Throughout the past few years I had tried to become closer to Dad, with limited success. This time I offered to take him out to dinner, along with my three sons.

“Go out with you and those crazy little bastards of yours? Hell no.”

That was Dad, always a charmer.

I decided, at that exact moment, to do better by my sons than what had done to me. I wasn’t going to expose them to my father any more. If he did not want to be with them, I would not inflict them upon them – or he on them.

It has made their life a happier, healthier one.

In the end, what is the measure of a man? I think it’s what he leaves behind. What my dad left behind was a mess. An emotional mess, a physical mess, and a rapidly decomposing body. He was found two days after he died.

A friend of his stole the money out of his wallet. Who you are is a reflection of the company you keep, as the saying goes.

We had a service – he was cremated, because we could not have an open casket – and I comforted Mom and my two sisters. One of them is angry and resentful; the other is sad and wishes we had done more to help him.

I’m somewhat in the middle.

I owe Dad a lot – my smarts, for one thing. But that is genetics, not upbringing. I get my work ethic from him, I think – He always worked hard, providing for his family. I try and do that, too.

I also have some regrets. I tried to get closer to him, but didn’t try hard. More than anything else, I regret that he never could express his “soft” feelings well. Anger, he expressed quite effectively… but love, compassion… not so much. He was never comfortable loving, or being loved. He came from cold parents and his emotional landscape was the clear result of such an upbringing. An example:

One of my most vivid memories is winning the AP computers award for “Best student” when I was a senior in high school. I was called to the stage, I got my award, and I looked out to the audience and saw, in the very back of the auditorium, Dad.

He didn’t smile, he didn’t clap.

But he was there.

And then, before I could get off the stage, he was gone.

Goodbye, Dad.

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