John Kelley
Today is my dad’s 80th birthday. He was born in 1927 about two weeks after Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly an airplane solo across the Atlantic.
Dad was born just outside of Nashville, TN and joined the U.S. Army Air Force in 1945. He served in WWII as a gunner on a B29. He was stationed on Corregidor; an island at the entrance of the Manila Bay in the Philippines.
Dad married my mother on July 27, 1950 and they lived on the family farm with my grandparents in Randleman, NC. A few years later, Dad took a job with the Western Auto warehouse in Greensboro in order to suppliment the family income. We remained in Randleman until the warehouse was moved to Gastonia, NC in 1970. He worked there until his retirement in 1989.
Our family settled in Dallas, NC (about 12 miles from Gastonia). I was a young teenager then and life went by pretty quick. I graduated from high school in 1974 and college in 1978. Two weeks after college graduation I was married.
Dad and Mom remained in Dallas until 1993. Due to their failing health, we persuaded them to move to Jacksonville, NC to be near us. Those were great years for our family. Sadly, Mom died in June 1995. By August of that year, Dad moved in with us. Dad was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but functioned at a good level for about five years.
Due to the progression of the Alzheimer’s, a stroke, and a myriad of other health problems, Dad entered Britthaven of Onslow in April of 2000. Dad remained there until his death on August 18, 2001.
During his time in the nursing home, Dad thought he was still in the hospital. Every time I visited him, we would have a variation of the same conversation:
Dad: Well, the doctor said I could go home tomorrow.
Me: That’s great when should I pick you up?
Dad: I’ll have the nurse call you when it is time to come get me.
Then we would go on to talk about what we would do when he got home. Dad also forgot that Mom had died. Sometimes he would tell me that I had just missed my Mom cause she had been there to visit. Other times he would say, “Tell your mother not to bother coming here today, because I know it is hard on her to get out. Tell her I’ll see her tomorrow at home.”
When Dad died from pneumonia, I thought to myself, “Now he had finally gone home to see her.”
