When someone passes away, it is the day they gave their last breath that is seared into people’s memories and immortalized on their headstone. My father passed away on August 19, 2021. For me, there is a second date seared into my memory. July 24, 2021: the day my Dad had his heart attack. The horrible nightmare began on that date. It was the last time I had a normal interaction with him. It was the last time my kids had a normal interaction with him. It was the last time we saw him outside of a hospital room. It was the last time I saw him as I remember him.
This is how I remember him.
Dad, Brian K. Rice, was born in 1961 in Burlington, Iowa. He was one of six children- right in the middle, older brother, older twin sisters, two younger brothers. His family moved around a fair bit before settling into an old farmhouse just outside of Biggsville, Illinois. If you knew Dad, chances are youheard at least one story about his childhood. You probably heard the same story more than once, Dad loved to tell and retell stories especially his favorites…..
His family planted dozens of tomato plants when he was kid, he ate so many he grew to hate them. His nose and face scrunched up with disgust when he told this story or when discussing tomatoes in general.
Another childhood chore he disliked was cleaning out the old barn, mice and rats would run up his clothes and stoked a lifelong fear of them as well as “flying rats” (bats).
The field to the east of the farmhouse was frequented by tornadoes, when bad storms came through he’d watch them. He continued to watch storms as an adult, I have many memories of my mother yelling “BRIAN! GET INSIDE!”
To the north of the old farmhouse, there was a timber where he and his siblings built a fort and had adventures that rivaled those of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.
The small room on the second floor of the house had a bunk bed, as one can imagine when you have six kids to divide up among three rooms. One day, he was on the bottom bunk and his siblings were on the top bunk when they “tried to kill him”- the top bunk fell on him. Dad was very lucky that time as he was when Grandma “almost killed him” by throwing a tomato can at him that ricocheted off the door frame. Whenever we went back for a visit, Dad pointed out the gouge in the trim and retold the story.
There was a tree on the westside of the house he would climb in attempt to delay getting his butt spanked.
Up the road from the farmhouse was the Weir family fruit orchard where he worked picking apples and learning all kinds of things about apple trees.
Dad used to chuckle and smile whenever he talked about pulling a fast on the local cops, they didn’t think to check the bumper of his car for beer cans.
I’ve heard that when Dad was younger he wanted to be a minister. Dad never told me this himself, but for a man who didn’t go to church, Dad had a quiet strong faith. I also heard that Dad wanted to be an electrician but since he was red-orange color blind he couldn’t do that. He eventually decided to join the Air Force. Dad worked in security for the first part of his military career. He worked in missile silos in Texas before he was transferred to Tucson, Arizona. Oh there are Tucson stories too, it was there he met and married my mom…
Dad and mom were setup by mutual friends. Dad showed up drunk and with another woman as his date. As soon as his saw my mom, he turned to this other woman and told her to go home because he just saw the woman he was going to marry. The night ended with Dad’s friends trying to get his very drunk butt into the back of a car while he yelled “I’m going to marry you” at my mom and she yelled obscenities back at him.
Dad and mom, along with their friends, used to go roller skating….
They lived in a not so good part of Tucson and there was one night Dad chased a burglar down the fire escape….
Dad and mom married two months after they met and less than a year later they had my sister.
A few years later, Dad was sent to Colorado Springs where I was born. When I was about two years old, Dad was sent to Belgium for temporary duty for a year. It was the only time he was out of the country. He didn’t like it…..
Drinks were too warm, streets were dirty, and it smelled (this was accompanied by a similar look to that that went with the tomato stories).
When he got back from Belgium, the military sent us to Holloman AFB in southern New Mexico.
Dad worked security on the base. I remember it being as though the base was a small town and Dad was like the sheriff. He was this larger than life person, he had a big personality, and even larger presence- I always thought he was kind of like John Wayne in all of the old movies he liked so much. Everyone knew my dad, everyone respected my dad, everyone looked up to my Dad. I remember even at a young age knowing how lucky I was to have him. Dad worked all kinds of shifts on the base. He didn’t like to leave stray dogs at the station overnight so he would bring them home until we found their owners. There was a Great Pyrenees that we all took a shine to and were selfishly disappointed when Dad found her owner.
Despite living in the middle of a desert, Dad always took care of the yard. We had rose bushes out front and trees that he put Christmas lights in every year. We had many picnics under the same trees. Our yard was the one where all of the kids from our cul-de-sac gathered for a game of tag, see the latest concert my sister and her friends would put on, or play a game of twister where we would all spin around like lunatics. You could see the base front gate from our front yard and more importantly- our glorious mountains. The backyard was smaller, didn’t have as good of a view, but still just as full of memories. For a time we had a rabbit named Feline in our backyard. Dad hung a swing from the tree for us. I have a vivid memory of Dad cutting his cast off his ankle (for a torn achilles) in that backyard. I remember being very scared he’d hurt himself and also thinking my dad was a badass.
When Dad wasn’t working, we’d go on adventures. We went hiking in the mountains countless times, saw all kinds of animals from a mama bear with her three cubs to mountains lions and moose, drove down roads that weren’t really roads in our Subaru, took detours to waterfalls and overlooks, visited sites where Billy the Kid used to hideout and got into shootouts at, explored ghost towns, climbed rocks along rivers, played on the dunes of White Sands, walked along ancient lava flows, got taffy from the old mercantile in Cloudcroft, bought jewelry from the Mescalero Apache, pigged out at the cherry festival, fished at Ruidoso, and went sledding in the winter. Dad always wore a big knife on his hip when we went hiking, sometimes along with a big red fanny pack. He would always hike ahead of us to look out for bears and cougars…more than once he’d come flying back over the ridge, not running but walking faster than should be possible while managing to yell in a whisper that we needed to go the other way. He knew all of the different animal tracks, animal poop, sounds of birds, types of birds, and types of trees.
Christmas in New Mexico was always special, not just the day the whole season. We’d always go up into the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree. He had a special technique for putting the tinsel on the tree and was very picky about it. It always looked beautiful. Every year Dad put together a cardboard paper fireplace with bright red bricks, accordion-like paper, and white cardboard mantle for us. Every year we’d drive to the mission at Tularosa on Christmas Eve to see their luminaries, Dad would bring our Mormon Tabernacle and Bing Crosby cassette tapes to listen to on the way.
When the Air Force made Dad crosstrain, he was not happy about changing jobs but he was happy that by moving to Offutt AFB it meant that he would be closer to family and in better school districts. He talked it up a lot before we moved. He was excited about the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo and said we’d find other places to go hiking or fishing. When we got here, Dad was so happy to find out that all of his old buddies from Tucson were in the area. Naturally, my dad excelled in his new role at Offutt. Dad was incredibly intelligent and had a mind for rules, policies, and procedures that are in so many the lifeblood of the Air Force. Dad reached the rank of MSGT before retiring and continuing to work civilian jobs on base for many more years.
At Offutt AFB everyone there also loved my dad, everyone looked up to him, and respected him. The few that didn’t like my dad... well it was probably because they were an asshole and Dad called them out on it. Those were the exception though. He had a way of putting people at ease and instantly making them feel like he had known them his entire lives. He was the first to tell a joke, the first to tell a story, the first to make something fun. He was humble, he didn’t talk about it alot but he also was the first to help, the first to take someone under his wing, and the first to inspire. I think the best way to remember and honor Dad, is to emulate what he did for you. There’s a reason why to this day I still occasionally have people I have no idea who they are will come up and ask me “Are you Brian’s daughter?” or “How are you doing without your Dad?”
Dad always loved all kinds of music. I grew up listening to everything from Meatloaf, Enya, Celine Dion, Brooks and Dunn, to Bing Crosby. He would watch anything with John Wayne, Chuck Norris, Sci-Fi, involving fights/explosions/shooting, westerns, and yes, Hallmark movies. His favorite hobby was cycling. He also played golf, disc golf, collected old tools, was proud of his yard, loved to read, and loved to go country western dancing with my Mom. His favorite songs to dance to were “Cupid’s Shuffle” and “the Twist.” "Mustang Sally" was always a favorite, but so were songs that were silly like “Bubba Shot the Jukebox” and “Don’t Mess Around with Jim.” I have recently gotten into collecting vinyl records and sometimes it makes me sad to think of how he may have enjoyed it with me.
When I had my daughter and then my son, you would have thought that they were actually gifts for my father. Whenever he would hold them he would have his little smile on his face that you wouldn’t see any other time. It was one of pure contentment and JOY. He treated each of his five grandkids like the most treasured thing on Earth and to him they were. He was happiest when he had all of his grandkids around him. For many years all of the grandkids went trick or treating together on Halloween so Dad could be with all of them, Dad loved it. I think my Dad’s purpose in life was to be a grandpa. Dad loved being down the street from my kids. He got to see them everyday. They’d go over after school, have Friday night sleepovers, and do things like go look for frogs at a nearby creek or go for walks. The zoo he talked about before we left New Mexico became a favorite place to the grandkids. Just as when I was a kid, he found special places to visit with them at Christmas and places to take them hiking. He attended every school event for them. He was ever present.
After my divorce, Dad stepped up his support of both my kids and me. He was my safety net, my security guard, and it felt like as long as he was down the street that everything would be okay. Dad seemed to understand that while I was a grown woman, I still needed my Dad. He helped me out with so many things and appreciated a thank you, but never demanded one. He mowed my yard- which is very large- and only asked that I pick up the dog poop beforehand and bring him out for a cold drink or two. If I needed help with a project, he’d help. If someone was prowling around the house, he’d come check it out. If I was going someplace more than an hour away, he’d come inspect my car first. The list goes on and on.
The morning of my dad’s heart attack started off so normal. Dad began the day doing something he loved- cycling. My son and I went to Target that morning. On the way back home, my son wanted to show Papa his new toy, and by then Dad returned from his ride. We stopped by their house, I talked to Dad about a project he was going to help me with the next day, Nolan showed him his toy, and Dad seemed fine. Twenty minutes later my mom called me to tell me Dad was having a heart attack. The next three weeks Dad fought so hard. Seeing him fight so hard, watching him suffer, seeing him connected to machines with tubes and the beep of the ECMO machine felt as though someone was performing an autopsy on me, cutting into me while I was still wide awake. I prayed like I never had before. I asked Dad to fight and to hang on. And he did. Two hours after Dad was taken off of life support, he was sitting up and talking to us. We got to say goodbye, we got to hear I love you one more time. While that was the miracle in itself, it was not the miracle I prayed for. I never felt more helpless and panicked. There was no way to stop it. How could I lose my dad? I was only 36 years old, he was only 60 years old. Dad fought. It just wasn’t enough to overcome the damage to his heart and body. He passed away about six hours later. The heart attack my Dad had on July 24th, 2021 was not his first. It was discovered that he had a smaller one earlier that summer that had been misdiagnosed by doctors as severe heartburn and sudden onset of new food allergies. That is the saddest part of it all. That is the part I have struggled with the most. The game of “what if” is a cruel one.
His death broke my heart. When my dad died, I was already experiencing some health issues of my own that doctors were blowing off. After his death, these issues accelerated, escalated, and began to severely affect my heart. One day, I was trying to mow my yard with Dad’s old mower when I had one of my worst spells yet but I was being stubborn about stopping. Dad saved me. I know how that may sound to some but I firmly believe he watches out for me. I don’t know how to explain it. The mower was jerked out of my hands and to the side. I heard my Dad clear as a bell say YOU NEED TO STOP- NOW! I did what my Daddy told me. The whole thing left me so shaken up that I decided to blow off the doctors who weren’t listening to me and call a cardiology office myself. It turned out my hemoglobin was one point away from needing a transfusion, I was experiencing PVCs as well as PACs among other heart rhythm issues, and the pressure in the right side of my heart was more than 2 ½ times what it should have been. I was fortunate it was caught before there was any permanent damage.
I think it was my Dad who brought me and my first love- Jesse, my now fiance, back together last year. Dad worked with Jesse for 10 years, forming his own separate special relationship with him. I asked my Dad to send me a sign from the other side when he was near- a dragonfly. Dragonflies have randomly shown up at places they shouldn’t ever since. When Jesse proposed, he was dive-bombed by a dragonfly within minutes. My Dad liked to tease Jesse, we think it was him saying he was indeed there.
Since Dad died, I try to do things to keep his memory alive, to still feel connected to him. I talk about him with Jesse and my kids all of the time. I like to hear stories about him. I still talk to my Dad. Old pictures of him are more precious than gold to me. We took a vacation to New Mexico earlier this year and made a point of taking a day to go show the kids places I went with Dad. When we were in Colorado last week, we took time out to go see a place from my earliest memory. Rampart Reservoir. I remember being in a pack on my Dad's back while he fished. I remember how the sun looked on the water and mountains in the background. Dad was always amazed by this memory, he said I was probably about 18 months old at the time. This memory is all the more precious now. As are all of them.
The words “I love you” and “I miss you Dad” fall so short of reflecting the actual meaning that they seem hollow. I will always carry you in my heart.
The pictures of my father's things were ones I took within a week of his death as apart of a photo essay.
