Life Lessons From My Dad

You can never change your oil too often.
This may be why I'm able to drive my cars for 10+ years.

You can always make room for one more pet.
An abandoned dog or two...or more...many more...make great pets. An injured rabbit is also a good pet. Cows are pets too. That's why they need names.

If it needs to be done, do it.
If you have to do it, you might as well have fun, and singing makes everything more fun. If you don't know the words to a song, make some up.

The secret to good health is warm feet.
Since my dad wanted his family to be healthy, everyone needed to at least wear slippers in the house. So every time he was coming to visit we made sure we did. Sometimes when the phone rang Brooke and Ben would quickly grab shoes just in case it was Granddaddy...because he would ask. 

The secret to a long life, in addition to staying healthy with warm feet, is a daily walk, a daily nap, and a healthy dose of stubbornness. 
One day Anna and I went for a visit and found my dad out building a fence on his property. I asked if he wanted to ride back to the house with us. He said no because he hadn't had his walk yet that day. So he walked home. Because building a fence was not enough exercise.

Stubbornness definitely paid off. I visited him in the hospital on election day 2012. He was there for congestive heart failure and kidney failure. This was a few days after being told there was nothing they could do since the surgery he had in 1995 was really only supposed to last 10 years so he should say his goodbyes. He told his nurse he would need to leave so he could go vote. When his pastor came to visit he told him he'd see him in church the next night. My step mom questioned whether he was going to be able to do either of those things. He didn't make it to church the next night, but he did go vote that day.

One of the last times we all went to see him, he was really weak and could barely talk, but he stood up as we were leaving and declared he was going to walk us out. There was no talking him out of something once his mind was made up.

Food smuggled into the hospital is the best.
On that election day hospital visit my dad hadn't been interested in eating. I handed him a banana and he immediately ate it and reminded me (then and many more times over the next few years) of when he was in the hospital after his open heart surgery and I sneaked malts in for him. The hospital staff may not have agreed, but I think it was a pretty good idea.