Patrick R. Neils 8/18/1950 - 8/10/2015

My dad passed away tonight around 6pm.  I have lost both of my fathers in the last 3 years and I must admit to feeling a bit in shock. I don't think it has sunk in yet.

We knew it was coming, this has been a year and a half of extreme health hardship, and another 6 years or so before that of great difficulty. He had been in serious pain since about 2009. He had extreme diabetes, heart problems, kidney problems and a slough of other issues. The kidneys got him in the end. 

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My dad and I were not close in recent years, in fact I would say much of our history was troubled. So tonight as I look back over our 37 1/2 year of history it is a mess of emotion. I'm trying to focus on the good times.  

I remember the times around the piano with me singing to his playing. He loved Musical Theatre and we would spend many hours singing together. He loved opera, classical, jazz and folk, enjoy various traditional ethnic musics from the places he traveled be it klezmer or ancient Chinese tunes. He one time bought speakers out of the back of a van (much to my dismay) and promptly blew them by listening to Coplands Fanfare for the common man. He dragged me to the opera for several years. We went to the Ring Cycle two times together. It was never my thing, but he loved it. I filled up an old iPod with music he liked when he moved to the nursing home, and I hope it brought him comfort. 

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I remember his love of travel. He started taking me places when I was but a babe, and I don't remember a lot of it. He loved telling the story of when I was around two and we went to New Orleans to some restaurant with Jazz and we were sitting at the bar and I was in a booster seat dancing in my chair to the music and some guy kept sending me Shirley Temples and I would wave and smile and keep dancing.  He made it possible for me to go to Egypt and Israel and Chile in High School and helped me go to Australia afterwards. On a whim one year he took me to Amsterdam for thanksgiving. He saw a Betty Boop cafe and barged madly in before I could stop him to explain that cafes were not really coffee shops but places where you could get pot. The look on his face was wonderful, full of shock and dismay and it made me laugh.  He was one of those obvious obnoxious tourists with a big vest covered in buttons of the places he'd been and a huge camera snapped around his neck taking pictures of everything. When I went through the boxes (and I mean boxes) of photos last year there were thousands of photos of buildings and sculptures and this and that.  When he went to China his large size and personality caused people to run up to him and rub his belly and laugh and explain "Happy Buddha!" or "Laughing Buddha!" He loved it. 

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He loved food and wine (perhaps the wine and liquor a little too much). He enjoyed cooking for large groups of people and for years we would have lavish dinner parties. He had a huge table that he and my grandfather had made that would sit up to 15 people. I was allowed to prep ingredients and make desserts but otherwise he was very territorial and had to do everything himself. I never got his spicy coleslaw recipe.. It was the best coleslaw. He didn't know how to cook small, everything he made could feed a crowd. He loved canning too and would can fruits and vegetables, chicken and fish. I came home one time in Junior High to find the big clawfoot tub in the bathroom full of huge tuna. The house smelled for weeks. He loved going to fancy restaurants and living large. 

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He loved theatre. He loved being the star. He directed and acted and was one of the biggest Divas on the planet and I say that with love (and maybe a bit of frustration, he could have done so much if he had set his ego aside). He played Tevye 4 times. It was his favorite role, his favorite play. Last year when he came out of the coma and didn't remember so many things, he still remembered Tevye. We did several shows together, Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Camelot, Fiddler on the Roof, Sound of Music and others. He was the head of the theatre department at Flathead Valley Community College for many years and loved to tell the story of when I was still in diapers I would come to rehearsals and sit and watch, I'd learn all the songs and dances and do them at the side of the stage. He said he would tell the actors "If she can do it, you can do it!". 

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He loved literature. He weaned me on the Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia. He was always reading to me. He loved poetry, and classic literature, he was well read on philosophy, psychiatry, history and several other topics. He was a trivia king. I'm told he used to have trivial pursuit parties. He always won any time I played with him. Even in the nursing home this last year on good days, we would play a trivia game I got for him.  It was one of the few times he showed any animation. 

He loved Cats, to him they were the best creatures. We always had them when I was growing up, at least 1, at max we had 4. He cherished them and spoiled them. They brought him joy in times when he had little other joy. 

He gave me the love of these things Music, Travel, Food and Wine, Theatre and Literature and Cats. 

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He always wanted to be the hero. He wanted to help people. Our home was always open to friends in need of a place. He would lend an ear, offer advice, and happily feed his friends. He taught me the importance of this. 

There was a lot of good in my dad. He was not perfect. He could be controlling, and abusive. He struggled with alcohol and prescribed drug abuse. He could be highly competitive and manipulative. 


But tonight I will focus on the good things and the happy memories and be very glad that he is out of pain and misery. Goodbye Dad. I Love you.