When I think of my father, I think of him as larger than life. He was a barrel chested man with massive shoulders and arms, baseball gloves for hands, and a booming voice. Thankfully for any boy I brought home, this was tempered by a big laugh and an even bigger smile.
Not only was dad physically strong, he could do anything. He could build anything, drive anything, and fix anything. He could dig a basement foundation, back a dump truck with a 40 foot trailer up our long driveway, and help a cow calf all on the same day.
My father was resoundingly calm under fire. I remember one day he picked me up in town in a Mac dump truck with a sander attached and we sanded some logging roads on the way home. The Mac was of a vintage long before seat belts were mandatory, and as we slid backwards and sideways down the side of a mountain in that big rattly rig, I asked dad if I could get out and wait for him at the bottom. "Nope," he said, completely unconcerned by what I considered to be a perilous situation. "I might run over you."
When I was 16 and learning to drive, I almost put us over an embankment while looking for third gear. Dad called out my name, I yanked the wheel, tires screeched, the truck veered wildly with each over correction, and then dad grabbed the wheel and we came to a stop at the side of the road. We sat there for a few minutes and dad asked me if I was okay. I said I was gonna be and then I very carefully drove us the rest of the way home. I had been terrified, but as soon as dad took control I knew he would fix it. Mom told me a few days later dad said it was just luck the truck didn't roll over.
My father loved animals and kids. We had a house and a barn full of them and dad, as the guy who could drive everything, transported us and our animals all over hell and creation so we could show them. It was mostly horses and dogs, but there was the scattered year of bunnies and chickens, and the occasional heifer. As in all things, mom and dad were united in the instruction of their children. It didn't matter if we placed first or last, but we had to be good sportsmen, handling either situation graciously. Or, more motivationally put by dad: "Your mother and I took you here here so you can have fun, if you are not having fun, we can pack up and go home." Needless to say, we had fun.
My father practical, reasonable, and he gave good advice. He was full of adages and sayings and he wielded them with precision. Especially on teenagers whose hair-brained ideas and wants often required debunking. He had a phrase for every occasion, "Don't count your chickens, before they've hatched" was popular, as was "you're judged by the company you keep". "Never burn your bridges", was another favorite. It was also sound advice. Everyone in town knew and liked my father. I am still "Leo Kell's Daughter" when I meet people from home.
He was tough as nails. Dad had survived falling off a roof, countless work injuries, several car accidents - including one where a dozer fell off a flat-bed and sheered off the driver's side panels of his truck like a can of sardines. Dad had the presence of mind to undo his seatbelt, scooch over, and keep steering as so not to plunge down the 40 foot embankment on his side of the road. One day I caught him bandaging a woefully smashed thumb with half of a maxi-pad. With a wife, three daughters and a son away, dad lived in a house of women.
He also survived decades of polycystic kidney disease, which causes years of intermittent pain, high blood pressure, and eventual renal failure. There were a few emergency trips to Halifax where it seemed unclear whether he was going to make it back home. My Aunt Terri, dad's sister, gave him a kidney as the 1980s came to a close. Thank you forever, Terri. I was 14 at the time and he and mom were in Halifax forever after the surgery. In hindsight, I think it was closer to a month, but I was a kid and wanted her parents home.
Dad passed away on a Saturday in August 2000, exactly one week after my brother's wedding. After nearly a lifetime of worrying about his kidneys, his big heart unexpectedly gave out. The wedding had been a joyous affair with all of us home and all of us happy. Circumstances were exactly opposite the following weekend. I have been extremely fortunate to never experienced before or since, the depth of pain felt that weekend. Especially by my mother, for whom dad was half of her.
But I try to be my father's daughter. My dad always said there were worse things of dying, and he certainly survived enough trials over his 57 years to know what he couldn't bear. On his last weekend of life he was with his wife of almost 35 years, surrounded by his children and their significant others, his parents, siblings, relatives and friends. We laughed, we ate - dad loved to eat - we danced, we ate some more and we had a fabulous time. Dad used to say everyone had a number, and when their number came up, that was it. I think dad's number was called a bunch of times, he just managed to talk his way out of it long enough to see his family settled and together one last time.
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