The last time that I saw Tod, my best friend for forty years, was about an hour before he died. I was struck by how young he looked, laying there on his death bed, tubes attached to his nose and his skin had turned yellow. It may sound incongruent now, but I remember thinking, "You can't die. You're just a kid." He was 58 years old but whenever we were together it felt like we we still teenagers and not two middle aged men
I couldn't think of what to say to the man who I knew so well, but who now unresponsive and in a coma, so I held his hand and said the "Our Father" and "Hail Mary" a few times. This was a level of familiarity that we never shared while he was alive, but it just felt right now that he was close to death. The last thing that I said, as I squeezed his hand and then let go, was "I love you, brother."
Less than two weeks before he passed, Paula texted me that Tod's cancer was back and that it had invaded his bones and bladder. I texted her back and wrote, "I will never understand why bad things happen to good people!" Tod was a good man; the best man that I ever knew. This is such a simple thing to say, an easy thing to say, so I want to give a couple of examples of why Tod was such a good man.
First of all, Tod was the only person who I had met who had read the whole Bible. He sat in his car before going into work and after dropping off Melissa at St Rita, and read the Bible for an hour before he had to clock in. After he had read through it once, then he did it again, and for this reason alone he should be sainted.
Secondly, Tod sacrificed for his family. He wanted to be a meteorologist and referred to himself as a "weather nerd," but gave up his dream to take a job with the FBI and then, a couple of years later, he started to work for KFC corporation. He was a good man because he kept those jobs, even though he hated them, because work gave him steady pay so that he could afford to raise a family. I don't think that it is too strong to say that he suffered to put food on the table.
He was a good man because he loved his wife and kids. An example of this is when his daughter, Kristen, attended Western Kentucky University, Tod wanted to support her. Everyone who knew anything about Tod knew that he was a dyed in the wool U.K. Fan, but he wanted to support his daughter so he wore shirts that were red and white, WKU's colors, but they are also U of L's colors and he took some good natured grief from his friends and family for being a turn coat. He took the ribbing because his daughter was more important to him than any basketball team
More than being a good person, Tod was just fun to be around. I think that was because he gave so much of himself at work, he needed a release on the weekends and on vacation. The first road trip that we took together was to Pensacola to visit my sister. We went to watch my brother in law play softball, and we were so bored that we drank too much beer, and we started to sing Camp Tall Trees songs behind the batting cage. He named our trio of singers, "Jeff and the Monotones" because we sang so badly but with gusto. Later, at Woody's, we belted out "Pink Cadillac" by Bruce Springsteen whenever it came on the juke box and then did a little dance as we sang.
There is no doubt that drinking beer had a lot to do with our nights out. We drank at his grandfather's bar in Jeffersonville, a place called "Buddy's," and listened to his grandfather sing, in a scene that could've come from the 1950s.. Over the years we met at different places to bend a elbow; Rose Bowl South, Pasquali's, Woody's, and then later at the "Bats" home baseball games. All he wanted to do was to relax and talk for awhile, so we philosophized about politics, religion, and how much we hated our jobs. Mostly, though, we talked about our wives and kids.
We shared a long history together. For example, I was the one who told him that International Harvester was leaving Louisville. This hit home because Tod's father, Buddy, no longer had a job in Louisville with that company and had to move to Indianapolis in order to work a couple more years to earn his retirement. I was in his wedding and he was in mine. We each went to each other's parent's funerals and then we went to each other's children's weddings. We both had three kids; a boy and two girls, in that same order. I was Michael's godfather, his sponsor for his first communion, and attended his graduation ceremony when he became an Eagle Scout.
We struggled in careers that never took off, we were had proud of our children and loved our wives. We watched each other grow from young men to middle aged as our marriages matured and as we moved out of our apartments and into a house; and then we each bought an even bigger house. We compared 401Ks.
We shared a lot of small moments together. I remember one Friday nightwhen, as usual, we met up at the Rose Bowl, and Tod wanted me to see the new girl that he was dating. I knew that Paula was special to him because Tod was a little nervous about what I might think about her. Paula was a few lanes down but she saw us from a distance. She knew that we were checking her out because she smiled before she turned away. I remember telling Tod, "She's beautiful. You are a lucky guy." He beamed with pride as he looked at the girl who would become his wife.
Much later in life, I remember sharing that same pride and excitement with him when we went to see his oldest daughter dance with the Lady Birds. The game was almost over when we finally got her attention by waving our arms and jumping up and down. Tod and Kristen exchanged smiles, she on the field and he in the stands, and he beamed with pride at his oldest daughter.
He was always talking about his family and how proud he was of them.
• Proud of his father for taking on the responsibility of caring for Aunt Janice
• Proud of Paula for acting as the contractor when they built their current house.
• Proud of Kristen for becoming a dance instructor.
• Proud of Michael for getting his first career building job as a pharmacists assistant.
• Proud of Melissa for becoming a nurse. She used her training to administer morphine to her father in his final hours and to ease him into the next life.
On Tuesday, Election Day, cancer took all of that away from Tod
• Cancer took away Tod's time. Time that would have been well spent with his father, his wife, his children, and his grandchild.
• Cancer took away Tod's chances to watch his beloved UK Wildcats win another national championship or his Miami Dolphins go to another Super Bowl.
• Cancer took away Tod's well earned retirement. Paula said that the happiest that Tod had been in years was when he was laid off from his job for five weeks this past spring. He truly enjoyed taking long walks with his wife, something he could have done every day in retirement, but his reward for enduring his office job for over three decades was taken away from him.
• Cancer took away Tod's life. However, if there is such a thing as a good death then Tod had one. It was a blessing that he was given the time to say goodbye to his family and friends before he lapsed into a coma. On his last full day on earth, he was surrounded by the ones who loved him and had Amelia, his brand new granddaughter, sitting in his lap. That, my friends, is the definition of a good death.
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And now, he belongs with the angels. Let us say goodbye, in the language of another time: To Tod Knight, "Good soldier, faithful friend, great heart, hail and farewell!"
