This is my personal goodbye and send-off to my father, Charlie. I've known him personally for 21 years and it's only after his death that I begin to know the man that's been raising hell since 1934. I look back on some of these photos when he was just a young man and it's a stranger to me. I can't imagine how someone so young and handsome eventually became the man I know as my father.
In my youth, my father was a man I feared. He very aggressively pursued discipline and mixed with his own fiery (at times angry) nature, it made me very bitter and terrified of him. As I grew older, I tried to understand my parents rather than rebel against them and I found myself in confusion regarding my father. All I had for reference was the figure of discipline and hot-headedness, and yet when I tried to emulate him he would vehemently tell me not to. Be peaceful. Be kind. Be patient. Don't fight. Don't hurt. Don't kill. Don't be angry. Don't be like me. I never understood until just recently.
My father had lived a long and fruitful life. He married and had children more than once. He did everything from playing football to motorcycle racing. He was a boxer until a bar fight landed him in jail before a title fight which ended his career. He managed a canning factory and even worked behind the lanes of a bowling alley.
On the other hand, he lived a life of hardship and sacrifice. His dad would beat the hell out of him at the drop of a hat and made my father tough. Made him a fighter from a young age. Drunk driving killed his brother, Larry, the man I was named after. One of his wives left him with their kids and went after his father for his money. His family, for the most part, turned their backs on him. And yet this doesn't even scratch the surface of his life.
I don't know how a wild man who put up with and went through all of this could've become the father I knew. But despite all of his mistakes and hard times, he did something right in the end. He raised my sister and I to be decent people. He taught me all he could and loved me in his own ways, and for that I can't thank him enough.
This one is for you old man. Time to become young again and soar on to new places. No regrets and no looking back. You taught me well and I'm gonna be ok. I'll miss you dad, but I'll see you again one day. You can count on that.
Charles Williams (1950):
(1953):
~Charles "Hawk/Tiger/Mike" Williams (1934-2009). I'll always love you dad. Thanks for giving me your last years here in this world and being a man we can all look up to.
Yesterday on June 3rd, around 10:30 AM Pacific time, Charles Williams passed away.
He had been getting weaker, and having more difficult walking and breathing for a week or so. Being off the medications he needed for over a year because he wasn't going to take them on the doctor's terms. He was always a man that lived his own way. Never giving up or giving in even when it meant he may suffer or have to sacrifice because of it.
Despite barely being able to walk the day he finally caved and asked to be taken to the hospital, he walked on his own two feet to the car and into the hospital.
"Ambulances are for wussies," he said on the way.
After a surgery to clear what the doctor thought was a blocked artery, it was discovered that one of his heart's valves was leaking blood into his system. His body wasn't getting enough blood or oxygen because of this and as a result his heart had been weakened to 20% of what it should be. Whether or not the surgery for something he didn't need caused it or not, he was weakened to the point of being unable to maintain himself without a ventilator and a ridiculous amount of medications and fluids.
The night of June 2nd passed and in the morning of June 3rd it was decided to let him go out on the terms he'd demand. No way in hell would he be bed ridden, kept alive on machines, just for the hope of coming out of it a few weeks later to sit in bed for another few months waiting to be able to have surgery. He went out on his own terms, just the same way that he came into this world.
I'm his son, and I watched him weaken. I took him to the hospital and I watched him walk in, pat me on the shoulder and smile at me as he went back for what should have been a simple set of tests and procedures. I shook his hand and told him it would be ok as he was carted off for surgery, having no idea that would be the last thing I'd ever get to say to him. And I made the call for him to go out on his own terms.
Charles Williams was the greatest man and the strongest man I ever knew. I pale in comparison to him and only hope I can someday become half the man he was. He loved and took care of his family unconditionally, even though many of them continually betrayed him. I'll love him more than any other human being.
This is his blog; a collection of everything he found interesting and important to the world we live in. Past, present and future. This is his diary and his philosophy and to me, it's a piece of him left over.
To any friends of my father from this blog site, feel free to email me at Xtremelarry@hotmail.com if you want any information or just leave a comment here.
