My memories are of Dad sitting at the kitchen table night after night, painting.   He loved to read and made a habit of reading novels out loud in the evenings.  It was, I believe, to lead to my own love of books.  The books he read were books he had loved when he was young. He loved poems and could recite many, even long epics, by memory.

Dad suffered great agony and pain before he passed away.  I asked him to give me some of the pain, but he wouldn't agree to that.   We named it--Jack, in order to have something to curse.  There were times when I had to hold him down, using all of my weight to keep him in the bed and keeping the tubes in place.  Sometimes, Joanne was there on one side and I on the other. He was in the hospital a total of two weeks.

When Dad slipped into a coma, it meant he was finally out of pain, but I still did not want to leave.  I sat by his side singing all the old Irish songs he loved .  I had the sense that he could hear.  The  doctor told me to go home, but I didn't want to.  Finally, I left with the promise that I would be called the instant there was any change.   Early the next morning the phone rang.  It was the nurse telling me that Dad was shutting down.  I called my brother, and kids.  I drove to the Salem hospital, entered the room, took dad's hand and told him I was there.  He took a breath that was his last.   He had waited for me to come.

He had left us a message that was found in his things:

 ***

 The cowboy poet, Colen Sweeten, Jr., who once appeared on the Johnny Carson show, was one of dad's lifelong friends.  When the family gathered at the old homestead site to spread his ashes, Colen was there.  He wrote the following poem about the day and the impact of it on him. 

LAST REQUEST


The grass on the range was all headed out,
The wildflowers in full bloom;
The sagebrush surrounding everywhere
Lent an honest western perfume.

There wasn't a board where the house had been,
A sunken spot told of a well,
A circle of lush green grass to the West
Marked the spot of the barn and corral.

Sixty years since my friend had left,
But he'd come back almost every year.
He had ninety years to make his request
The only place that he wanted was here.

He loved to paint pictures of horses,
As an artist he had earned some acclaim.
His paintings inspired by his love of the West
Were not painted for money nor fame.

His ashes surrounded by family,
On the homestead now grown back to sage,
Rust and decay have had their way
And history has turned a new page.

Old friends stand with Stetsons in hand,
And today the weather is kind,
And I confess, for a moment or less,
A wild vision entered my mind.

His line backed dun, the old pinto mare,
The sheep and the big billy goat,
Are their spirits hovering near today?
Or is it just a lump in my throat?


 

Frank and I wont ride past here much longer
But one memory stands out o'er the rest,
A Great Granddaughter's prayer on the soft Spring air
The day we honored his last request.

Colen H. Sweeten Jr
5-31-98