The Old Man A Memoir of my Father Jack Wallace   © Copyright 2023 by

Photo courtesy of the author.

My brother Jeff once said he believed that Dad woke up every day thinking about how he could help his children and grandchildren. None of us ever doubted his faithfulness to our mother.

That made it even more alarming when one evening I received a phone call from Mom, and she said with no preamble: “Your father has left me. He might be going off somewhere to meet another woman.” Dad was 84, and Mom was 76. I was incredulous.

My father had a degree in business and was a licensed minister. He spent most of his career in the gospel publishing field, and after retirement continued working into his eighties as the business manager at his church. All who knew him respected his wisdom and calm demeanor. I and my five siblings loved him for his gentle nature and his unconditional devotion to all of us.

Mother was given to occasional hyperbole, but, after some questioning, she convinced me that, several hours earlier, my dad had indeed packed a bag and told her he was leaving her, and he didn’t know when he would return. She admitted there was no reason to believe he was meeting another woman, just her anxieties talking to her. I assured her that wasn’t happening. It was not his nature, and besides, he was an old man. His interests were his grandchildren, his garden, and his church.

Theirs was not the perfect marriage. Mother, though smart, articulate, and a prolific writer, could be argumentative. We knew they would occasionally have disagreements, but I never knew Dad to lose his cool. He might retreat to his office or go for a drive. Sometimes he would call and want to know if I’d like to play golf, or he would come over and help with my pitiful vegetable garden, and I often wondered if he just needed a little space from Mom. Hey, if you’ve been married, you know the feeling. But the rock upon which their marriage and their lives together was built was an unwavering commitment to each other. They were old-fashioned in that way.

It had been over five hours since Dad left and no word from him. I was worried. I called Jim and Joe, my two brothers who lived in Nashville, and we agreed to meet at Mom and Dad’s house.

We went over the precipitating events with Mom. Yes, there had been an argument, but over a trivial matter. Mom said she’d never seen Dad get this mad. My brothers called Margie and Rosie, our two sisters who lived in other states, and I called Jeff, who lived in Knoxville. They all offered to drive to Nashville immediately, but we said there was no reason to do that just yet.

We debated our next steps. This was 1999, the early days of cell phones. Dad didn’t have one, so we couldn’t call him or track him. I began to check with nearby hospitals to see if he’d been in an accident. Jim, my older brother, called a friend who was a retired police officer to ask for help and advice. The friend checked, and there was no accident report, and he said it was too soon to issue an alert for Dad’s car.

My youngest brother, Joe, fired up his laptop, was able to get into my parent’s bank account, and found that Dad had withdrawn five thousand dollars soon after he left the house. It worried us that he had that much cash. We had visions of him carelessly flashing the money and drawing the attention of an unsavory character. We called the bank and asked them to look at their cameras and see if anyone was with Dad or following him when he withdrew the cash. They checked and said they didn’t see anything suspicious.

His credit card showed he’d stopped at a gas station just south of town. A few hours later, as Joe kept watching the account, a charge at a hotel south of Atlanta popped up. Joe called the hotel and asked for James Wallace. Dad answered the room phone.

I don’t remember the exact conversation, but we learned he was on his way to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch of a space rocket in two days. He didn’t want to talk to Mom. Joe offered to drive to Atlanta and ride along, but Dad declined the offer, assuring us that he was fine, and wanted to make this trip by himself. He asked how we found him, and after Joe told him, he said he would not be using his credit card anymore, so don’t try to track his location. We knew he had enough cash that he could continue his journey for days without using the card.

After a bit more talk, and all of us telling him we loved him and please be careful, he agreed to call one of us each day, just to assure us he was safe.

The next day my brothers and I hung out with Mom at their house, with many calls between us and our other siblings. That evening Dad called as promised and said he’d checked into a hotel near the Cape and was looking forward to the early morning launch. I offered to fly down and meet him the next afternoon following the launch. We could drive back together. Dad said he wasn’t ready to drive back. I asked where he might be headed next, and he wasn’t sure, but probably somewhere west. And no, he didn’t want company.

Now we were consumed with worry. I considered driving to Cape Canaveral and searching hotel parking lots for his SUV, but the Cape was a popular tourist area, and maps showed many surrounding locations and hundreds of hotels. We called the Nashville police, talked to someone in missing persons, and asked for advice. The officer told us there was no indication that Dad was a danger to himself or others. He had a right to travel on his own, and to his privacy.

Mother was in a panic. She worried he would disappear, never to be heard from again. She blamed herself for the argument, but we assured her that it was not her fault. She didn’t deserve this. All of us alternated between anger and worry. What was going on in the old man’s mind? This was not the father we had known all our lives, who had led an exemplary life and shown nothing but love and gentleness to us, especially Mom. This erratic behavior, the hurtful treatment of our mother, was beyond our comprehension. Onset of dementia didn’t seem to fit with this conduct, since that disease usually manifests as a slow decline in cognitive ability and memory. Even a few days prior, Dad seemed as sharp as ever.

Early the next morning Jim called to say that the launch of the space rocket at Cape Canaveral had been postponed due to weather. What would Dad do now? Hang around the Cape until the launch was rescheduled? We continued to cast about for solutions. We talked with a private detective, who offered to travel to any town in the southeast and try to find him, but he needed to know the town, and a hotel, if possible. We hoped Dad would call and say he was on his way home, but for most of that day, we had no idea where he was or the direction of his odyssey.

Dad called again that evening and talked to Joe. He was vague about his location, only saying he was in Louisiana, west of New Orleans, and thought he would drive to Texas tomorrow, and then maybe on into Mexico. Joe told him we were worried about him carrying a lot of cash on his person. Dad said the money was tucked in his Bible on the console of his SUV. Joe said he should call Rosie because she was worried and upset. He promised he would. If anyone could talk him out of going to Mexico, it would be Rosie. We all knew she was his favorite child.

Rosie called us an hour later and said she’d convinced Dad to drive to her house the next morning and stay a few days. She lived in Columbus Mississippi, five hours from Nashville, and about the same distance from where we thought Dad may be spending the night.

The next day Jim and I met the private detective at a restaurant and employed him to drive to Columbus that evening, and, after dark, place a tracking device on Dad’s SUV. We told the detective to stay in Columbus overnight and be prepared to follow him the next day if he took off again.

We all talked with Dad after he arrived at Rosie’s house, and most importantly, he agreed to talk with Mom. She went into their bedroom, and they had a long, private, phone conversation. The following day, Dad and Carey, Rosie’s oldest son, left to drive to Nashville. The detective followed until Dad arrived safely home.

He seemed subdued upon his return. Not a talkative man to begin with, he was even more withdrawn, maybe a little morose. Was he depressed, we wondered? We stayed close to Mom and Dad for several days, but their lives resumed a normal rhythm. We all remain mystified by “Grandpa’s Excellent Adventure”, as Shaun and Carey, Rosie’s college-age boys, labeled it.

A few weeks later, Mom called and said that Dad had stumbled and fallen as he walked to the mailbox. He bloodied his face and was unable to get back on his feet. She called an ambulance, and they were on their way to St. Thomas Hospital. My brothers and I and our spouses rushed to join them there.

Dad seemed bewildered and confused. We feared a concussion. CT scans were ordered. A few hours later the ER doctor told us there was a mass on Dad’s brain, and recommended surgery ASAP. The news rocked our worlds.

Out-of-town siblings quickly joined us the next day. Ministers and friends gathered to pray with us. Surgery was scheduled for the following morning. We visited with him before surgery and his dazed condition alarmed us. We hugged each other and cried, fearing the outcome.

Following surgery, the neurosurgeon reported success in removing the tumor and said there would be more tests, but he thought it was benign, not cancerous.

“Has your father’s behavior or personality changed in recent months?” the surgeon asked. He continued to tell us that where the tumor was located, in the frontal lobe of the brain, it would have impacted our father’s self-monitoring capacity and his ability to control his responses to stress. The frontal lobe is considered our behavior and emotional control center and home to our reasoning capacity. There it was – the origin of Grandpa’s Excellent Adventure.

After test results, the surgeon said the tumor wouldn’t grow back, and after a few months, Dad should recover his full function and personality. We would get our beloved father back.

And we did! He returned to us, with the same dry wit, affection, calm demeanor, and wisdom. He remained a devoted father, grandfather, and husband for another six years before cancer took him. He talked of his four-day adventure in only vague references. I was never sure how much he remembered of it.

In the deep recesses of his thoughts, perhaps in his subconscious, was there a desire for one more adventure, a longing to push back against the old man staring at him in the mirror every morning? Were these desires tamped down by his sense of duty, honor, and who he was, until the tumor unleashed them? Maybe.

We all have idle fantasies, but we don’t yield to them. We love our family, our spouse, and our friends too much. We have a code that we live by, but our brains and our bodies can do tricky things to our emotions and our behavior. When they do, we can use a little understanding, patience, and forgiveness.

*****

     John (Jack) Wallace holds degrees from Gateway College and from the University of Tennessee. He's written stories for many years about growing up in the “Christ haunted” South and has one published novel and many short stories, several which have been published in literary journals. 
     Jack lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Joanne, and his red Lab, Lucy. He also spends many long weekends at his cabin in Flat Rock, North Carolina. He is most at home on a trail or fishing a stream somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina or Tennessee.