Joseph O. Waters Sr.

This month on the fifteenth will be the day that my dad died. He had, had an aneurysm and had never been in the hospital overnight until this happened. It is hard to believe that he has been gone for ten years.

When he was in the hospital those last days we were told that he was blinded by the aneurysm and that he would not be able to speak. We were all gathered beside his bed and he spoke one word and he said baby. I told him that mother was across the hall and that she was doing ok. Then he said you're the baby. With tears rolling down my face I knew that he was still there, we had all heard him speak and we were speechless. When the doctor came in I told him that he had talked and he said that there was know way that this could have happened. We were just wanting him to speak and we thought that he had. I told the doctor you stand here and listen. Daddy was always making up rhymes and poems that he had learned, so I started the one about The Purple Cow. I said I never saw a purple cow, and then I waited and waited and waited and as the doctor started to speak, dad said clear as a bell. "I hope I never see one." This is when the doctor said this is just a miracle that he can do this. So I continued to the next line. "But I can tell you anyhow," and I waited and then dad spoke again, I'd rather see than be one.

The Purple Cow

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I hope I never see one.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'd rather see, than be one.

As a child we were told this story about the Purple Cow poem. When he was in the second grade they had to learn a poem and recite it before the class the next day. He was going to do a Robert Frost Poem, but when he got home he forgot all about it until he was in class the next day. There was a little girl that set in front of him and she was trying to memorize her poem when the alarm went off that he hadn't memorized a poem. So he kept listening to the little girl trying to learn hers when he memorized it he raised his had to let his teacher know that he was ready to do his poem.

As he stood in front of the class and started to recite his poem the little girl shouted out that that was her poem. When he finished the poem she called the little girl up to say the poem and she didn't have it in her memory yet.

Today as it was raining and we couldn't go outside several of his stories came tumbling back in my memory and Chloe said Poppy why do you look so sad. I explained to her about the stories that my day used to tell us and the fun that we had as a child growing up, and how he loved children and how that she would have loved him, and would have loved to listen to him telling his stories. She said, "Poppy, that why I have you as my grandfather so you can tell me those stories as well as your stories growing up."

The day that we were having my dad's funeral we got a call just before the funeral that my mom had passed away at home. It was bad to lose one parent but another thing altogether to lose them both. The Funeral Home said that it was to late not stop Dad's funeral, but we could hold the burial at the graveside until the next day and we would have mom's viewing that evening while people were still there and we would bury them both the next day after mom's funeral.