My First Thanksgiving with Dad

I'm not going to give you a full accounting of the history but the short version is that my dad and I were very close when I was in the early years of elementary school. We'd go on weekend trips, build things and he'd even show up at my school, though somewhat randomly.

A man helping a young boy eat at a table in a cafeteria. The man is wearing a green baseball cap with a yellow logo and a blue plaid shirt, and is standing behind the boy, who is sitting at a table with a white container of food in front of him.

Through a combination of circumstances and choices made by both of my parents, my dad and I grew further apart as I got older. What was every weekend became every year or so and what was every year or so became every five years or so.

Make no mistake: my dad was not the victim here. As these things go though, we drifted apart and he could have done a lot more than I, a teenager, could do. Dad was a mischievous, sarcastic biker from the 70's who was totally frozen in time at the age of 21 until the day he died.

The image depicts a man standing in a wooded area, with an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) parked behind him. The man is wearing a camouflage hat, a tan jacket, and light blue jeans, and is looking to his right. The ATV is yellow and black, with a cooler and other items strapped to the back. The background is a wooded area with tall trees and brown leaves on the ground.
I wore this belt yesterday.

My dad and I started to reconnect when I was in my early 20's. All of the hormonal rage of my teenage years was burned off and I was no longer angry about our distance. I just wanted to close it.

I had mixed success with this. We still didn't talk often but we generally spoke at least once a year and it was always for hours. We talked more like old friends than father and son. We complained about the people in our lives. We told stories and joked about movies and music.

Two men standing together in front of a house. The man on the left has short brown hair and is wearing a black t-shirt with a white design on it. The man on the right has short brown hair and is wearing a green t-shirt and a camouflage baseball cap. They are standing in front of a house with white siding and a blue garage door. There is a silver car parked in the driveway to the left of the men.

This went on for a while until Ripley was born and our lives were, understandably, turned upside down. I mailed dad photos from the hospital for months, never getting a text or phone call back. I'd text him photos and call him "grandpa" but never got anything back, assuming dad just didn't like texting.

Fast forward until the summer after Ripley was born and dad gets sick again, for the last time. He had a relative find my wife on Facebook (I did not have an account at the time) and send her a message.

A screenshot of a text message on a phone screen. The message reads: 'Hey this is Scott Ferrell's cousin. He wanted me to message u to let his son know that he needs to come see him. He's having lots medical problems. He said he needs to speak to his son ASAP it's very important. Sorry to bother u all and hope everything works out ok.' The text is white on a dark gray background.

When I got to him, I learned that he had not had a phone for well over a year. It had stopped working and he just became too sick to fight with the people at the AT&T store anymore.

I was able to get the phone working and we were able to talk on the phone almost daily (which I recorded, thank goodness) for his last month. I also learned once I got there that every single photo of Ripley I'd mailed him was taped up on the walls of his apartment.

I was able to record him reading a children's book to Ripley and to this day, I haven't had the heart to play it for Rip yet. He was even able to FaceTime Ripley once.

This man genuinely loved his grandson, in his way, which was deep and true while also being almost entirely passive and silent unless prompted.

This was at the end of June of that year and dad did not make it to August.

Why am I telling you all of this? What does this have to do with Thanksgiving?

Well, I don't know how dad's family even celebrated Thanksgiving. I don't have any memory of being there when they did and I don't remember him ever talking about it. In a weird way, I've never associated my dad with Thanksgiving. It would be like asking how my accountant felt about how I like my steak. Those things are just entirely unrelated in my mind.

This year feels different though. I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately. I posted about finding that his coat that did not fit me when he died does now, just like his belts do.

A man standing in front of a door, wearing a dark blue Carhartt zip-up hoodie with
A man standing in front of a door, giving a thumbs-up to the camera. He is wearing a blue hoodie with an eagle design on the back and brown pants.

Dad's been gone for over two years but I somehow feel closer to him now that I miss him so much. I've thought about my dad more in the last three months than I probably did in the entirety of my time in high school.

Those recorded phone calls? I've been using AI to go through those and pick out specific stories and jokes to save and remember: 

Here is one of the dad's stories from the sources you provided:
The dad tells a story about racing his motorcycle against a car. His friend Jim was in the car, and the dad was on his motorcycle [1]. They went to a place called the big tree to race [2]. Jim took off in the car first, and when he got up to 100mph, the dad took off on his motorcycle. He said he could see the dad's headlight in his rearview mirror, and it kept getting closer. The dad passed Jim going 120mph [1].
Here is a comprehensive explanation of how the dad built his house, according to the sources:
The dad built his current house and his mom's house [1].
He obtained the wood for his current house by purchasing a large truck garage in Rich Creek and tearing it down. He paid $400 for the garage [1].
He was unable to use the windows from the garage for his house [1].
For his mom's house, the dad salvaged wood from two sources: an abandoned two-story house and a church. From the house, he got the paneling and from the church, he got the flooring and floor joists. After salvaging materials for his mom's house, he sold the remaining wood [1].

And in that way, weirdly, I feel like this is the first time dad and Thanksgiving have ever coexisted in my heart.

He obviously wasn't here, unfortunately, but this is the first time in my life I've ever wished he had been.

He would have loved Audra's cooking. 

He'd have made a great Thanksgiving Grandpa if given the chance.