I knew him because he was there...sometimes in the morning drinking one of his sixteen cups of coffee before I would go to school.
I knew him cause we would go camping sometimes and the four of us and our dog would be in the station wagon towing a tent trailer, to be set up and taken down.
I knew he was there sometimes when I joined cadets and then the militia and...sometimes after I joined the CAF, and less when I began to have a family.
I knew where he was when we were home... sometimes, as he was cleaning his rifles or handguns, making beer in the wine room, carving or tinkering with something.
I knew he was there...sometimes he and mom would argue and their voices would be raised and we could hear them through the floor, as they struggled with reason.
I knew he was there...sometimes he would smoke when he drank more than he should so I would drive us home with my new licence, before that he would do the driving.
I knew he was there in the hospital...sometimes he would have seizures then the aneurysm that did not take him but made him less able to be a father and grandfather to our children.
I knew he was no longer there over twenty years of a slow spiral down, to where the cold, cold lay waiting...sometimes sooner for some and later for others.
AsΒ Β he lay on the bed in the care home he was no longer there, cold to the touch, heart stopped struggle quit,... sometimes I miss him, sometimes I am not missing him, he was not the kindest, and I made him my only dad... sometimes I wonder if that was, my mistake.