Clutter in Beer Land!

What a weird experience. I was standing against a wall, watching people shuffle around the room. I glanced over at him. He looked calm and peaceful, maybe for the first time ever, lying there in his black belt.

I hadn't cried since the week before when he had passed. But that week was a mess and I cried a lot. I had been working on a packaging line at a crappy little brewery in the middle of no where. I talked to him almost every day on the phone and he sounded fine, but that day he called and asked when I would be coming to see him. I dropped everything and left.

By the time I got there, he was in a coma. I could feel him holding on. I could hear it in his rattled breathing. His wife had been with him and she left the room when I came in and gave us a moment alone. I held his hand and even in this fragile state, it was still huge. I told him that I loved him and that he had been the best dad ever. I told him that it was okay to go. We sat for a moment longer and then his wife joined us again. With me on one side and her on the other, he took a breath in and then he was gone.

“You doing okay Buddy?” I asked my son who had wandered in my direction. I gave him a hug. He was much taller than me now and it was difficult to get used to. “Yeah” he replied shortly, the way teenagers do, and then walked away.

The room was beautiful. I had been there before. I remembered it as a child, from my granddads funeral. It was elegant and classy. And there were so many people there. More than I would have thought. I never really saw my dad socialize in large groups of people. I saw him address rooms full of people and crowds of people, but this seemed different.

His Judo friends all showed up in their referee uniforms. That made me smile. He had told me all my life that he wanted to be buried in his black belt. Here they were and here he was, wearing his black belt.

Not that anyone is every prepared for the passing of their parent, loosing my dad came much too soon for me. He had first been diagnosed ten years earlier. I remember the day. He asked me to meet him at the dojo and we sat in the front seat of his Ford as he told me. “I have prostate cancer. Now, I don't want you to worry and they are going to treat it, but I wanted you to know.”

As usual, I freaked out. My dad was my support system. I didn't know why but my mom just never had time for me. Looking back I'd say its a mixture of a lot of things, among them post-pardem depression and subsequent substance abuse. But that was par for the course in our family. And I'm not a doctor. But dad never mentioned it. He just picked up the slack where mom left off.

After my parents divorce when I was 14, initially my brothers and I lived with our mother. Then not too long after, I went to live with my dad. When I became a young mother myself, my dad often inserted himself in my life in ways that I thought to be overbearing. Looking back, I'm grateful.

Now, here I was. Standing next to his casket, ten years later yet far too soon. What would I do now? My kid was legally an adult. He had almost finished school and was on his way to a career. I didn't so much as have a career myself, rather a series of interesting accidents it seemed. I had managed to make my way through a few breweries at that point but I hadn't really found my footing in the industry and I was not in a good place.

The weeks after my dads funeral were a blur. Another promising brewing opportunity had fallen through, leaving me sleeping in my friends guest room. Feeling like nothing made sense, I opened my computer and started looking for a new job.

I saw an ad online for a brewery in Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam. They were looking for a brewer. They were just expanding from home brew size to a 500L system. On a whim, I sent a resume. I had fancy college degrees and plenty of brewing experience. I had always loved science and when I found the brewing industry (completely on accident), I was hooked. But that is a story for a different day.

He wrote back pretty quickly. After probably not enough conversation and virtually no background check, they bought me a one way plane ticket. I stuck around America long enough to sell the few things left that I owned, give my car to my kid and watch Hilary lose. I left for Vietnam the next day.