Robert H. Reynolds

I'd like to tell you about my dad, Bob Reynolds. He was 64 at the time of his sudden death, apparently the result of a massive heart attack.

I remember many details of that Saturday afternoon. There was a light rain falling; my wife and I both happened to be at home. The telephone rang - it was my mother, with an unusual tremble in her normally calm voice. "Dan, I… think your dad may have died here, he's on the patio… He's not moving, not breathing…" I could hear the sirens in the background. And, the next thing I knew, we were on the expressway racing over to my parents' home a few miles away. Will they be able to revive him? What if this is it? I'd just seen him the day before - it was their wedding anniversary - he seemed all right then...

We could see the commotion ahead as we turned onto their subdivision street. Emergency vehicles, flashing lights, medical personnel scurrying back and forth with hand-held radios. I parked about a hundred yards away and ran across the wet grass, stumbling and falling as I ran, knowing I couldn't help, but wanting to be there just in case.

He was still on the chaise lounge where my mother had found him, unresponsive, only a few minutes earlier. I will always remember seeing both of his fists clenched tightly - as though he had braced himself for some kind of impact. They remained clenched the entire time the emergency team was there, trying to revive him, finally lifting him onto a stretcher and putting him into the ambulance.

Suddenly, they were gone - the EMTs, the equipment, the emergency vehicles… and my dad. It was very quiet.

My mother sat at the kitchen table as we prepared to leave for the hospital. We knew dad wouldn't make it through this one and, even if he did, nothing would ever be the same. I made a couple of difficult phone calls to my sisters, and then we were on our way.

When we arrived, a doctor approached us and explained that they hadn't succeeded in reviving him. They suspected he had been dead for almost an hour by then, far too long to expect any sort of recovery. We asked that they make no further attempts to revive him. They let us see him one last time, and then we returned to the waiting room to start the paperwork.

As my mother and I were reviewing various documents, I remember we were approached about donating my dad's eyes, organs and tissues. We'd never discussed it; at least, not in any meaningful way. But my mother and I wasted no time in consenting to the donation. Of course he would want to donate anything anyone could use.

I couldn't help but dwell on the fact that the life of this man - a man who had worked as a farmer, served in the US Air Force, built and flew his own airplanes, become a highly respected automotive engineer and corporate executive and, ultimately, taught me how to be who I am - ended here. Consenting to donate his eyes, organs and tissues was the only way I could imagine sustaining the tremendous momentum of his life.

Depression years in Cameron County, Texas

My dad's life began on a south Texas farm during the depression. He was the 12th of 13 children, and his folks put him to work as soon as he was able. He learned how to take care of himself at an early age, bearing all the responsibilities of an adult and then some. He was running most of the farm machinery by age 10 and, by the time he was 12, he'd salvaged an old jalopy and was driving the family's farm produce to town. His older siblings had already gone their separate ways, for the most part, leaving him with many of the chores.

Upon entering high school, dad wanted desperately to play football, but his dad - my grandfather - opposed the idea. His older brother, my uncle, had to step in and convince the elder Reynolds that young Bobby could manage both chores and football practice. He worked hard, played hard and occasionally found trouble, as kids often did. But he grew up with a great deal of character - honesty, strength, intelligence, respect. No matter what else he may have forgotten along the way, he always retained those qualities.

My grandfather died when my dad was just 17. But by his 18th birthday, Dad had joined the Air Force, and went on to serve overseas during the Korean War. He was a flight engineer in one of the target squadrons, where he developed a love of planes and of flying. His mechanical aptitude served him well, and it was in the Air Force that he began learning about electrical systems and other engineering principles.

Building a life

After his discharge from the USAF, Dad returned to the States and worked for two years on a farm near Williamston, Michigan. He began taking classes at Michigan State University, where he met my mother. After deciding he'd had enough of farming (and of school), he headed for Detroit and landed a job at Western Electric. He married my mother in 1958 and, shortly thereafter, found work at the Chrysler Corporation's Dodge Main plant in Hamtramck.

I've always been fond of a line from one of Paul Simon's songs. It explains how Detroit had "a left-handed way of making a man sign up on that automotive dream". That really sums up what it was like, especially during those years.

It didn't take Dad long to establish himself at Chrysler. His Air Force training came in handy in the plant's Switch Lab, where automotive electrical switches were designed and tested. If you've ever used an automotive cigarette lighter - you know, the one that has the metal coil winding inside - that was my Dad's design. The old lighters used to get very hot to the touch, so he came up with the winding to reduce the heat transmitted to the lighter handle. (Okay, so he didn't exactly invent the light bulb... but it's still one more invention than most of us can claim.)

Dad enjoyed his early work with Chrysler, and also retained his love of aviation. During the 1960s, he bought and rebuilt three airplanes - a Piper Cub, a Cessna 172 and a Beech Bonanza. He'd occasionally fly the entire family from Detroit to South Texas, in a plane he'd overhauled himself, to visit his relatives. It must have been quite an adventure.

By the late '60s and early '70s, around the time I was born, my dad had sold off his last airplane. Sadly, he never piloted a plane again after that, as much as I know he would've liked to. However, he did become active on the School Board as a trustee, and was a driving force in improving the teaching staff at the local junior high and high schools. In fact, his accomplishments with the teachers were featured in a Time magazine article that year. Never forgetting his own high school love of football, he also lobbied to have lights installed at the high school football field so the team could play night games.

In 1972, my dad bought some remote wooded acreage on a northern Michigan island and introduced us to camping. The rest of my family was lukewarm on the idea, but I loved it from day one. I think he did, too. As I grew older, my dad and I worked together to clear roads and build a small cabin, among other things. That's where he and I really "clicked" with one another - he knew I liked the place, and I was always eager to be there with him. I still have the property and use it often.

Dad moved on to product engineering at Chrysler. Still intent on earning a college degree (and being someone who finished everything he'd ever started), he returned to school, taking classes at night after working all day. He finally attained his goal in 1978 with a Business degree from the University of Detroit. Even though he was nearly 50, he was proud to be a college graduate at last, and continued developing his career at Chrysler. When the Hamtramck plant closed in 1981, he was appointed Liaison to Chrysler of Mexico. Having grown up in south Texas 15 miles from the Mexican border, he was fluent in Spanish and could converse readily with his Mexican colleagues.

Also in 1981, my dad suffered his first heart attack. He'd been a smoker for decades, and wasn't happy about having to quit. He had always been quick-tempered and, although he was once a gaunt, skinny man, he'd become seriously overweight and his blood pressure skyrocketed. His temper grew even worse. It didn't take him long to take up smoking again.

The beginning of the end

It was a sobering time. I was still a teenager when Dad took an early retirement from Chrysler. His blood pressure medication, combined with other physiological factors, had left him constantly feeling tired and irritable. More disturbing was that it seemed to cause a gradual deterioration of his mind, and at a relatively young age. His personality began to fade, almost unnoticeably, and his behavior often resembled that of someone the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. I'll never forget working on my first car and asking him a simple electrical question - one he could've answered in his sleep 15 years earlier. He pondered the question for a few moments, looked at me with a mist in his eye, then shook his head and said, "Son, I just don't remember."

I think the way he died was a blessing in disguise. It was quick: no hospitalization, no suffering, no further loss of his faculties. He was still living a reasonably normal life - driving, reading, gardening, traveling - right up until his death. But it was too soon. He never met his beautiful granddaughters, whom he would have loved and enjoyed so much.

Every year, his large backyard garden was full of corn and tomatoes. The farmer in him never disappeared, and he loved that garden. He'd always give large baskets of his produce to the neighbors and to each of us. He died before that year's planting was done, so we finished it and watched the last of his corn and tomatoes grow.

The captain of his soul

Invictus, a poem by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), carried a lot of meaning for my dad:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

My dad was a great man, and there will never be another man for whom I have more respect or admiration. I miss him every day.

Dan Reynolds