"Dad, are you afraid of dying?" I ask him. His eyes swing to mine in a flash, pinning me to my chair. My deepest fears are about to be realized as I have crossed that invisible line into a space where he does not want to go and I'm not allowed.
We are setting on the porch of our house in Defiance, Ohio, looking across Clinton Street at the cars coming and going at the gas station that has been there as long as I can remember. Weeks before I had picked up the phone to hear my mother say they had "found cancer in Dad's intestines" and could I come home. The trip, via a 650cc Kawasaki had taken two days of long hours in the saddle. Outwardly nothing seemed different about Dad and it was difficult to imagine that the exploratory surgery scheduled in just a few days would tell us how long he might remain among us.
The relationship we shared had changed greatly after my year in Viet Nam. Before that he had been the "enforcer" and the most feared words my sister, brother or I could hear from our mother was, "You just wait till your father gets home." The intervening hours would be ones of complete terror. At five foot he was hardly an imposing figure standing in the doorway! But he was a man of strong will and intense anger, a man whose word was always law when we were growing up. He did have a gentle side that would show up at the most surprising times, mostly however we just tried not to make him angry.
After Viet Nam our relationship changed dramatically. I was no longer treated like a son, someone who needed to be told what to do all the time. A part of him seemed to look at me as a peer, another veteran. We could still disagree, sometimes bitterly as in the causes of the shootings of students at Kent State. But for the first time he seemed willing to debate issues, not just make a declaration of fact. Kent State was a major issue with us for years and I was shocked when, months after sending him Mitchner's book on the shootings he called one night to say he thought the National Guard has been wrong. For a past commander of the local American Legion chapter this was a huge turn around.
I had greatly feared asking the question that brought those angry eyes to mine. But I also felt someone had to give him the opportunity to deal with the possibility that he would not survive this event. For a moment, I was that terrified little ten-year old, waiting for him to return home and extract some measure of punishment for one of my transgressions.
"I'm terrified Bill." The anger had left his eyes almost as quickly as it came. They were that soft blue once again and for what seemed like forever I sat there quietly beside him and listened to him poor out feelings from that place inside I had never heard him go before. A place that I had never even known existed. When he finally stopped, I realized how very tall my father actually was.
The next morning we stood looking at each other across the laden motorcycle. I couldn't say goodbye, knowing I might never see him again. He finally said something to the effect that the only thing left to do was to "throw a leg over that thing and head back to Colorado." In many ways, the trip home was easier than the one out...even though the future held many questions.
Roy Croninger survived his surgery and, minus a few inches of intestine, lived quite a few years before leaving us in 1994. A few years after the surgery I decided to write him a letter and tell him what it felt like to be his son. He never spoke of it and for a long time I felt a deep sadness that he never responded to the feelings I had poured out. One night, during one of our frequent phone calls my mother asked me if he had ever mentioned "the letter?" When I said he hadn't mom told me that he kept it in a pocket of his favorite chair. "Every once in awhile I see him take it out and read it when he thinks I'm not looking." The other night I caught him and he said, "Gracie, if a man were alone on a desert island without food or water but he had this letter, he'd make it."
After that day on the porch I understand that deep down inside my father had always been on that island.