Goodbye Dad

On March 6th, 2010, the patriarch of our family died.

It did take a while to really see this coming, although he was 82 years old. One minute, I'm working on my acting career, and also working as a suit salesman to supplement the income(Hell on earth story for another time), and the next the whole family is coming to grips with the whole situation. It all came in a blink of an eye.

It was February 28th. The night before, I was working on "The Graduate", a local stage play in Atlanta. I had become really really sick right in between acts, and was very feverish. I did survive the performance and went home. A phone call would come at 9 AM.

It was Mom. Dad had a fall at 5 AM that morning.

Now this was normally not a cause for concern, even at his age. The man was tougher than alligator skin, and he'd survived falls that would kill or incapacitate men 20-30 years younger. He'd never even broken a bone.

But this was different. While he did get up once again, and walked to his room, and got dressed, he was also in the hospital this time. Mom said she'd call back soon. While I was waiting for that call, I started packing up before she even told my brother and I to come home. Sometimes you just know.

People that know me hear me talk about how wimpy men have become, and how media makes men look emasculated, wimpy, and totally incapable of taking charge whatsoever. Having a Dad like Monte Christner makes you do that. Good looking guy(Hollywood good looks to boot), successful businessman(contractor for over 50 years), and as mentioned, tougher than boot leather. The man flat out took charge, and would not take shit from anyone. When I was a kid, watching TV Dads made me wretch because I knew how unrealistic they were. I had the real deal.

Mom called and said we had to come home. The doctor had originally given Dad five hours to live after he had a seizure. What was worse was that my brother and I had a 14 hour drive, and it would be a two day trip for both my brother and I(he and his wife had a toddler to deal with, and I was sicker than a dog). We'd call home by the hour, and Dad was still around each hour. All of us should've known better about him.

As I drove home, I started to think about life with him. About all the Saturday mornings we spent together, about the Sundays watching the Chicago Bears, Boston Celtics(I was a HUGE Larry Bird fan), and Chicago Cubs, about the times I rode on his shoulders as a little munchkin of four years old, and about the times he'd simply watch me play tennis on the garage door, or shoot hoops, and smile. While I was getting sicker and sicker in the hotel room, I was reminded of all the times he'd say "YOU'RE TOUGH, YOU CAN TAKE IT!"(Those would make for some comical faces when I would fall down and scrape my knee and I'd try to hold back the tears in front of him. I so wanted to be tough for him) while I'm throwing up and getting dizzy. I don't care what the kum by yas want to say about pushing kids. There was nothing that was more motivating than hearing that guy's voice telling you to tough it out, and push harder, and I heard it more than ever as I could barely stay on my feet.

I wake up the next day and drive on home. Mom said he was still around, which really shouldn't have been a surprise. You really couldn't tell him what to do. He was never conventional.

I get to the hospital at 2 PM Central time and there he was, laying there with an oxygen mask. Surprisingly, he was still lucid and was very surprised I made it home(he knew I was sick from a couple days before). My brother would make it shortly after I did, and that meant the whole family was around him now.

Remember when I brought up that my Dad had five hours to live? Yeah, that didn't happen. We got there on a Monday, and on Tuesday he recovered enough to sit up and play with my then two year old nephew, and even blew him a kiss, which I believe was his goodbye to everyone(Great as a father as he was, he never showed that kind of affection.....just wasn't him). After Tuesday, he really wouldn't be that lucid again.

Wednesday, he was taken off of fluids. It was thought his kidneys would fail, and he'd drift. Didn't happen. Thursday, they took away the heart monitor. Didn't even matter(at that point, his heart was beating at 150 beats a minute, and his core body temperature probably equaled a volcano). Between Friday and Saturday, they took the oxygen away, and we all thought that was the end. Again, we should have known better. I remembered that, on Tuesday, he told my mother that he wanted to go home. Since none of us knew how he would recover, or if we would, that was kind of out of the question at that time. Now, as he always did, he made his rules. He was going to go home to die, hell or high water.

I was home when I got the call. Mom said we're taking Dad home, and to get the barroom ready. As I'm getting the furniture moved, and things cleaned up, I remembered another time he was going to have things his way, hell or high water, and it involved me.

At my high school, our football coach was also our gym teacher, and he didn't like me at all for whatever reason(in fact, I don't think he liked anyone that didn't play for his 1 win football teams year after year). Anyway, there was an incident in gym class where I am messing around with another student. He said a stupid joke and I went "haw haw yank yank" in the way most teenagers would do that. The teacher would proceed to accuse me of sexually harassing the girls next to me, even though they never turned around, and didn't even know what I did. He'd send me to the office. Knowing that I was in the right, I thought I'd be out of there in a hurry.

What I forgot was that they were cracking down on sexual harassment, legit ones or not, and that the dean was a woman. They completely listened to the story and sent me to ISS. The Dean told me to call my mother and tell her what happened.

Considering it was about 11:00, and Dad would be in the office, the answer to that was "YEAH RIGHT". I'd call him.

Needless to say, I told him what happened, and since he knew that wasn't my personality, he would proceed to rip them completely apart on the phone. After that, he'd hang up and go to the school board and pick up the rules, then go to the office and ask them how this constituted sexual harassment.

"Ummm, sir"

"WHERE DOES THIS SAY SEXUAL HARASSMENT?!"

"Well sir, he's a troublemaker"

"IF HE'S A TROUBLEMAKER, THEN I'LL HANDLE IT! WHERE DOES THIS SAY SEXUAL HARASSMENT?!"


Needless to say, I was out of ISS in 20 minutes. The coach would be gone next year.

Thinking of that, it just made sense that Monte Christner was going to go home to die, instead of wasting away in the hospital. He was a relentless fighter all of his life, and there wasn't a thing you could ever make him do if he didn't want to do it. He wanted to go home to the house he built, paid for, raised kids in, and at the end, would semi-retire in with no regrets.

My brother and I would finish the room, then look through old pictures and old memorabilia from over the years. It was all there. All the accolades from his masonic years(He was a 32nd degree, and 60 year, Mason), memories from high school football and wrestling, and all his pictures from his youth(including one where he looked like a young Harry Truman at 13 years old). He truly did it all, but at the same time, he stayed so young because he looked forward, and never back. You never heard an Al Bundy "Four touchdowns in a football game" stories out of him. His best success was always his next success.

Dad would make it home, although the ambulance was breaking speed records to get him home before he'd pass. Considering how long he'd survive, I was 90% sure he'd make it home. He was going to do things his way. Anyway, he made it and they rolled the bed in the barroom he built. Mom told him that he was home and that he could relax. The hospice nurse(a guy I actually went to school with) brought his thirty-some year old radio out there and turned it to his favorite station. Long story short, they did this at 3:30 PM, and by 7:30, Dad passed away. He completely relaxed once he got home, and he went peacefully.

In the hospital, my brother picked a time to play "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. It was incredibly appropriate for this man, and when he was being rolled out for the last time, I played it too. I looked at him and realized something....Monte Christner did it all his way, from the beginning all the way to laying at home for the final time.

Jake McClain's going to be out in the public eye now, but there will always be Jacob Christner. There will always be those times walking with Dad on another job site, or watching Sunday basketball, or even simply doing yard work. There will always be the kid that turned his father into a modern day hero, someone who could do no wrong in his eyes. There will always be the family man who still has his brother, his Mom, his sister in law, and his three year old nephew. That will never ever change.

But Dad went 82 years, did it all his way, and had no regrets. Now it's my turn. I'm more focused than ever, and I will go full blast into where I want to go. I'm not a office guy, and I'm not a 9-5 guy. I don't like conventional, and I'm not into what the world thinks is normal. I believe bigger things are headed my way. Just like my father once told me about two years ago......."I trained you to be a STAR", and then smiled.

Goodbye Dad. Rest in peace.

You earned it.