Saying Goodbye to Dad, Who Fixed Everything
Sorting through the toolbox of a life well lived.
Dad lived to fix things. At 93, he was long retired from his career as a mechanical engineer. But there were still so many projects to complete, so many cars to restore, so many things with which to tinker.
Sputtering engines. Wheezing air conditioners. Dead batteries. Flat tires. Leaky roofs. Toppled fences. Squeaky brakes. He approached each challenge step-by-step, with meticulous attention to detail. There was no fanfare and often no pay. For Dad, the payoff was in making people happy.
Over the years, hundreds of people called on Dad to make emergency house calls. As he arrived, he was easy to spot in his faded flannel shirt, blue jean overalls, and Mustang ball cap. He always carried a bright red “Job Box” — a metal toolkit filled with the perfect tools for each job. (Duct tape was always included.)
Dad owned thousands of tools. Automotive parts and air tools, hardware and hand tools, plumbing parts and power tools…all stored within his enormous garage. Work benches lined the perimeter. Seven rows of shelves stretched to the ceiling.
The garage was Dad’s sacred space, where he performed his fix-it rituals. I can still see him hunched over his workbench, his calloused hands moving slowly and deliberately. It’s quiet, the silence broken only by the sporadic poppop of a staple gun or the bzzzz of an electric drill. The tools kick up clouds of dust, thick with the smell of sulfur and motor oil.
But Dad’s no longer here. Doctors aren’t sure if it was the emphysema or the leukemia or simply old age that finally took him. Given his passing only three months after Mom, heartbreak was likely a factor.
Our parents shared everything, but their funerals were quite different. A devout Mormon, Mom made clear she wanted a traditional service and casket burial. Dad, as usual, said little — only that he preferred cremation and to be “placed on top of Mom.” (For us, their grown children, this image was both amusing and disturbing.)
Still raw from Mom’s passing, we choked back grief and took up the yoke of planning yet another funeral. But how to memorialize our unique father — a man who showed his love for everyone by fixing their broken things?
After some deliberation, we made a plan. On a chilly February afternoon, friends and family gathered at Mom’s gravesite. Some arrived wearing flannel shirts and overalls, Dad’s go-to style. At our feet, a thin line of gray dirt showed through the grass — a grim reminder of our fresh loss.
Placed on Mom’s grave was a battered, red metal toolbox, with three bracket closures and a rusty handle. Atop the box, in black marker, appeared TWB (Dad’s initials), and Last Job Box. Our father had found his final resting place.
We held hands and sobbed. Knowing Dad could fix anything, we prayed he could fix our broken hearts.
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