Goodbye to my dad:
Bruce Harvey Karnopp
June 13, 1938 - Jan 1, 2017
Bruce Harvey Karnopp
June 13, 1938 - Jan 1, 2017
When I was really young, I thought my dad was the most amazing man in the world. When kids would compare their dads to mine and say their dad was better than my dad, I knew they were wrong. My dad was a teacher, a doctor, and an engineer. In my young mind I thought it was so cool when he left for work in the morning I imagined him driving a train to work, teaching kids math, and then going to his doctor's office to heal people. As I got older I learned the difference between a PhD and an MD, and that he wasn't the type of engineer who drives a train. I was a little disappointed that I would never get to ride in the front of the train with him, but it didn't change my opinion of him.
As I got older and started working in the tech field, I realized just how cool it was to have a father that went to MIT. In the U.S. MIT is the engineering school mecca, and I was really proud to have a father that went there. My dad didn't really like being an engineer. He worked for a couple of companies as an engineer, but it really wasn't what he wanted. He loved teaching, and he was very comfortable in academia. In actuality, he was more fascinated in the math of engineering than the design aspects.
My brother and I were born in Canada while my dad was teaching at the University of Toronto. My brother John was born with Downs Syndrome, so when my dad was looking for a new job, the University of Michigan was one of his top choices. Washtenaw County had plans to build a new school for special needs kids, so we moved to Ann Arbor right around 1970. My sister was born right after we moved here, and my brother did end up going to High Point School as soon as it opened. My dad remained in Ann Arbor as a professor of mechanical engineering at U of M for his entire career.
My dad really had two great loves in his life, his family and teaching. I wouldn't say that my father was the best father in the world, but he wasn't a bad father by any means. He loved his family more than anything, and his faults were because he loved us so much. As an example, when I was young, my dad bought a couple of gloves and a softball. He took me to a park and he tried to teach me to play catch. At one point the ball hit me in the mouth and I got a bloody lip and cried. My dad felt so bad about hurting me, we never played ball again. My dad and I both learned from this experience, and I can say he was an awesome grandfather as a result. When my daughter Sarah first started calling him grandpa, he was a little reluctant, but he warmed to it pretty quickly. He played a lot with my kids especially my son, and really tried to do things differently with them.
He and my mom were together until his death which is a pretty big deal these days. My dad always referred to my mom as his "Wonder Wife" and loved her with all his heart. He had nicknames for all of the kids. My brother was Turnip, and my sister was Itsy which was short for Itsy Bitsy Baby. My nickname was Bumble which came from a Sesame Street Cartoon. I recently found the segment on youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiQ49q7Ivd8, and played it for my girlfriend. It was about a little boy named bumble who turned 9 and invited 9 swine to dine on wine while the mother was away. They destroyed the house and when the mother came home she kicked them all out, but let bumble come back in because she still loved him. It is funny how symbolic that nickname was with my relationship with my parents.
My dad's love of teaching made him very happy in his career. There was always a lot of politics at the U of M, and it didn't sound like a job I would enjoy, but my dad loved it. He really enjoyed teaching, and all of the students I ever met would tell me that he was their favorite professor. He has remained friends with so many students over the years, and he kept in contact with them well beyond when his dementia took hold. A number of students contacted my mom because my dad had stopped responding to them, and they were worried something was wrong. I can't begin to count the number of times students have told me that my dad saved their academic career in engineering. He touched so many lives and received a number of awards for his teaching.
In 1974 my dad published a book called "Introduction to Dynamics" which he used in his class at the university. He dedicated this book to my brother and me which shows how much we meant to him at that young age. On page 189 there is a problem with a boy pulling a wagon with squash and pipe in it. The illustration for the wagon says "Turtle Enterprises LTD, JDK Prop." The problem was based on a time when I went through the neighborhood selling pipe that I found in the woods and squash that we had grown in our vegetable garden. Whenever my dad an I would build something together, we would brand it with "Turtle Enterprises" our fictitious company and often use "Bozobuilt" a division of Turtle Enterprises as well. We enjoyed building small projects together.
My dad's biggest hobby was photography. He also enjoyed swimming, and he did some cycling when he was younger. He continued doing photography in black and white even after the digital revolution pretty much wiped out film. He would order film from New York and develop landscapes in his basement darkroom. He loved the classic cameras and collected old 4x5 and 6x9 cameras. I think he really loved the mechanics of them and they didn't just sit on a shelf, he took them out and used them. He loved taking the same picture dozens of different ways from bracketing the exposure to using different films. In his later pictures, he really loved using infrared film on wooded landscapes. My dad and I would often debate the merits of film and digital. He did eventually buy a digital camera, but he hardly used it. He preferred to pack up pound upon pound of equipment on his cart and head off to take pictures. One of his favorite spots to take pictures was in northern Michigan near his cottage on Lake Huron.
When I got settled into my career as an IT Architect, my dad and I would talk about cycling, swimming, computers, and photography all the time. We emailed each other almost daily throughout my adult life. When my dad came down with Alzheimer's, It started out slowly with little behavior changes, but as it progressed, he would forget who I was and think I was his brother and that my mom was his mother. It was hard because he would have good days where he knew me and bad days where he wouldn't. Eventually, my mom had to take his computer away, and it was then that I realized how much we communicated via email and how that connected me to my dad and the rest of the family. Eventually, he had to be put into a home because he kept wandering and it was really dangerous. It was extremely difficult to watch my dad's brain dwindle away. So much of what defined him was in his intellect.
When my dad was moved to the Nursing home, my brother and my son were so amazing with him. My dad had taken care of John his entire life, but now John was taking on more of a caregiver role and helping him in any way he could. Forrest would do the same. He would stop by and make sure his bathroom supplies were stocked, talk to the nurses and hang out with my dad. We had several holidays and birthdays there, but every time he deteriorated further. His sentences got shorter and shorter until finally, the most we could get was yes and no answers.
I remember one time visiting my dad at the nursing home, and when we got to the floor, we were told that he was at Church. I was astonished because my dad had always been an ardent atheist. He would never be caught dead in a church. We waited in the common area, and they rolled my dad back in his wheelchair, and in his lap was a bag of chocolate bars. Everything made sense at this moment. My dad could care less what kind of religion you are peddling, but if sitting through it meant he could get some chocolate, well that's okay. He was smiling while eating his chocolate bars.
When my dad was in the nursing home, he was 5 miles away from my house, but I didn't visit him very often. I meant to and tried a number of times. I would ride my bike to his building then ride along the back where I could see his window, but I couldn't make it inside. I could do it if Forrest were there, but I just couldn't do it alone. I loved my dad, and it tore my heart out to see how far he declined. There were so many times I would ride my bike home feeling so guilty for not having the courage to walk through those doors.
On Christmas of 2014, we hired a transport company to bring my father to my house for Christmas. It was a great day. My dad knew who I was, and was really responsive. He enjoyed having a nice meal with the family, and everything was as good as it could be. We talked about doing the same thing for barbecues when it got warmer, but his health and mobility took a downward turn soon after that Christmas and I never saw him out of a nursing home again. The following Thanksgiving, my mom packed up my dad and brother and moved to a home in Florida where they could be closer to my sister. Forrest and I remained in Michigan.
This Thanksgiving Forrest and I visited my family in Florida and went on a cruise. We scheduled time before and after the cruise to see my dad. The first time we saw him, he wasn't in very good spirits and seemed really agitated. When we came back and saw him again, he seemed really happy to see us. He could no longer speak, but he smiled and held my hand. I really felt he knew who Forrest and I were and was happy to see us. This was the last time I would ever see my dad. A little over a month later he died on January 1st, 2017.
My dad was a wonderful man. I have really missed him since dementia took away his ability to communicate. I really loved our daily emails hearing about his swimming accomplishments, his photography, and how the rest of the family was doing. I was never close to any of my extended family. I saw grandparents every couple of years, and uncles, aunts, and cousins once a decade or so, so I have never felt the pain of losing a loved one. As much as I knew this was going to happen, and knowing it really was time for him to be released from this horrible disease, it is still really hard to imagine that I will never get the opportunity to talk to him again.
My dad had what they believed to be a stroke days before Christmas, and he stopped eating and being able to swallow. After 12 days of not being able to eat or drink, my dad died on New Years Day, 2017.
My dad had no religious beliefs, and I inherited that from him as well. It is unfortunate that I don't believe that he is in a better place and that we will be reunited someday, but my brain isn't wired that way. Alzheimer's ate away at his life for years, and he died with very little pain, so I can say he is no longer being ravaged by this horrible disease which is better. I will never see him again, but he will live on in my memories and the memories of my children. I wanted to write this down as a way to remember him and give a brief synopsis of how I viewed our lives together. There is so much more I could write, but for now, I am just going to say goodbye to the father I loved for almost 50 years of my life.
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