In the Beginning

Fortunate
Dad
The Crash
My Story
The Memorial Ride (Plan A)

Fortunate

Before all this sadness starts I would like to clarify something. I am fortunate. So many people grow up with fathers they don't like, much less love. So many people grow up not even knowing their father. I am fortuante to have a man in my life that formed my very being and gave me a good time along the way.

This is not a "woe is me story, " although I do hope to tug a few heart strings to impact somebody enough to change a decision somewhere. This is my story and on a larger scale, my family's story. A family that I am fortunate to have.

Dad

Dad and I always had a good relationship. A guy relationship, the kind where silence was alright, sometimes preferred, and sometimes even oddly expressive. We seemed to have an automatic understanding of each other, I knew what he meant when he said something, I knew what he meant when he chose not to say something. He knew the meaning behind my words. It was very rare that we would find us chatting away due to the fact that were both men of relatively few words and when we communicated, even less needed to be said.

A handshake or a slap on the back was about as physically expressive as we got, but that is all we needed. I know that he loved me, and I hope that he knew I loved him to. Even so, love was not the strongest emotion we shared. Pride was. There were times when he would be so overwhelmingly proud of me that he would actually start to cry. From talking to his friends, it seemed that the one thing that he could talk about at length with anybody was how proud he was of his boys. I am fiercely proud to be his son. Proud of the lessons he taught me and the values that he instilled in me. Proud to carry on his legacy in how I live my life. I strove to make him proud of me when he was living and I continue to strive to live a life that he would be proud of.

This section my seem scarce, but the impact that he had on my live is not. He resides in my heart and sole, not my words, they are not big enough for him.

The Crash

In the early hours of Tuesday, September 14 my father, David Pruess passed away as a result of a motorcycle accident a day and a half before. My mother, Judy Pruess lay in a hospital bed with two pelvic fractures, a fractured bone just below her knee and a cracked rib.

Touring on the Harley was a hobby and a lifestyle for dad, and to certain extent, mom. It was his release and passion; his utopia. It brought him and mom closer together. The only thing that could have been better is if he enjoyed it with a helmet, but that was his decision. To him and many other bikers, wearing a helmet was a restriction on the unbridled freedom of the open road on a bike.

On a clear and sunny Sunday afternoon mom and dad were out for a ride on the Harley near Nucla, about 100 south of Grand Junction, Colorado, where they had moved just months previous to the accident. Nucla was the location of one of dad's branch stores and the future sight of a very large project. He had been there many times on the same roads, once with me.

They were returning home when they came upon a rise in the road that crested and almost immediately took a sharp right. A curve that he had undoubtedly taken several times before in his previous travels. This particular curve had been the site of three motorcycle accidents that week. Attempts had been made to mark the curve better, but each surviving motorcyclist did not recall seeing the signs before going into the curve.

Dad entered the corner too fast and lost control, laying the bike down on it's side. The momentum carried the bike and my parents off the road andinto a gravel lot. Mom remembered only that something was not right as they entered the turn, she did the best she could to stay still and let dad handle the bike. Her next memory was of laying on the ground, looking up at the sky and simply feeling that something was not right. She was wearing a helmet, dad was not.

Dad had sustained considerable brain damage. Mom was in stable condition and was able to be with him in the hospital. He could not talk or move well, but when mom took his hand he squeezed her hand- knowing it was her. He was put into an induced coma to keep him from waking up and doing more damage to himself. He remained in the coma for a day and then went into cardiac arrest and died a short time later.

Why do I bother with this? Somebody will learn something from reading it, plain and simple. Dad was an organ donor. I believe it is safe to say that he would have liked to be an experience donor too.

My Story

I got the phone call from Mom about the accident on Saturday night. I did not even have to pick up the phone to know something was wrong. She simply said that there had been an accident and dad was in an induced coma with severe brain damage, she had some broken bones, and that Adam and I should be out to Colorado soon. I went into immediate denial and I knew it. I tried to stay positive, but I chose not to listen to what my heart was telling me- that I would soon be without a father.

As a product of me not wanting to face reality, it took me 10 hours longer that it should have to start the trip to Colorado. I left Hutchinson, Minnesota on Monday night by car. I was getting periodic updates from mom and Dennis, my uncle, who had caught the first flight out. Each update worse than the last, and it was apparent that I needed to be there quicker than what the speed limits would allow. Instead of driving to Colorado I changed course to the Kansas City Airport, and arranged to meet my brother Adam on the way, who was at his first month of college at Truman State in Kirksville, Missouri.

Just after midnight on Monday, six hours after I left, Dennis called to tellme that dad had passed on. Another three hours passed before I met up with Adam, and then another three passed before we lifted off from Kansas City. Adam was in the same distant emotional state as me and we talked about anything but what was actually happening. We met Bill Wyant, a long time family friend from Iowa in the Denver Airport, his wife, Rona, was the one who made Adam and my flight arrangements. We touched down in Grand Junction Mid-morning and Dennis came to pick us up at the airport.

I had slept for fifteen minutes the night before. Every time I cried, stress headaches gripped my forehead and attempted to push my eyes out of their sockets. The lack of sleep, stress, emotion, and pain pushed me into a semi-coherent daze that felt like a constant head rush after standing up to quickly. We were waiting impatiently for mom to get back from x-ray. I wanted to see dad, but was advised to wait and see him at the funeral home for my benefit. I reluctantly accepted.

Mom was finally wheeled up to her room. At first it was hard to see her through the bumps, bruises, braces and tubes. I bent over to give her a phantom hug in an effort to not hurt her any further, until she told me to hurry up and give her a hug in a straining and almost inaudible voice. She was in bad shape and heavily drugged... but alive.

At that point it became so starkly clear that I had much work to do. The sheer amount of things to deal with shocked me into automatic acceptance. It felt as though the world was placed on my shoulders. I remember thinking at that moment "Dad is dead, mom is in bad shape, and Adam is going back to school soon. It's the Ben show from here on out." I immediately went into business mode to make sure mom, the family finances, and new the house being built would be taken care of. Don't get me wrong, I would not want the burden fall anywhere else but on my shoulders and I proudly accepted the responsibility. However, that does not mean that the sheer weight of the situation absolutely floored me for a while.

The rest of the day was spent spinning wheels in an attempt to get my mind around the situation. I was incredibly fortunate to have Dennis and Bill there, they were invaluable as counsel and teammates. They steered me towards the smarter decisions when I wanted to make foolhardy principle driven stands, among other things. Thank you Dennis. Thank you Bill.

First thing the second morning we had an attorney draw up a Power of Attorney for me so I could act on mom's behalf- and there was a lot to act on.

Mom and dad were building a house in Fruita on a purchased lot, the drywall had just gone up. The house would have been perfect for them- they designed it that way. A big garage and back porch for dad, plenty of storage and an office for mom, even a field of wildflowers and prairie grass for the dog. A view never to be deprived of the Colorado National Monument.

I had visions of staying in Colorado to finish and sell the house while mom was back in Iowa rehabbing. As it ended up we got some help from Dan Dan the Attorney man to "sell" the property back to the developer, Rick Wagner the third day in Grand Junction.

While I am on the subject. Rick, your actions in dealing with myself and my family were absolutely and irrevocably conceited. Your actions lacked compassion to the point that they not only offended our family but astounded your professional affiliates involved in the housing industry. I Hope you are proud of yourself.

The next step was to get things arranged for mom. She had a place to live in Colorado, but no home and no family. The only answer in my mind was to get her back to Iowa. I did not bother to ask her, business mode remember? Later she agreed with some reluctance, that Iowa would probably be the best place for her rehabilitation.

The health plan she was on covered services only in Colorado, which for anybody else under the company's HMO plan would have been fine. I took on the HMO to get her rehabilitation paid for in Iowa. Long story short, we were up and down, but ultimately declined. However, it turned out that moving to Iowa and paying for rehab out of pocket made much more financial sense than staying in Colorado for rehab.

Eventually we got the hot tub and some furniture sold or consigned so I could cram every worldly possession into a 26 foot u-haul and truck back to Iowa, narrowly avoiding a blizzard in the Rockies the morning after Halloween. Soon after, mom was settled in at her mom's house for the next couple months, for better or worse.

Thank you to everybody in the Chaplin's office at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction. They went out of their way to comfort us and even allowed us to hold a memorial in their chapel because mom could not leave the Hospital.

The memorial was a much needed closure to everybody involved. Even though Dave had only been in Fruita for four months, he had made quite an impact on the company and it's people. The memorial, adorned with flowers from mom's room and overflowing with mourners was a fitting ceremony for dad. Adam and I had put together a disc of his favorite songs and mom wanted to be sure that Willie Nelson's On the Road Again and Roy Rogers' Happy Trails as people left. How fitting the songs were to the occasion was almost spooky.

I felt the weight melt off my shoulders after the memorial. I did not know how much I needed to simply pay my respects. As the people left, the resounding sentiment was that they did not know if they would be strong enough to give eulogies in the situation that Adam and I did. I could not see how someone would not want to honor their father as we did.

The funeral in Iowa three weeks after the accident was just as needed by dad's friends and family in Iowa. I on the other hand had said my piece and now faced another couple hundred sad faces, opening up my wounds as I was trying to heal. For every sad eyed "how are YOU doing" I strained not to reply with a curt "I'd be doing a whole lot better if people would quit asking me how the hell I'm doing." But I refrained, thankfully. I am better now, really. You don't need to ask any more.

The Memorial Ride (Plan A)

While in Colorado, it dawned on me that the only thing that I regretted notdoing with dad was riding with him. He derived so much joy from riding, and it had been something that I had long wanted to do, but lacked the finances to get a bike of my own. As far as regrets go, I think I did pretty damn good.

I don't expect you to understand this, but at least try to accept it. The closest I was going to get to riding with my father, was to take his bike on a memorial ride. I set out to get my motorcycle license and start planning for my trip from Grand Junction, Colorado to the Twin Cities before telling mom.

No I did not have a license, nor much experience with motorcycles, and still don't. I never said it was smart. I said it was something I felt strongly compelled to do. The weight of the situation is not lost on me.

I told mom and to my surprise, there was no resistance. She did not like it, but she understood completely. Mother nature thought differently though and the memorial ride was postponed due to weather. Now it's fate is much grander, a tour more fitting of dad's style, and without the time restraints that would have brought unwanted pressure to a leisurely ride.

This site, "Head South" is the chronicle of Memorial Ride Plan B.