Has it really been THAT long????

This post isn't going to be mushy. It's not going to be mean. It's not going to be real pretty either.....

Twenty years ago today, my father died. I was 16. My younger sisters were 14 and 12 and my little brother was 9. My parents had divorced 7 years prior to this. We rarely saw my dad.....he lived literally 2 minutes from where we did. Although in a town of only 500 people, it wasn't very hard to get from one end to the other in less than 5 minutes. Any who...back to Mike (aka Dad). He was a kind man. He never bothered anyone except my mother LOL. Although, everyone and everything bothered her. Still does. Other than my mother, the other reasons we never saw my father were: alcohol, fishing, hunting and his friends. And, did I mention alcohol?? You see my father never really grew up. Not completely anyway. He always believed that he would fish and drink until he was too old to do either any longer. His friends, alcohol, fishing and hunting came first. This is all fine and good except when you have a family to care for and about. After their divorce, he would call to ask to take just my brother fishing because "girls don't fish". My mother would of course tell him not unless he was taking all of us. This would piss him off, her off and none of us would end up going. Hell! We didn't even know he had called! My mother would keep that information to herself. I don't know if she did it to protect us or to be a bitch or both. I don't really care anymore truthfully.
Approximately two weeks prior to my father's death, my mother and I had a big one. By "big one", I mean we had an all out brawl. You see my mother and I have never really gotten along. We especially didn't when I was younger. Maybe it was teenage hormones. Maybe it was me just being an asshole teenager. But mostly, it was a lack of respect on both our parts. The way I see it, I had ruined her party life and her life in general 16 years prior to that when she became pregnant with yours truly. From a man she barely knew. Because her philosophy was and I quote, "If he was good enough to take me out, he was good enough to have sex with."....I'm not going to delve into that "amazing advice" in this post. We'll save that for another time.
I lived with a friend for a while after our blow out. Then one day my mother decided that she was going to give a shit and called and told me that I had to come home. I told her to shove it. She said that she was responsible for me until I was 18 and I was coming home whether I liked it or not. I told her to fuck off and that I was moving in with Dad. This of course pissed her off beyond belief but she really had no choice. So I called Dad, fucked up his freedom and moved in with him. Two days later, shit went south.
I asked Dad if I could go stay at my friend's house for the night. #1: I had new found freedom. Dad was drunk all the time. He'd never know what I was actually ever doing. #2: I didn't want to listen to his drunk, babbling bullshit when he got home from the bar. I walked into the bar to talk to him (you can do that in small, rural communities). He was well on his way to being hammered already. No surprise there. I talked to him briefly to let him know my plans. Now here's where it gets a little odd/mushy/whatever the hell you want to call it. I remember standing there and for some unknown reason thinking to myself, "Remember this moment RIGHT NOW! Memorize the design of the plaid in his shirt. Memorize his face. Memorize his goofy grin. Memorize his long, jet black hair that Grandma always hated. Memorize his eyes, the same exact  dark green eyes that you have. Remember this very moment.....Right.Now." He asked that I come back later and he'd let me know his answer. My friend and I drove around the town for a while. We later met up with him at his house. I asked if it was ok that we were going to her house to watch movies. Her mom was going to be there. And she was. It was all the truth. I will never forget the look in his eyes. I will never forget the slight hint of a plea in his voice when he almost begged us to stay there with him. At the time, I thought he was just drunk and wanted to blab. Again, I thought, "Not real interested in listening to your shit Dad. You've had my entire life to talk to me. You never fucking bothered then. Why is now so fucking important?!!"
My friend and I left to go to her house. We started a movie with her little brother while her mom did mom stuff around the house. Approximately one hour later, we heard it. The fire whistle that alerted the entire town started screaming. It alerted the volunteer firemen to come running. My friend's little brother saw the smoke and said, "Shit!! That's right here in town!!! We should go see where it is!" So like good little nosy small town people, that's exactly what we did. It was windy that night. So fucking windy. It generally is in eastern Montana. There are no trees or hills to block it. It just whips through. We kept driving towards the smoke. Getting closer and closer to my father's house. Yep! It was his house that was on fire! I attempted to jump out before I even realized what I was doing. I was stopped by my shirt collar choking me. What the fuck?!! I tried to pull harder and harder. Then I realized my friend's mom had a hold of my shirt and wasn't going to let loose until I promised that I wouldn't go running over there. She spoke to the deputy sheriff. I screamed at him. We spoke to one of the firemen who also worked with my dad and had for many years. They were pretty good buds. He was visibly shaken. I kept saying, "Cal, where's my dad? Where the fuck is my dad? Where.The.Fuck.IS.HE?!!!!!" The only response I would get was, "We don't know. We're looking Meccala. We're trying. We don't think he's in there though." Where the fuck would he have gone? His pick-up was still parked in the drive way. The same place it was when I left to go to my friend's house. Maybe he had ran to the neighbors'. Maybe he had just ran period.
The whole front half of that stupid fucking trailer house was engulfed in flames. The kitchen sat in the very middle. I just knew that he had put in the fucking chicken he had been talking about and the stove started the place on fire. He had some how fucked up cooking a chicken. I just KNEW it! My dad's place NEVER was in the kitchen!!
My friend's mom said, "Let's go to the ER. If he some how got out and is hurt, he's there." We drove the 2 minutes there and yep. There he was. Laying there on that gurney with second and third degree burns covering his entire upper body. His hair was singed. His face was burnt and getting puffy. His hands were black. So, so black. They were trying to cut off and peel off what was left of his shirt. He had an IV going in his foot (only veins they had any sort of access to). Somewhere in there, someone called my mom. She showed up and even though we wanted to kill one another two days prior, she was obviously very relieved to find that I too was not in the same condition as dad. They stabilized him and threw him in an ambulance for the next "big" town on the grid. We (mom and I) went home and gathered up my sisters and brother to follow the ambulance. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure she knew this was the last time we would see him alive. She was right. We said good bye to him in Glendive, MT. He was flown to the Salt Lake City, UT burn unit. We never saw him again. One week later, he died from complications of infection. We never went to visit him. We couldn't. We didn't have the money. My mom had just finished nursing school. She was broke as shit what with raising four kids on menial child support and her few hours as an aid here and there at the local nursing home. My grandparents (mom's parents) worked to get us the money to fly there but by the time everything was in place, he had already passed away. My Grandma (his mom) and my aunt (his sister) went there. They flew out right away. That's a whole other story that I'd rather not get into right now. Suffice it to say, they were too busy shopping and taking pictures of his bloated, burned body to give two fucks whether or not he was actually still alive. My aunt always was the better of the two siblings. Don't believe me? Just ask her! She'll tell you exactly how fucking great she is!! She later shoved those pictures in my little 9 year old brother's face so he could see. Pretty fucking sweet of her huh?! I wanted to punch her right in her perfect fucking teeth!
In the end, we found out the truth. This according to Fire Marshal Bill (hehe....ok not funny), he attempted to light the pilot light on his furnace which lived in a closet right off the kitchen. It blew up in his face. It's theorized that he was able to crawl to the front porch. And that he was attempting to make his way out but was trapped. Probably by fire and by smoke and by complete drunkenness and by fear and by pain and by multiple deep, deep burns covering half of his body. Two guys I went to high school with happened to be driving around and saw the smoke first. They crawled in and pulled his ass out. They threw him in the back of the pick-up. One sat with him keeping him warm while the other "flew" to the ER.
It makes me sad that he suffered such a horrible death. He was a good person. He was a very like able person. It makes me sad that he wasn't here to see his kids grow up. That he's not here to see his grandchildren grow up. It makes me sad that I didn't know my dad hardly at all. It makes me sad that I really didn't have a dad growing up. It makes me sad that my sisters and brother didn't have a dad growing up either. It makes me sad that he chose alcohol over his children.
I have memories of him. The most memorable though? The design of the plaid in his shirt. His face. His goofy grin. His long, jet black hair that Grandma always hated and his eyes, the same exact dark green eyes that I have.

Thanks all for reading.