Please remind yourself of this photo first, then read the rest if you're
so inclined. Thank you.
http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=5206
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013 was a beautiful, warm sunny Spring day in
Southern Illinois, the kind of day that makes you want to play hooky
from school or work and work in the garden or go to the zoo, or maybe go
to St. Louis to catch a Cardinals game.
And it was on that day, surrounded by friends and family, that my
father, August Braun, peacefully went home to be with The Lord after an
8-year-long, hard-fought battle with cancer.
It was something that we were all expecting, and something that he had
been praying for, but while that helps ease the pain a little, there is
still an Augie-sized hole in the lives of his family and friends. No
matter what, losing a parent hurts. I was on Amtrak on my way down when
I got the call. I felt pain, but I also felt relief and peace. I knew he
was now in a better place and cancer-free.
When our mother, Mary Lou, died in 1998, my brother and I were both in
denial about how serious her condition was and, quite frankly, were
caught a bit off-guard when she passed. We both had things we wanted to
say that went left unsaid. And we both agreed that we would not let that
happen with Dad.
So, in the final months when we found out that the cancer had returned,
this time very aggressively, and that this time it wasn't fixable, we
both rearranged our plans to be able to travel back to Steeleville and
spend as much time as possible with him in the time we had left. And it
was quality time. He didn't want to go back into a hospital, didn't want
to move into a nursing home. He wanted to stay at home, surrounded by
comfort and familiarity and reminders of his life, his family, Mom. He
was in minimal pain, and he opted to stop torturing himself with chemo.
His best friend, Mike Vallet, who had been by his side through all of
this - helping him when he needed it, taking him to the doctor, staying
with himi when he was in the hospital, keeping Allen and I informed -
agreed with him that the better quality of whatever time he had left was
more important.
When Dad had weakened to the point where he needed full-time assistance,
my sister-in-law Laura volunteered to move in and be his caretaker. She
brought their children with her, so now Opa (an old German nickname for
Grandpa, what he always called his grandfather) was surrounded by
family. My brother and I alternated coming back to visit for little
stretches.
We spent that time talking, going through old photos, memorabilia,
watching cooking shows, Cardinals baseball and NASCAR on TV. About a
month ago, both Allen and I were there at the same time, and Sheri had
come along with me. So, after the kids had eaten and gone off to a
friend's house, the five of us sat down to dinner. Laura had made Mom's
lasagna recipe. It was the last time that all of us would be together,
but it had been a wonderful end to a very happy day, and it was perfect.
I had decided then and there that I would call Dad every evening and
talk to him and tell him good night. Even though I couldn't be there in
person, I would at least be there on the phone. I could tell that made
him happy. We talked about how his day had been, talked about what I had
been doing. I had recently started an online photo gallery so I was able
to share things we had been doing and seen through that, and he told me
he enjoyed my photos.
And I made damn sure to tell him every time how much I loved him and
that I was proud to have him and Mom as my parents, that despite the
fact that he had doubts about things he could have done differently, we
had no problems with the way we were raised and that we had turned out
just fine.
Dad was lucid right up until this past Saturday night. I knew he had had
a rough day, thanks to regular updates from Laura, and I was hesitant to
make my nightly call as I didn't know if he was up for it. But then
Laura called me and said he told her he wanted to talk, so I called
right back. He was sure that he was going to go that night or the next,
so he wanted one last talk with his sons. The last words my father and I
exchanged were, "I love you, Dad" and "I love you too, Son." And that's
something I can take with me the rest of my life.
I cannot thank Laura enough for taking on a daunting task, something she
wasn't really trained for. She and Allen are raising six kids, but this
was different. And I have to, right here and now, in front of the world,
say that Dad's friend Mike Vallet is a truly wonderful, caring,
"above-and-way-beyond" human being. When Dad was diagnosed, and needed
chemo and various surgeries, Mike was always there with him. He was
doing the things that my brother and I were unable to do because we both
live so far away. What Mike did for my father is truly, without a doubt,
the definition of true friendship. He's a member of this family now,
even though he's too humble to admit it. If you ever need proof of
guardian angels on Earth, you need look no further.
Augie was born in Chicago on February 16th, 1932 to Clara and August
Braun, and grew up on Harper Avenue on the South Side. When he was
working as an insurance salesman at Continental Insurance, he met a
pretty young girl with Italian heritage named Mary Lou Casale who worked
in the secretarial pool. They fell in love, and were married in January
of 1958 and moved into a nice little house on Constance Avenue, in
Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. Five years later, Mom gave birth to
a well-behaved, precocious, remarkably handsome baby boy (me) and soon
moved several blocks north to a bigger house on Constance. Five years
after that, they decided that they'd done so well the first time that
they'd try it again and Allen came along.
We spent a significant amount of our weekends at the museums, the
planetarium or the aquarium or the zoos. Mom and Dad were always taking
us places, showing us things, giving us interests. I was enrolled in a
Montessori preschool and taught to learn in different ways.
Dad took a job at South Shore National Bank on Jeffrey as an auditor
(that bank is still there today, by the way, as are the two houses).
However, as the 60's rolled over into the 70's, the neighborhood had
begun to change for the worse and, after an incident one evening when a
police car pulled someone over across the street from our house and we
heard gunshots, Mom and Dad decided it was time to move their young
family somewhere safer. So, we packed up and became suburban, moving
into a nice house on Stanley in Winfield, IL. Dad changed jobs and went
to work for John Nuveen in downtown Chicago, and every morning he'd hop
on board the big green-and-yellow Chicago And NorthWestern bilevel
commuter car and head into the Loop. That's pretty much where my love of
the CNW began…
But since Dad had spent a lot of his summers growing up visiting with
the relatives in Kansas and Nebraska, all of whom lived on farms, he
always felt the itch to be a farmer.
So he and Mom started looking for a new place to live. They settled on
Steeleville, IL, a city about an hour Southeast of St. Louis and, in
1972, we moved. Dad wasn't quite ready to be a full-time farmer yet, so
he took a job as an internal auditor at the First National Bank and we
bought a 40-acre farm Northeast of town. And, because everyone needs a
pony, we got a Shetland pony from some guy who saw an opportunity to
sell the angry beast to the city folk. Sure, he was cute, but we learned
quickly that male Shetlands are ornery and, after throwing every one of
us (and also chasing the cows around), we sold him to some other
unwitting sucker.
Eventually Dad felt confident enough that he quit the job at the bank
and farmed full-time. We built buildings, raised crops, raised
livestock. Wasn't a bad way to grow up, and I know I enjoyed the open
spaces. And our own pond! Yes, kids, I did chores every morning before I
went to school. However, I rode the bus in, so I didn't have to walk 10
miles uphill both ways in the snow to get to school.
Farming is hard work, though, and it became obvious that a 40-acre farm
just wasn't big enough to really support a family of 5 (Dad's mom moved
down from Chicago with us).
So, when Killion's restaurant went up for sale, Mom and Dad decided to
go into the restaurant business. They rented the farmable land out to a
friend, and we set about converting Killion's into Mary Lou's. That was
a success, and it gave a lot of my friends and other kids in town their
first jobs throughout the years. And we served a lot of good food.
However, the combination of Mom's worsening health, and the addition of
a couple of new restaurants in town that diluted a small market into an
impossible market, forced the very difficult decision to close Mary
Lou's for good. We were all sad about that, and I still feel the pangs
when I look at the corner now and see our building gone, replaced by a
gas station and convenience store, one of the same places that
ultimately brought about the end of Mary Lou's.
They sold the farm and moved into the nice home on Hancock. Mom took a
job as secretary at St. Mark and dad took a job at City Hall. Mom passed
away way too early in 1998, and Dad started the adjustment to the life
of a widower. It wasn't easy at first - he and Mom had been married 40
years, and were pretty much inseparable throughout that entire time.
They were really in love, and you could tell it. But Dad settled into
the "new normal" and continued to work for the city. Eventually the
cancer came, and he had to retire to fight that battle.
But all through the years, the one thing that was important to all of us
was family. There were rough patches like everyone goes through, but
through it all, we had our faith and we had each other.
And now Augie and Mary Lou are together again. Sheri and I have been
married 25+ years, and Allen and Laura have been married almost 23 years
and have six wonderful children.
So, Thank You, Mom and Dad, for bringing us into the world and giving us
a great example of how to live our lives. We love you and we'll miss
you, but it's only for a relatively short while. We'll all meet up again
later on.
As I was walking from Union Station to the Van Buren South Shore station
late last night, I had decided to walk down Jackson simply because that
was the street I was already on. I had been walking several blocks when
I happened to look up - and there, directly ahead in the distance, was
the blue glow from the "beehive light" at the top of the old Continental
Insurance building.
I took that as a sign from Mom and Dad that everything was going to be
alright. I stopped for a bit, tried to get a photo, but then just
started walking again and smiling to myself.
--
Paul Braun
Certified Music Junkie
Valparaiso, IN
"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever." - David St. Hubbins
"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life" - Harlan Howard
--
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