Kenneth Earl Ostendorf ... November 1, 1943 - January 14, 1980
Today is my least favorite day of the year. It has been for 30 years now. On January 14, 1980 my daddy died. I was nine years old.
He'd been sick for awhile. In fact, he was diagnosed in 1971 when I was about six months old, when he was 27. I've been 27 ... and, when I turned 27, I wondered what my reaction to that type of diagnosis might have been. My mom was 26 with an infant ... how frightening.
Christmas 1972 at Grandma & Grandpa B's
Fortunately, he entered treatment and was in & out of remission for a number of years. He shaved his head by the mid-70s, probably since his hair was falling out due to treatment and he just kept it that way. I remember watching him lather his head & shave, amazed that he didn't cut himself. I enjoyed telling my friends at nursery school that Kojak was my dad ... driving to pick me up for lunch sometimes at nursery school, I could see the green Thunderbird coming and you could see that silhouette of his head ... I think some kids actually believed me. Pretty cool.
Summer 1975 - in New Orleans at my aunt & uncle's house
Naturally, as a little kid, I didn't have all the information, but when I was 8, he became progressively sick. A hospital bed was moved into my parents' bedroom, he was in a wheelchair, and eventually required assistance for any & all activities.
While most of my memories of this time are in flashes, I clearly remember the first Christmas Eve & Christmas Day we "celebrated" at our house. In all other years of my childhood, Christmas Eve was spent at Grandma & Grandpa B's (my mom's parents) and Christmas Day with Grandma & Grandpa O's (my daddy's parents). Daddy was too sick and I think it probably apparent to all of the adults that Christmas 1979 would be his last.
The morning he died - I think it was really the middle of the night, since I remember it being dark out - my mom woke me up & told me he had died. I think I cried, I know I was mostly confused. It wasn't daytime and there seemed to be a lot of people in the house, a lot of adults. Grandma & Grandpa O were there and I think my Aunt Lynn. They hardly ever came over at nighttime.
I remember my grandpa sitting alone in the living room in the dark. Mom & I talked about that later and she reminded me that he was a confirmed atheist & believed that when you died, you were dead. That's it. Losing his son was probably difficult to reconcile with that belief, but I believe he remained an atheist.
I didn't go to school that day. But, there wasn't really anything for me to do. As an only child, I often played alone and was comfortable being by myself. (I still am) I didn't know any other kids whose parents had died and, I don't think I had any friends at the time whose parents had divorced. I was on my own here - with lots & lots of love from Mom, my grandparents, and lots of other folks, but still ... on my own. His memorial service is a blur, although I vividly remember the dress I wore.
It's really been as an adult that I appreciate the sacrifices Mom made during my early childhood to make sure I really knew my daddy. We always did things together - from Indian Princesses (oh, how I loved being an Indian Princess - I was Little Brown Bear & Daddy was Big Brown Bear ... the dad of one of the girls in our tribe was a Burger King franchisee & we got to go in the walk-in freezer ... VERY cool stuff) with camp-outs at Fort Wilderness to our week-long family vacations to the beach. We didn't travel a lot ... we went to the beach. 6 hamsters named Joey - although I'm sure Mom was as involved as Daddy - I didn't know there were 6 hamsters ... as each one escaped, it was replaced by a "new" Joey.
Mom is one of the most amazing women I knew. At an age younger than I am now, she had married, had a child, become widowed, dated again & re-married. We were (and are) so very lucky that a fabulous man fell in love with us and I'm one of the few people I know who has been fortunate to have 2 amazing Dads. (And, honestly, I don't know how she did the dating thing ... she would go out on weeknights with some single friends and leave me with a fantastic babysitter - I loved my babysitters -come home late & get up and drive carpool the next morning and go to work. Seriously impressive. I'm usually in bed by 10P. I really don't know how she did it.)
But, today, I focus on the gifts & memories I carry today from living through something no child should have to experience. I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, my daddy was from Pittsburgh. I love Scotch - thanks to Daddy & reinforced by Dad. (yep, developed a taste at the age of 2) Doctors are people - they make mistakes & it's good to ask questions -toward the end we spent a lot of time at doctors' offices & hospitals. I like to make things ... together, Daddy & I tooled leather, built a balsa-wood derby car (yep, all Indian Princesses and that car placed in the race ... I still have it.) He taught me to ride my black & yellow (Steelers) banana-seat bicycle. Kappy's subs on 1792 in Orlando - great vanilla milkshakes - I think that's where I learned that plain ole vanilla is one of my top 3 flavors.
Thank you, Mom, for sacrificing what might have been good mother-daughter time to be sure that memories of Daddy stayed with me. I occasionally ask questions about him now, particularly of my cousins who knew him longer than I did. Their adolescent memories of him are so interesting to me. Sometimes I ask Mom, too. Neither one of us can imagine Daddy as a 66 year-old, as he would be today had he lived. He is forever young. Younger than I am today.
My daddy lives at New Smyrna Beach now - Mom scattered his ashes there as he wished. I think of him whenever I'm at a beach and think he made a good choice - we had many wonderful family vacations there.
So, when friends run races/walk events for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I always try to give. I'm glad to support them running in honor or in memory of someone they know or knew, but I give to further research so that no other child loses a parent.
A special thanks to my cousin Patrick who converted Uncle Hayward's slides to digital pictures.
