I'd like to meet:
My Father, James Richard Tyler, D.O. was born April 14th, 1929. He died December 18, 2008. He leaves behind my Mom Evelyn, his daughter Jennifer, his son-in-law Michael, my nephew Tyler, his son from a previous relationship Jason, his daughter from a previous relationship Johanna, and myself. He was the last surviving son of Baptist preacher John Tyler who had married his church's organ player, Catherine. He had a sister, Cathy, who died when young, a younger brother Peter, who died several years ago, and an older brother Jack, who died about two years ago. He attended medical training in America and also abroad in Okinawa, Japan and took my Mother with him. A noticable Japanese decorating influence from his time there was always present in our homes, and visitors were asked to remove their shoes at the door, which often befuddled people at first but proved very comfortable once walking around in stocking feet. I think this little Japanese tradition is why I hate shoes so much and to this day feel they crush your feet. My father was a peaceful man and never hurt a fly, with one exception, which was a complete accident. Once as a little kid, Jennifer and I found a stray turtle and brought it home as a new pet. We were on the hard tiled back porch playing with it when my Dad returned home. Mom brought him out to "see the surprise" and before he knew it, a turtle was in his hands. I guess the turtle was excitable because he immediately peed on my Dad's hands. In sudden surprise, my Father accidentally and instinctively let go, and the turtle fell and cracked it's shell on the tile and died. He was never quick to anger, even though I'm sure my sister and I terrorized his nerves plenty growing up. Spankings were a very rare occurence. Once, Jen and I were being especially horrible in the back seat of the car, and the announcement was made that we would both recieve a spanking when we returned home. As soon as the car stopped, my sister and I ran inside to execute our ride-home-concocted ingenious "anti-spanking plan". We ran to our rooms and put on every single pair of underwear we had, then squeezed back into our pants and went in to recieve our punishment. The sight of two little kids with stuffed asses bigger than Fat Albert turned my Father's promised spankings into not very enthusiastic love taps and he couldn't stop laughing. My Dad never seemed to be his age, and almost everyone who met him called bullshit when it was revealed. He was just always so youthful and vibrant. At 79, he was still happily working full time just to keep busy, and even after he could no longer perform surgeries, he used his training in Ostopathy and Neurology to continue to practice medicine for K-Clinic and by performing DDE exams throughout Texas and the surrounding states. He always had that dry sense of humor where strangers often thought he was being serious, when in fact he was just fucking with them a little bit. He was full of energy and joy- in the past exhibited most often when petting and playing with our childhood pet schnauzer Gandalf, and most recently evident when in the joyful and innocent company of his 2 year old grandson Tyler. He played the trumpet beautifully and once composed some songs, which I hope to find the sheet music for and attempt to get recorded. Another fond memory is of Gandalf howling along whenever my father would practice his scales. My Dad always offered cut-the-crap, straight advice, and was both charitably generous and had an unflappable faith in the Lord, which even I, in my oft-opposing religious sentiments and questioning doubts, could never spoil. My Dad was brilliant too. Could YOU learn brain surgery in Okinawa without knowing a lick of the Japanese language when you arrived? I couldn't. Think about it- Japanese translations of predominantly Latin medical terminology that you have to filter into your native tongue of English to understand. Yet somehow, the clock on the VCR always flashed "12:00" and he would attempt to put in tapes sideways and upside down, jokingly blaming Jen and I for "breaking" the machine. A little over 4 months ago, my Dad seemed perfectly healthy. But one day he tripped and fell over a crack in the sidewalk returning from the mailbox with the day's mail. He hit his face in the fall and began bleeding. Being a doctor, he felt he knew the state of his own health better than anyone else, so only after two and a half weeks of the bleeding not completely stopping, and the insistence and badgering from family and friends, did he finally go in for some tests and answers. He spent the morning running tests and was released to return home for dinner. Ten minutes after he returned home, the doctor who ran the tests called and insisted my Father immediately check into the nearest hospital, Presbyterian of Dallas. There he was diagnosed with advanced leukemia and severe anemia. He was in the hospital for a month where he was a favorite patient- entertaining the staff with his unique dry sarcasm and contagious sense of humor, and where the doctors all cut the bullshit and shot straight with him and our family about his condition. He missed home and finally decided to return there and to continue treatments and tests on an outpatient basis. Several sessions of Chemotherapy and thrice weekly blood transfusions followed. The Chemo screwed up a lot of his bodily functions and the inability to retain blood and progressively lower platelet counts made him progressively weaker, but his spirits and faith in God remained high. A few weeks ago he caught laryngitus that never quite went away, and had to speak in hoarse "loud whispers" during his final days. Wednesday night my Father was as good as could be expected, I had dinner with him and my mother at the house. While discussing that he would probably not be able to return to work and was in fact retired now, my Father said something that my Mom and I simply thought at the time was merely in reference to his professional life. He said "My life is over." My Mom and I replied "Not yet it isn't" and the conversations continued on with both my Mother and I just believing his statement to simply be a strange choice of words. Looking back on Wednesday night I am not so sure now and have been kicking myself a little bit about it. Thursday morning my Mom and Dad were in the car driving when he became suddenly unresponsive- Mom recalls it was like a light switch got turned off. Just a block away, my Mom returned home immediately where my Dad got ambulanced over to Presbyterian of Dallas. In Emergency he had to be sedated due to thrashing around violently. After sedation he was mildly responsive again for a short time, he acknowledged he could hear us but couldn't reply with any more than nods "yes" and "no" and in mumbles. He was brought up from Emergency into a private room, number 806. We were told that the unresponsiveness and also the strange thrashing and restlessness was likely in connection to some minor bleeding from 3 different sections of his brain that had just been detected. We recieved no further or more detailed explanation about the matter. Dad was recieving oxygen through his nose and was laborously catching constant open-mouthed breaths. He was also sweaty on his brow and head, which my Mom and I patted up with towels. Strangely his hands were ice cold though, so Mom and I attempted to warm them with pillows and blanketing. My sister Jennifer, brother-in-law Michael and my 2 year old nephew Tyler rushed down from Texarkana. Then just after 7, about five minutes after everyone finally arrived, Tyler pointed and said "PawPaw sleeping." My dad immediately began loudly snoring for about 15 seconds which made us all smile, then he stopped breathing. Michael took Tyler out of the room, and he died with myself, my Mom and Jennifer holding his hands and telling him goodbye and how much we loved him. I guess his blood was still acting in his veins and his muscles were still shutting themselves down after he was gone, because I stupidly thought and prayed that a few barely noticable twitches in his eyelid and his bottom lip were signs of life. My Father's eyes and mouth were closed by the attending nurse, and when I finally let go, I noticed I had left a deep imprint of my fingers in the skin of his arm where I had been holding. Had he the elasticity of living skin, my fingers would have only made a red mark at best, but my finger impressions remained, almost as if pressed in soft clay. This kinda drove it all home and it all became final for me in that moment. I left the room and went outside to cry some more. When I returned to the room, I immediately noticed that Dad's mouth had fallen slightly open. I again for an instant was hoping for a mistake, or some miraculous do-over, but it was just due to gravity and his head's position on the pillow. I believe two things about that night. I believe my Father pretended to snore to ease Tyler's mind at the last moments, and I believe he was just holding on and waiting for us to finally be there before he went. My Dad despised funerals- just hated them. It was his wish that he simply be privately and discreetly cremated with no Obituary printed in the papers. I want to thank everyone who gave their best wishes and prayers and support through this time on behalf of my Father, myself and my family. If you knew my Dad, I just ask that you try to always remember him.
