The Family Finale

This was originally published on May 14, 2020.

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One of the things that Dad was most proud of showing off to people was how quickly he could muster the family to gather. He has been dead now for nearly twenty-eight years, and so has the family unity that died with him. It didn't have to die, but it did.

I think the erosion of the family was mostly due to regret. I cannot get into the heads of people, but I can listen to what they say and observe what they do to figure out if they are being honest. If they say one thing, and then do another thing, they aren't being honest. It isn't rocket science; it's human behavior. Actions generally reveal more about people's motives than do words.

Remembering Dad: His Newsletter Obituary

December 1992 
Issue 237 

WAYNE C. KOECKE 
1932-1992

With much of his family and several friends at his side, Wayne Koecke died at his home on December 16th. His vigil for life, and battle against cancer, ended on a snowy evening in a room by a window that several of his grandkids had built a snowman just outside of in hopes of raising his spirits just one more time. Somehow, we think it did. 

Remembering Dad: Thirty Years Ago Tonight

This was originally written on December 16, 2022.

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It was a snowy Wednesday evening when Dad took his last breath thirty years ago tonight. Though it was the most significant loss I had suffered in my first thirty-four years, my initial feeling was relief. We had pulled off Dad's wishes despite it being a harrowing six weeks since he suffered the stroke that really was the lung cancer metastasizing in his brain. He wanted to die at home, and he did.

It was my night to stay with him and my brother's night off. Our godfather, Loren, and godbrother, Tim, also rotated staying with us. There is no way that we could have pulled it off without them, and neither of them ever complained about the help he needed. After all, he was their loved one, also. 

Pondering Death and Its Options

Intellectually, I know that I will eventually die. However, there is this little part of me that wonders if I might be that special someone who somehow defies death. If you will excuse the source if it bothers you, Woody Allen said it best: "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying." It is natural to feel that way because of our basic instinct for survival, but it is also intellectually dishonest to hold onto the thought for anything other than fantasy.

While we hold onto those thoughts in one part of our minds, another part of us wants to be adventurous and to live life to the fullest. James Dean's self-fulfilling quote, "Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse," takes the idea to the opposite end of the spectrum of life and death from immortality. While most of us don't go anywhere near that far in our pursuit of adventure, we tend to tie the will to live to having a life worth living.

Remembering Mom: Her Trips to the Cemetery

There was no pain that Mom carried in her heart greater than the pain of losing David, her youngest child. He was born in early December 1964 and died the next March at three-and-a-half months old. 

I was seven when David died. Mom and Dad let us view his body lying in state, which is the most vivid image of David that I retain, but we weren't allowed to go to his funeral. He spent so little time at home that we never got to know or play with him. 

More vivid than the image of David in his coffin are the images of the many times Mom walked across the uneven ground of Lullaby Land to put flowers on his grave. Her regular trips to the cemetery began on her birthday in 1965. Her birthday, and David's birthday and date of death, became ritualistic for her and Dad to visit David's grave. In 1993, she added Dad's dates of birth and death, and we children became her support system accompanying her to our brother's grave and our father's crypt. 

Remembering Dad: Was it a Prank?

I don’t remember the date, but the year was 1980. I know that because it was election season, and Governor Ray was running for re-election, which made this the perfect time for someone to pull this prank.

We were in his office discussing some business when the phone rang. He answered it.

"I wouldn’t pay fifty dollars to spend the whole night with her," he said just before he slammed the phone down!

Remembering Dad: The Day May Got Him

Dad loved his family and his friends. He would go out of his way to help them on a moment’s notice. He also loved practical jokes and Sears, and May took advantage of all that this day.

May showed up at the office unexpectedly one day. She was always welcome, but this day she seemed to have a reason. She appeared agitated, so Dad invited her into his office to vent a bit.

"I’m so upset with Sears," she told him.

He assured her that Sears always makes good on any customer complaint, and always honors its warranties.

Remembering Dad: His Camera Collection

I remember the trips to Goodwill when I was a child. I always tried to sit in the center of the front bench seat when we would make the trip in his 1962 Pontiac Safari wagon. It had a type of stick shift that was known as three-on-the-tree, which meant that the three-speed transmission was shifted with a lever that came out of the steering column. I wanted that seat because Dad would let me shift the gears during the trip there and back. We would be going to Goodwill for two things: books and cameras. 

Dad bought thousands of non-fiction books over the years and built quite a library where he could slip away to read a twenty-nine-cent book about a WWII battle written by somebody who was there.

However, it wasn't the shelves and shelves of books in his library that would catch your eye. It was his display of the several hundred cameras he salvaged from the as-is bin of old cameras, most of which he paid less than a dollar for and still worked. He took great pride in his collection that he showed frequently to friends and family, especially if he wanted them to see cameras that he may have paid two or three dollars for since they last saw it.

I am Creating the Wayne Koecke Memorial Camera Collection

No one will ever know the truth about why Mom chose to hoard everything, which led to a huge mess to deal with when the time inevitably came to deal with things. I understood the sentimental value that Mom placed on Dad's camera collection, but I never understood why I was the only person in the family who placed a value higher than sentiment on the collection.

Dad's collection included two-to-three hundred cameras that he would pick up at Goodwill and other sources. It seemed to me that the best way to honor Dad was to loan or donate some of the best cameras to museums and to put some in displays where he was known. 

What happened was the collection remained in Dad's library room, where it collected a lot of dust. 

Remembering Dad: Looking Back on the Night He Planned His Funeral

Dad was 58 years old when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was referred to an oncologist who told him that he had to quit smoking if he wanted an operation to remove the cancer, but that he should now get his final affairs in order regardless of his decision to quit smoking or not. Without the operation, his condition was terminal.

Mom immediately quit smoking cigarettes, and she enforced the non-smoking rule on Dad when she caught him smoking some old pipe tobacco that he had put on the shelves years before when smoking a pipe was his thing. Dad reluctantly cooperated, but he truly did quit smoking for the last two years of his life.

Remembering Mom: Meeting Loren Hancock

Mom was quite active in the PTA when we were in school. She served several years as the president of the PTA at Fawcett elementary school. They would hold their regular meetings at the school, and she was often down at Central school attending school board meetings. However, for special events, planning committees would form and meet at the home of one of the members. It was probably 1968 that the Halloween party planning committee met at the home of Elaine Hancock. 

When Mom got home from the meeting, it was not the plans for the party she wanted to tell Dad about. What shocked her, and probably all the other mothers in attendance, was what Elaine's crazy husband, Loren, said. Mom told Dad that the meeting had pretty much ended, and the group had begun talking about costumes they were going to wear. Loren walked in on that discussion. 

"You'll never believe what he said," she told him. "He said you can all shove sticks up your asses and go as popsicles." 

Remembering Mom: Her First Mother's Day in Heaven

David was born in December of 1964 and died in March of 1965 at three-and-a-half months old. I cannot imagine how much pain Mom must have felt that first Mother's Day without him. She never lost the grief of losing him. Some of my most vivid memories of Mom are walking with her over the uneven ground in Lullaby Land so she could place flowers on his grave. 

At first, she would go on the anniversaries of his birth and death, plus Memorial Day, which is really close to her birthday. Dad honored and adopted the tradition until his death in 1992. 

Yvonne Koecke (1935-2020): Third Eerie Premonition About Death Came True

Mom told me that she didn't fear death; she feared the mode of death. When she explained the difference, it didn't have anything to do with her cause of death. It had to do with the third of her three eerie premonitions that came true. I'll get back to that.

Mom was born on May 31st, 1935, in Leith, North Dakota. Her parents, Roy "Clair" and Dorothy Kamrath packed everything up that July and moved to Oregon with their oldest child. 

She told us tales about growing up in the logging camps, and various homes and farms, as her father moved the family seeking regular work during the Great Depression. The family would grow with Clarence, Bill, and Eileen added to the pack. Pa, as we used to call him, found regular employment with Oregon State College in Corvallis, and the family settled into its permanent home.

Remembering Dad: His Magic Garage

Dad was both an introvert and creative. He loved the time he spent downstairs reading, in his darkroom developing black and white family photos, and out in his yard making park-like scenes for family relaxation.

Despite his thousands of books, hundreds of cameras, and dozens of silent movies, his grandchildren loved his magic garage most! He had various sets up in the rafters that depicted different holidays or scenes of Americana. It was all controlled by a box with about two dozen plugs and switches wired into a framework that was about 12 inches by 18 inches and built from 2X4s. It worked, and also probably frightened any electrician who ever saw it!

Remembering Dad: Lunches with Ron MacDonald

Dad was proud to be a Marine. He would defend the Marine Corps against all other branches - except when we had lunch with Ron MacDonald. Ron was a client who worked at Westop Credit Union, and had retired from the Army as a Sergeant Major. Like Dad, Ron served during the Korean War. He also served during the Vietnam War.

Remembering Dad: He Loved Trivia, But Not Trivial Pursuit

The most difficult speech I ever gave was Dad’s eulogy. He told me he wanted me to do it shortly after learning he had cancer on the night the funeral director came over so he could get his and Mom’s arrangements out of the way. He wanted it to be light, and he wanted it to be about him.

Remembering Dad: The Rice Salad Standoff

Dad always sat at the head of the table with Maureen to his left and me to his right. I don’t remember everything we had for dinner that evening, but rice salad was part of the menu.

Dad had the bowl of it in his hand when Maureen spoke saying she didn’t want any. I added, "Me neither! It looks yucky!"

There were two quick plops of it, one on her plate and one on mine. Dad’s instructions were succinct: "Eat it."

Now there were certainly times and places to pick battles with Dad, and this was one of those times! Maureen and I could sit united in defiance of his instructions, and go on a partial hunger strike!

Remembering Dad: He Always had a List

I cannot say for certain that the stock value of the company that owned those spiral topped, pocket sized notebooks fell when Dad died in December of 1992, but it is a cinch that the number of sales of that particular item dropped.

Remembering Dad: His System of Cycling Junk

Dad was a collector of many things. He had his old cameras, his library, his painted engine collection, and hundreds of his favorite movies on VHS tapes. He was highly creative at using junk in wonderful displays, like his magic garage. However, he also was organized, and did not like junk hanging around the house.

Mom enjoyed many of his collections, and tolerated others. She also does not like junk hanging around the house, but her definition of junk differed from Dad’s definition of junk.

Remembering Dad: The Newspaper Beating

I don’t know what compelled me to sit on the porch and yell "Mr. and Mrs. Elephant" at Mr. and Mrs. Anderson as they were leaving their house and getting into their car that day. I do know, however, that I regretted it the moment I saw them heading across the street toward our house.