I Made A Grown Man Cry . . . And Loved it!

After reading this week's stories about the deadly tornadoes in Indiana I remembered the story of a family's devastation when struck by a similar tragedy many years ago. Unless you've been through a life altering event like this, a hurricane, an earthquake, a fire, it's hard to comprehend the overwhelming feeling of loss and the cold vacuum of emptiness inside as you wonder what you can possibly do to try and put your life back together.

Jesse, his sister Doris and mother sat at the kitchen table one evening in March waiting for Carl, his dad, to arrive and say "the blessing" so they could enjoy dinner together. It was getting dark and the temperature had dropped quickly but no sign of his father. No cause for alarm, life on the farm could be unpredictable and Carl was either tending to one of the animals or maybe the tractor had broken down again.

As dinner began to get cold his mom decided to call their closest neighbor who lived a few hundred yards from their house and ask if he'd seen Carl. The answer was no and since Jesse's dad was always helping one of the neighbor's it was now time to help him. Their neighbor arrived a few minutes later with his tractor, the headlamps lighting the way. Jesse climbed on the tractor and they headed out into the fields. After about fifteen minutes they spotted Carl's tractor. As they drove toward the tractor Jesse jumped to the ground and ran to look for his father. The neighbor circled the tractor and as his lights pointed back toward Jesse's house they saw the body.

Jesse ran to his father, calling his name and stopped and stared down at the lifeless body in disbelief. He was dead. Jesse and his neighbor helped lift his father's body onto the tractor and held him there as they drove back to the house. It was cold and quiet as they laid his body on the front porch. Jesse's mom covered Carl with a blanket while Jesse sat on the steps, his face in his hands, too hurt and shocked to cry.

The funeral was held a couple of days later and life ceased to exist as Jesse knew it. After that there was always an emptiness in that house and every evening as they sat at the dinner table they thought dad might just walk through the door and say the blessing like he used to do.

Jesse, 10 when that happened,was not ready to be the "man of the house" but did his best to keep up with his schoolwork while doing as much on the farm as he possibly could. His mother took on a full time job and so did his sister. They had a small saving's account and so, with all their limited resources, they managed to get by.

Jesse, like his dad, was a big strong boy. In the tenth grade he made the football team as an offensive lineman and was so well liked some of his football friends would come to the farm and help out so Jesse could stay on the team. When Jesse graduated from high school one of his coaches had a connection with another coach and he helped Jesse get a scholarship from a small school in Southern California. His mother practically forced him to go because otherwise there would have been no money to send him to any another school. Jesse's mom sold most of the farm land but kept the house where she and Doris were able live, almost comfortably.

A few years later Jesse got married and went to work for a manufacturing plant in Southern California as an assistant production manager. With a strong work ethic Jesse got several promotions and was living a decent life in California, a big change from life on the farm in Oklahoma.

One evening in April, 1979, Jesse was watching the news about some tornadoes that touched down near Lawton, Oklahoma and crossed into Wichita Falls, Texas. In all there were more than 11 tornadoes that carved a path of death and destruction in the Red River Valley that took 56 lives, injured almost two thousand and affected more than 7,000 families.


Jesse immediately tried calling his mother, although he knew phone service would be out. For hours he tried in vain until he realized he would have to get in his pick-up truck and make the 1,300 mile drive home. Jesse and his wife packed quickly and 26 hours later pulled up to a completely flattened pile of wood, shingles and broken glass that used to be his home. He jumped from the truck and ran to the place where the storm cellar was. The door was wide open. There was no one inside. Either his mother and sister had survived and left the cellar after the storm or they were some place else, hopefully safe. It took two days of driving and talking to local residents to discover his mother and sister were staying with friends 20 miles out of town.

When he arrived he persuaded his mother to accompany him back to the house to search for anything that might be salvageable. After spending two hours digging through the rubble they were able to fill one shoe box with a few trinkets, some of his mother's jewelry (of little real value) and one single photograph. This photograph made the entire search worthwhile. It was a picture of Jesse's dad about a year before he died.

In this picture Jesse's dad wore his familiar wide-brimmed hat, tilted down to protect his face from the Oklahoma sun. The photo was in pretty good shape except for the fact that the sun cast a dark shadow that made his face indiscernable. It didn't matter to Jesse. He kept that picture in his wallet and whenever times got tough he would take it out, look at his dad and carry on.

Jesse made the trip back to California and didn't return to Oklahoma until 9 years later to attend the funeral of his mother. He sat in the church with the photo of his dad sitting next to him on the pew as tears ran down his cheeks. His sister Doris had married a local boy and she and her husband were living in a house they built after the tornado on the old homestead. They had lived with with mom until her death. Although they experienced several tornadoes over the years, they had no plans to move.

Jesse had done so well with his company that he had a chance to take over one of their branch plants in Georgia. That's when I met Jesse. I had been hired to be a sales manager for his company and we hit it off right from the start. At the time my own father was suffering from Alzheimer's and died about a year later. Jesse's dad had missed a lot and I felt badly that my dad didn't get to see his granddaughter get married. He would have loved to have been there. In fact, I took care of it so he was.

I have been working with graphic software both as part of my job and also as one of my hobbies for many years. When my niece got married, as my gift to her, I photographed her wedding. As with most weddings not all of the photographs came out the way you want them to. In one shot someone's eyes were closed, in another someone was looking the other way, some were too dark and a few too light. It's not that I'm not a good photographer but "stuff" happens. Fortunately for my niece and her husband I'm a bit of a Photoshop freak and was able to "borrow" opened eyes from one picture and blend them in with closed eyes on the other. Contrast, lighting, even out of focus shots can be corrected or enhanced. My favorite picture, though, was one with my mom and the bride and groom. When I first saw that picture I thought, what a shame my dad's not in that one! Why not? I scanned one of my favorite pictures of him and after a few hours with that magical graphic software he was "in the wedding". My mother, my niece and her husband all agreed that was our favorite picture.

The following Monday I went to work and just had to show Jesse the picture with my dad now in it. He looked at it and asked who that man was. I said it's my dad. He said I thought your dad passed away. I told him he did but with my software and experience I was able to put him in the wedding. He sat and stared at that picture and then slowly leaned to his left and removed his wallet. He carefully took out a small, slightly worn and creased picture of a man wearing a hat and handed it to me. I put on my drugstore reading glasses and looked closely.

"Can you do any magic with that one? It's my dad" Jesse asked softly.

"I don't know Jesse. Let me scan it and take a look." I said.

"Well, if you can do anything I would really appreciate it. I'm not expecting much. It's an old picture but it's the only one I have. Don't spend too much of your time on it."

Jesse left my office and I immediately lifted the top of my scanner and positioned his picture on the glass. I changed the setting to 1200 dpi, kind of like looking at the picture under a microscope. When the scan was finished I was surprised to see all the detail. There were scratches and creases but they were easy to remove. In spite of Jesse's rather low expectations this was going to turn out to be a wonderful picture.

I decided to take a little license with the picture and selected the hat and moved it up and back slightly on his head. This exposed a little more of his forehead and since Jesse told me he looked a lot like his dad at that age I knew how to treat the little bit of hair line that would be exposed. I adjusted the levels, curves, brightness and contrast and was able to bring his entire face into light removing the shadow with the clone tool and the healing brush, part of the Photoshop toolkit.

When I felt that I could do no more to restore the face I worked on the background and all the small blemishes and artifacts time deposits on the clothing and surroundings in our pictures. I adjusted the black, white and gray tones slightly and printed the photo in an 8 x 10 format.

The result was amazing, even to me. I copied the final picture to my laptop and took it home to my office in the basement for final printing. I printed the finished photograph at 10 x 14 and took it to a framer for matting. During the few days between the time Jesse gave me the picture and the time I had it completed Jesse would stick his head in the office and ask how it was coming.

"Well, Jesse, it's a very old and small photo but I'm finding I can do something with it. How about we get together tomorrow after work for a drink and I'll show you?"

"Sounds great. I'm buying," he said.

The next night after work we made our way to a local restaurant that had a small bar. We had a couple of drinks before Jesse said, "man I can't stand the suspense. Have you got my picture?"

"Oh yeah, that. It's in the car. Let me go get it."

I retuned from the car with a large, thin package wrapped in plain brown paper. There was Jesse, all 320 pounds of strong farmer, his rear-end enveloping the barstool, a nervous look on his face.

I took his original photo out of my shirt pocket and handed it to him. I laid the brown wrapper on the bar under one of the hanging lights and opened it. Jesse's jaw dropped. He stared for a minute or so and then snatched the picture off the bar as a large tear fell from this giant man and landed with a splash on the tile.

"Excuse me," he mumbled as he grabbed up the photo and headed for the men's room. Jesse was gone for about ten minutes. When I saw him peering from the door to the men's room to see if any one was looking, I quickly threw a $20 on the bar and poured our drinks into two plastic cups, thanked the bartender and called to Jesse, "let's go."

The two of us walked briskly out the door to Jesse's truck and climbed inside. Jesse looked at me and started crying so hard it was shaking the truck. I couldn't help it. I started crying too. I looked at Jesse and can honestly say I have never, in my entire life, seen such a big "grown man" cry so hard and still have such a big smile on his face. We sat there for another ten minutes until Jesse could finally talk.

"You gave me my dad back. I will never be able to thank you enough."

I said, "Jesse, you just did."

So, that's one of my hobbies and when something like that happens it's an incredible feeling.

I made a grown man cry and I loved it!