Tribute-- Kevan F Hartwell

My father died five years ago, October 3, 2001.

I used to think he would live forever--he had such a strong life force. He died two and a half months shy of his 81st birthday.

He was a giant. Not in the physical sense, but in his character, his qualities.

He loved music. I recall listening to his collection of wonderful 33 rpm records. Before cassettes existed, he had a reel-to-reel tape player. This is where I first heard and sang along with movie soundtracks.

And he was musically gifted. There seemed no instrument he could not play. I remember as a child hearing him with his beloved clarinet. Day in, day out, he played that clarinet, determined to master it, as he did with everything he undertook. And--oh!--how I recall the trumpet.

Banjo, ukulele, guitar...he played them all and played them well. When I married and moved away I no longer heard his music. But the seeds he planted flourished: Though not a musician myself, I had learned to love music of all sorts, and for this I thank him.

Until no longer able to use his right hand, he enjoyed strumming his guitar, sometimes accompanying himself on the harmonica. He would sing words, or just "la-la-la." His way, I'm sure, to relax after a stressful day at work.

He planned early on to be successful. And he was, extremely so. He had a passion for flying, soaring high above the earth in his glider. He traveled, it seemed, everywhere. He liked to drive. Fast. One time my husband and I, driving home from Bellingham, saw him in his Porsche eating up the pavement on the I5. We tried, in vain, to catch him. He was uncatchable. Unstoppable.

My father was a visionary, an idea man, a thinker, a reader, a planner, a doer, with the soul of a true poet.

He was fond of maxims, two of which come to mind:

Attitude is everything.

Winners never quit, and quitters never win.

Words to live by. Words he lived by.

I see my father through filters: those of carefree childhood memories, those of adult, often distant, perceptions, those of now, when he is gone and the full impact of his extraordinary life weighs heavily on me.

Often through the years he had mentioned I should write his biography. Because I thought he'd live forever, I was in no hurry. It was something I might one day get around to doing.

How I wish now that we had done it when he lived! I could have gotten to know him better and, just as importantly, he could have gotten to know me.

I may attempt to do it. Nothing is impossible. That's something he would say.

Buddha said of death:

Life is a journey.
Death is a return to earth.
The universe is like an inn.
The passing years are like dust.

Regard this phantom world
As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp - a phantom - and a dream.

Quite a dream!

--Cathrine