On this Father’s Day I am remembering my father, Aaron
Primas. When he would call me he would announce
himself by referring to himself as “Dear Old Dad."
As I was driving a very nice rental car last week, I was
thinking about my Dad and how we shared an interest in cars. He would have liked the one I was
driving. I also remembered my last visit
with him before he died.
Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor on Dec 31, 2004. He and Mom returned to their Florida condo
the next week with the plan to have Dad in hospice care. The prognosis he was given was 6 to 9 months. Based on my experience as a nurse, I did not think
it would be that long.
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| Aaron Primas - Feb 15 2005 |
In February 2005, I traveled to Florida to spend a long
weekend with my parents. Even though Dad
couldn’t really speak at that time, he could make his needs known. He was able to watch TV and knew what was
going on around him. One sunny day, Mom
said “why don’t you take him out for a ride in Buttercup?”
Buttercup was a 1988 Rolls Royce Corniche convertible that
was Dad’s pride and joy. The pale yellow
color inspired the name of Buttercup.
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| Dad and Buttercup |
It was too cold to put the top down, but we went for a
ride. I headed out to I-75 so we could
cruise for a while. Once on the highway,
Dad kept leaning way over to look at the speedometer. His vision was affected, so he had to really
almost get in front of me to look at the dashboard. Now you need to understand that no one in our
family drives slowly. We aren’t crazy
drivers, but we appreciate the “need for speed.” After
about the third time he leaned over, I asked him “how fast have you driven this
car?” He said “eleven hundred” which I interpreted
to mean 110 mph and he agreed. At the
time I was doing 75 mph as that was the speed limit and traffic was heavy. He started waving his hand forward as if to
say “go faster” and so I sped up a bit.
He still didn’t seem happy but at 90 mph I told him the traffic was too heavy
to go any faster. If I could have made
it to 100 mph I would have, just for him.
He leaned back and seemed content.
So we cruised down the interstate and then at a convenient interchange,
I turned around and headed back. He didn’t
say anything else during the trip but seemed to enjoy himself. When we returned, Mom asked if we had a nice
ride and he nodded and smiled.
The day I left, Mom walked me to the elevator and told me “I
will bring him back to Villa Park in May” which was their usual time to return from
Florida. I just nodded as I could not
speak, but I knew that I would not see my father again alive.
I drove their family car to the airport, locked it up with the key
under the floor mat and made note of the parking space. I called my sister Amy and let her know where
to find the car. She was flying down the
next day and would drive the car back.
Dad died in hospice care on March 4, 2005. I still miss him.
