My Father’s Birthday
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on April 7th, 2016
Reposting this from two years ago…
Today is my father’s birthday, the first one that he is no longer here to share.
Last year, I shared the news of his passing here on Cryptomundo, five days after his last birthday:
What I didn’t share in that post was one of the more personal details regarding his passing.
For years, I had tried to get him to watch my favorite film, The Shawshank Redemption.
I even bought him a copy on VHS, as he was a late DVD adopter, but still, for whatever reason, he couldn’t get into it to watch more than the first few minutes.
As he lay in his hospital bed on his 74th birthday, he was flipping channels on the hospital TV, only to come across the film as it was just starting.
As he later related after finally watching it, he realized that he was “supposed” to watch it.
And watch it, as well as enjoy it, he did.
After watching it, he agreed with me that it was indeed the best ending to a movie ever.
But it also had another effect on him.
It put him at ease. An ease regarding his situation and an ease to make a decision that up to that point was fearful and full of apprehension for him.
I won’t belabor the point, but he was now at ease with determining what his next course of action was, and to not fear and fight it anymore.
Suffice to say, he passed peacefully five days later, no longer in fear of what lay ahead of him…
Before this, this was my favorite film of all time.
I didn’t believe that it could mean more to me than it already did.
I had no idea how wrong I was…
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
It’s certainly Stephen King at his tiptop best. I’m not normally a fan of his work. He’s so prolific I always imagined a bank of writers who graduated from the Stephen King School of Writing, while he raked in the big bucks.
I’m still not sure that’s not the case.