Tonight marks one month since I began the most eventful drive of my life. The 78 mile drive along I-22 from Fayette to Birmingham to say goodbye to my father on his death bed.
My father was not a physically large man but to me he was larger than life, having watched him do things that left me in awe. I remember the time he rebuilt a car engine in a parking lot, also the time he lifted a five hundred pound air conditioner, things I can’t do now even as an adult.
As I drove the memories of everything I hadn’t thought about in years returned. My father teaching me to play football or riding motorcycles with him as a boy. The science project he designed for my on the solar system. The same one that I tried to start an uprising over in the school auditorium when it only received Honorable Mention. Even how he loved German chocolate cake. He was by himself on that one, I’ve never been able to stand it. We’ll be fine. Go be with Mama. I love you,” I said.
The man I saw in the hospital bed was my father without being him. Now a shell of the man he had been unaware of his surroundings. Even though he had always been closer to my brother, at that moment I realized that Is had always been his son too.
“You’re fights over Daddy. We’ll all be okay. Go be with Mama. I love you.”
He died two days later at 9:50 in the morning.
Larry Armstrong.
July 1st, 1947-Jan 20th 2022.
Goodbye Daddy. I will always love you. You’re the greatest man I’ll ever know.
Love and light.
A Fifth of Brian 
You will be okay. He is at peace now. šā¤ļøš
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