Saying goodbye

On Saturday, September 3, 2011, we chartered a boat at Ilwaco, WA, to take us to the waters at the base of the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse so that we could scatter Dad’s ashes. Dad had always said he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered at a lighthouse. The weather was perfect (beautiful blue sky and no clouds), and after a 45 minute boat ride, we arrived at the perfect location. Dan Schenk, the skipper of our boat (the Nauti-Lady), dropped anchor and shut off the motor so we could have some quiet. Dad would have loved this spot (he never got to see the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse from the water) and it was the perfect spot to scatter his ashes. After Craig said a short prayer and Mindy read the poem she wrote for the funeral, we scattered the ashes – Mom first, followed by Cathy, Phil, Mark, Linda, Casey, Corey, Dylan, Jordan, Colby, Brynna, Craig, Tamara, Mindy, Melinda, and then Mom again. Linda also chose this spot to scatter some of her Golden Retriever Mason’s ashes so that Dad and Mason could be together. And Mindy tossed in a quarter for Dad to find – he always had a good eye for finding change when he and Mom went for walks. After scattering the ashes, we also scattered some red and white carnations on the water; the drifted out to sea, forming a beautiful arc. September 3rd was a significant day to scatter the ashes for two reasons: first, it was seven months ago that Dad died (almost even to the minute), and second, September 3, 2011, would have been Mom and Dad’s 57th wedding anniversary. Mom and Dad loved visiting lighthouses, both before and during their retirement, and they traveled around the United States and the world photographing them.

Ainsley M. "Dix" Dixon 1931 - 2011

If’n

“If’n my frog If’n hadn’t stopped to croak, he would have caught that fly.” This (or some variation thereof) was one of my Dad’s favorite quotes, usually told to one of us when we started in with an “If I had done ….” of our own. This was Dad’s way of reminding us that the past was just that – in the past. His view was that you should live in the Now and look forward to the Future -- those were the things you could change. And this was Dad’s view of life -- I don’t ever remember hearing him talk about things he should have done differently. You pick your path, make your choices, and you live with the consequences.

Stories

Dad may have been in the Navy for only 4 years, but he had a lifetime’s worth of stories to tell. We all heard (more than once) about his ruptured appendix and having it removed while he was stationed on Guam. Or, how about the time that the tree crab nearly met its end -- Dad was on sentry duty, and the crab would not halt and identify itself.

And then, there were the stories about living on Cape Cod and roaming the cemeteries at night. Or, while living in Macon, GA, working in the loft/attic of the peach packing plant and dropping peach fuzz on everyone below. And then there was the time he and a few of the other teenage boys in Macon went out frog hunting and brought the frogs back to his sister, Ruth, to fix frog legs in the middle of the night.

Memories

And the memories keep running through my mind -- too many to ever list fully. But some include:

• Dad carrying a 95-lb piece of petrified wood at least a quarter mile from where Mom found it to where the car was located.
  
• When he found our Beagle, Tony, gnawing on a huge carrot from the neighbor’s garden.
  
• When he brought home what had to be truly the world’s ugliest dog -- its skin was saggy/baggy like an elephant’s skin, and it had no hair. (No, we didn’t keep it.)
  
• All the ladies on the cruise ship (we did an Alaska cruise for Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary) had to come watch him play the coin pusher machine in the casino. They just loved his silver hair.
  
• When we would go antiquing, he would point to an open salt and ask me if I had it. When I started answering “Yes” most of the time, he just started pointing to larger and larger dishes, proclaiming them (with a twinkle in his eye) to be the largest salt dish he had ever seen and he was sure I needed it for my collection.
  
• Playing games on Saturday nights: Hand and Foot, Mexican Train, or Yahtzee were our favorites.
  
• Seeing the joy in his eyes with his grandsons and later with his great-grandkids.