EARL FIKE

2012 OCTOBER 6 EARL FIKE

This man Earl, my step-dad, had already raised his three daughters by the time he found himself with four more, three of whom were still in school and living at home.  I can well imagine that many more than a few times he asked himself, ‘WHAT am I DOING?’  

He did it anyway. 

Things at our house weren’t always peaches and roses, no more so than any home that includes even one adolescent female, let alone multiple ones. 

He never quit on us, not once.  He did the job he had taken on.

We never knew him before we were half-grown girls but the fact that our community respected him and many called him ‘Chief’ did not escape our notice.  Our telephone rang often.  At all hours of the day and night it rang and he would leave to help someone or fix something.  It was standard operating procedure at our house and we just took it for granted.  I’m pretty sure the people on the other end of the phone line took it for granted too.

If something needed doing or fixing it didn’t matter if the weather was terrible or if he had other plans or was already exhausted. 

He did it anyway.

None of us can begin to recount the stories about this man who loved his community and spent his life doing for and fixing for and taking care of the people who have lived here.  Many of his acts of kindness were of his own volition.  How many of us ever thanked him enough? 

He did it anyway.

As we all grew up and the little ones started coming, it was Gramps who listened to them talk his ears off.  It was Gramps who had a little head beside him in the pickup wherever he went if there was a little one around.  They lit up his eyes and his life.

He never said much at any time, no doubt because having spent decades with females he had long since abandoned the hope of getting a word in edge-wise. 

But whenever anyone had a problem all we had to do was ask him and he would either know or come up with an answer that would work.  We have learned a lot from him, most of it by osmosis. 

These past days I have found myself, selfishly, wanting to poke him and wake him from his hospital sleep, and even more from this last sleep - to consult on some of the issues I’m struggling with here; to remind him that hey there are still little ones around who have never gotten to drive around with him or help him putter with fixing stuff that others had long ago given up on fixing.  Who’s going to do that stuff with this new crop of little ones? 

Who will show them that if something needs fixing and you can help, it doesn’t matter the weather or how tired you are or what you might rather be doing – you do it anyway. 

Who among us is big enough to fill his boots? 

Nobody.  Those boots will never pinch anyone’s feet.  

One of the littlest ones of us has this to say, ‘Gramps is my best Gramps EVER!’  She adds, ‘He’s sleeping now, maybe we should go and check on him.’  It breaks our hearts, hearing the words from such a very tiny little person, and oh how I wish she could grow up knowing and loving him. 

In a way, I reckon she and the other little ones probably WILL grow up knowing and loving him.  We can share him with them. 

That has already begun. 

Those young men did not just decide to hand dig Gramps’ grave out of the clear blue sky.  They didn’t just happen to know where to find his tools and how to use them.  

There are other tools he has shared with the lot of us, things we are only just barely beginning to see and appreciate. 

He spent his life caring for others, and quietly standing by just in case anyone might need or want something from him, ready at a moment’s notice to take on any problem anyone might have. 

That is the Earl I have come to realize I’m going to miss quite very much.