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Fifteen years crawled by before my brother and I talked about Bob again.  Over beers, we talked about a great man.  We recalled great memories as well as our fear for his belt when a necessary whooping was in the order.   That man loved my brother and me as if we were his own children.  He was hard but fair, and we credit our hard work ethic and respectful demeanor to his parenting.  I do not remember him being perfect, but he always took care of our family.  He taught my brother and me how to be boys, how to shoot guns, fish, and burn meat on the grill.  He was a great Dad!
My brother and I have been planning for the past five years to meet in Iowa so that we could go visit Bob because we have not spoken to him for twenty years.  We want to tell him how much we appreciate him, and to know that we see through Mom’s BS.  We will never get the opportunity to tell him, because Bob died last year.  In his obituary, his family listed my brother and me as surviving children.  I will always bear a guilty feeling, and we will always want to know if he knew my brother and I appreciated him as much as we do.  No one ever thanked him, like “Those Winter Sundays.”


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Forever a Hanging Pang of Guilt
My stepdad was a hardworking man!  His name was Bob, and he spent his days pulling loads of concrete down the Iowa highways for days at a time to put food on the table.  He was a pureblood Cajun redneck born somewhere in Louisiana.  I never saw that man hurt my mom, but she dramatically claims he did, and that was the reason she had to leave him.  I have my doubts.
My mother and father split when I was three years old.  My brother and I are a year and a half apart; I am the eldest.  After my mother and father split, she married Bob, and our visitations with our father were not frequent; sometimes only every other summer or Christmas.  Growing up over the years, Bob was our Dad, and we proudly referred to him as such.  I can still see the images of him, that are embedded in my brain, sitting in his chair watching Dale Earnhardt races and smoking his “weeds."  My stepdad raised my brother and me to junior high school, when my mom divorced him.  I was about fourteen years old when that change set us on a path that put Bob in the rearview mirror.
 
I don’t know exactly what happened between my mom and Bob, but the manner in which she left him was very shady.  One day, he drove to Louisiana to visit ma-ma and pa-pa, and while he was gone my mom recruited all of her closest friends to help her move out, on the pretext that she couldn’t do it when he was home because he was a dangerous man.  Days later he came home to an empty house.  
I love my mom, and one thing I have learned over the years is that she thrives off of exaggerated drama!  When she left Bob, it seemed his world shattered.  I watched a great man I grew to call Dad melt into a pool of tears and alcohol.  When my mom left him, she moved in with the man she had been having an affair with, and never looked back.  She constantly talked bad about Bob and at times sought our approval for her decision to leave him.  Sometimes it seemed as if she felt guilty.  

Lori I am so sorry to see that your father passed. Your family is in my thoughts and prayers....

Jeff,  So sorry to hear of your father's passing.  Mark, the kids, and I send our heartfelt condolences and pray that you find comfort and healing in his memory.

Cheryl and Lori, I am so sorry to learn about your father's passing. My heartfelt condolences and prayers to you and your families. May  you remember all the happy times that you had together.

OBITUARIO

Bobby Frank McClendon

10 enero, 1938 – 4 junio, 2015

The Runge Mortuary & Crematory

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