So Yeah, Big Shoes To Fill

Just like I couldn't believe what I was about to do, getting up to speak at my father's funeral in front of hundreds just days after returning from Estonia, I can't believe it has been ten years today, March 3, that my sweet Daddy died. I was 20 years old.

I had never been so shocked in my life. My mind had never gone to the "what ifs" about one of my parents dying. And there he lay in a hospital bed in ICU. He'd gone to the doctor on a Friday and they sent him home with flu-like symptoms. On Sunday, when my Mom realized that he had rapidly gotten worse and when this super sharp man stopped making sense, she rushed him to the ER. My Mom told me the last thing he talked about to the nurses and doctors while conscious was about me and how I was overseas and how proud he was of me. He said he was ready to get well because he was itching for me to get home so he could see me.

Several of my parents' physician friends had come by to check in on him and offer any help they could to the doctor's. Everyone was stumped. He'd become septic and his immune system had given up.

They believe that he'd gotten Strep A that went untreated for too long and had seeped into his blood stream. It ate slowly away at his organs causing them to fail. By the time they sent for me and I'd flown home only to go straight to the hospital to find him on dialysis, swollen from all the bags of IV medicines they were trying in desperation, hooked to a respirator, tubes and needles everywhere and unconscious. You can read a little more about it in this previous post.

It was mad of me to speak at his funeral because I had been living on nothing but pure adrenaline for about five straight days. I cried. Although I couldn't see the faces in the audience, I could hear their sobs for me and for him.

I talked mostly about his character. I had graduated from high school only three years before that day. I told about how upon graduation, I didn't receive a fancy ring or jewelry, a car or anything of the substantial financial significance that some of my friends had received. I received this framed behind glass:

Elizabeth

From the first time a father
reaches to take his daughter's
infant hand, she reaches up and
takes his heart. She never returns
it. He is her protector, her
provider, her knight, her hero.
In turn she is his lamb, his angel
on loan, his beauty of beauties.

June 29, 1996

These words were priceless and beyond any material thing I could ever have wanted. I felt like a princess. He was my protector. The tears came at the funeral service when it hit me while reading this to those in attendance, that my protector was gone. It came over me so that it didn't even matter if all those hundreds of people saw me cry about it. I was so grateful to know that this is how he saw himself to me and that I knew it, too.

He was a writer. I have an entire folder of letters and cards full of words, encouragement and advice from him in his wicked-cool penmanship. If ever there were a fire in our house, those letters would be the first thing rescued, kept tightly protected in our safe. I have almost an entire rung of paper that one of my teammates in Estonia printed of all his e-mails to me from that 1998-1999, his last year.

I used to be so tender about it that when asked about it or reminded of him, my whole body would tense up and fight like the dickens to keep a tear from surfacing. Eventually, I learned how unhealthy that was and then all I could do was cry about it. Now, I'm grateful that ten years later, I can talk freely about it although I do so with less and less frequency.

Remember that Sarah McLaughlin song where she sings about how people love ya when you're easy? One day I heard that song like I'd never heard it before. I just dug my heels in, fell on my face and begged that my open wound be healed. I was desperate to be "easy" again because everyone loves ya when you're easy, ya know...

We'll see. If I get the courage, I might share some of his letters here.

Here is his eulogy.

Thomas Jackson Milton

Funeral for Thomas J. (Tom) Milton, 54, of Little Rock, who died Wednesday, March 3, 1999, was held at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 6, at Fellowship Bible Church with Bill Parkinson officiating. Graveside services and burial were at Shrygley Cemetery at Coal Hill. Arrangements were under the direction of Roller-Chenal Funeral Home of Little Rock.

He was a native of Fort Smith, graduate of Fort Smith Senior High, Harding University, the National War College and the National Commander's Communication Center at the Pentagon.

He was a member of Fellowship Bible Church where he served as a production assistant in the worship ministry, a fund-raiser volunteer for Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute (CARTI) and Young Life, vice president for On Hold Marketing and a past City Director of the city of Little Rock.

He was a retired Lieutenant Colonel with the United States Air Force Reserve after having served in the 188th Tactical Fighter Group and as squadron commander of the 96th Combat Support Squadron at the Little Rock Air Force Base.

Survivors include his widow, Mrs. Dee Milton; two daughters, Sherri Funk of Maumelle and Elizabeth Milton of Little Rock; one son, Michael Milton of Conway; two brothers and sisters-in-law, John and Mary Lee Milton of Urbana, Ill., and Jim and Wanda Milton of Conway; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Dad, I love ya and sometimes ache because I miss you so much.

To pieces.