On My Father

It's been so long since it all happened. I'm not sure how many people even know it did. After this weekend, after Bruce Russell and Ben Alderson, I guess I just wanted to tell my story. I don't mean to steal anyone's thunder. I find myself thinking of dad and I thought some others might like to know exactly what happened.

I was 21 or 22. I was delivering flowers, leading music at a church on Wednesdays and Sundays, and getting work as a music director with community theaters and high schools. At this particular time I was teaching West Side Story at Seminole High School for the late Wendell Williams. Rehearsals were after school. On Wednesday, after delivering flowers for four hours or so, I stopped by home to get lunch before driving to Seminole. I was upstairs and my mom was downstairs when we got the call. Some guy at dad's new job called saying that dad had collapsed and was on his way to the ER.

My dad, Rick Tucker, had been going from job to job for years. After flying four tours in Vietnam as a Navy helicopter pilot, he'd had a couple of good jobs. First selling for Sears and Roebuck and then selling mortgages for Savings of America. After refusing to make a deal that he felt was unprincipled, he'd been let go and was now moving from job to job trying to make ends meet. Taxi driver, used car salesman, mortgage salesman, parole officer - he'd done anything he could to try to help us stay afloat. With his jobs, mom's up-start real estate, and my collection of minimum wagers and music stuff, we were OK.

At the time, all thought it had been a heavy stroke. He was standing in front of his desk when he suddenly collapsed to the floor. He was in a coma and it was hard to tell when he might come out. By the end of the day, he'd been moved from the ER to NICU (neurological intensive care) so they could take pictures of his brain and keep him under heavy guard. As the hours went by, the doctors realized that a blood vessel had exploded in his brain due to an aneurysm (a peanut-sized bulb in a vessel that allows pressure to build up over time). It was already too late. His brain was covered in blood and the vessel had lost it's connection to the rest of the arteries. A neurosurgeon and neurologist were called and both delivered a bleak prognosis.

My mom was having none of it. There must be something that can be done. So, at 7:00 the next morning, the 14-hour surgery began on his brain. By the middle of the day, the surgical waiting room was deluged with visitors. At one point we counted 98 people there for dad and our family. This probably sounds corny, but I'm still humbled by that. I had a decision to make, we were in the second week of a two-week run of The Boys From Syracuse at the Tides Dinner Theater. Adam, Jason, Kirk, Michelle, Jay (Jordan), Nancy ... so many people I still know and love were a part of that show. I decided to play the show that night. Christy stayed longer at the hospital so I could go to the theater and she could keep me informed (this is before the days of cell phones, after all). That night, I actually missed a song cue and Jason had to deliver it twice. When I finally realized what he was doing, the audience got to hear me say, "Oh shit!" before rolling into "Dear Old Syracuse". During the first scene of Act II, a little yellow piece of paper was delivered to me at the piano. It said:

1. Your dad's ok.
2. Surgery is over and he did fine. He's still in a coma and we won't know for a while how things went.
3. Your mother loves you.
4. So do I.

That was Christy. She's pretty damn cool.

Over the next bunch of months a lot of things happened. First, my dad did wake up after almost four months in a coma, but he was never the same. The right side of his body was paralyzed and he was not really Rick Tucker any more. He couldn't speak and, we think, couldn't think. Once he came home, we cared for him as best we could for the next 3 1/2 years. Our lives became an endless string of diapers, wheelchairs, placing a 6'4" man in a car, blood, tests, communication attempts, etc. We moved from place to place after having lost the house. His new employer had dropped the ball and he was completely uninsured. $350,000 of hospital debt, mortgage debt, credit card debt, loss of income (both his and my mom's due to her spending all of her time at the hospital), and other shit left us near destitute. We lived with another family for a while. We lost our dog, Ramsey, for two years. We lost the piano. Hell, we lost pretty near everything.

Finally, after over three years cancer took my dad. Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma - contracted via exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam - had covered his organs. After chemo and radiation, the decision was made to remove the feeding tube, amp up the morphine, and let him go. I had a decision to make again. Do I do a show or not (this time it was Lend Me a Tenor at Spotlight Dinner Theater). We cancelled that afternoon, but I went on that night (castmembers included Jorge, Fadi, Michelle, Brick, Wendy, Ligia).

The funeral was huge. Everyone was there - including the Aldersons and the Russells. Over the next few months I cried like a baby more than once. I screamed and cursed at god until I got hoarse (although that sounds cliche, I actually did). By the time everything was over, we were living in a home that was protecting the little money mom had finally gotten from the Navy thanks to Clinton's including Agent Orange on the official list of combat-associated death causes. My mom was very alone. I'd left the church and my faith. I'd tried college and dropped out. We were massively in debt and awaiting the seven years needed to start cleaning up that kind of a mess.

Life now seems far removed from that time. It serves as a divider between that other, former, life and the one I lead today. There are still a bunch of people in my life who remember my dad before he collapsed. A bunch more remember the sweet but simple dad in the wheel chair. I've got all sorts of stories from that time. Most of them are that kind of funny that's mixed with just enough tragedy to make it really biting - my favorite kind of funny.

So, there you go. If you've ever wondered, you now know the basics. I was 22 when he collapsed and 25 when he died. Since I was twelve years old, I've lost my uncle Frank and aunt Paula (Mindy, Michael, and Matthew's parents - my mom's sister and brother-in-law with whom I pretty much grew up); my grandmother (my mom's mom); my grandfather and uncle (my dad's step-dad and brother - who, incidentally, also died from a ruptured cranial aneurysm); and my dad. Oh, there've been lots of others, but these were the close ones.

If you've ever wondered where I get my musical talent and stubbornness - that's my mom. But the way I sit, my neck, my tendency to be a ham, my loudness, and my (seeming) self-confidence - that's all dad. He gave me a lot. He loved me and brother, Richard, almost as much as he loved mom. He was kind, dear, funny (in a stupid kind of way), honest, and caring. He was a pretty cool guy who knew how to make a really bad joke at a really wrong time. There aren't many people that disliked him. I miss him very much.