There is a little boy, age 11, who will no doubt fall fitfully asleep on the eve of Father’s Day.
Then, perhaps, he will awaken to a pillow wet with sadness. Many people will try valiantly to cheer him up. But in deep sorrow like his, there is no real cheer — only a faint smile, at best, and a quiet “Thank you.”
He isn’t the only child who will face Father’s Day without a father on the third Sunday in June. There are many. And there are even more of us, as adults, who live only with memories of the fathers who once were.
Each year, Tink and I find ourselves telling stories of previously unshared memories.
Tink often refers to his father as “Father,” as is customary among the upper class. In the mountains and rural South, we simply call him Daddy.
Our respect for Daddy was often reinforced when we did something wrong, causing him to unbuckle his belt and pull it through the loops of his jeans or work pants.
I can tell you this much: my Daddy’s belt rarely made it to the back loop before I was pleading for forgiveness and “forgottenness.” I received both.
For those of us blessed with good fathers, we still live by the lessons they taught and the wisdom they left behind.
Two weeks ago, Tink and I were riding through the mountains one afternoon.
“Have you called Childress back?” he asked, referring to my dear friend Richard Childress. Tink enjoys our back-and-forth.
“No,” I said. He had called two days earlier and texted the day before. I called him then, and he answered immediately. I began our usual teasing.
His voice was different — flat, not his usual spirited tone.
“I’ve come down here to Charlotte… to the hospital,” he said, pausing. “Kyle Busch just died.”
It took a moment to process that the driver of the Richard Childress Racing No. 8 car was gone at 41 years old.
After catching my breath, I asked, “What happened?”
“We don’t know,” he said.
The next morning, knowing Childress is usually in his office by 7 a.m., I called him again. For once, it went to voicemail.
I assumed he was in an important meeting.
Later that day, Richard Childress Racing announced that the No. 8 car number would be retained by RCR and preserved for the day Brexton Busch is old enough to compete in the NASCAR Cup Series. My friend Richard Childress always does the right thing.
Kyle Busch had never hunted until Childress — a world-class outdoorsman — introduced him to it. He became so enthusiastic that he began taking Brexton on hunting trips as well. “Don’t you worry,” Childress told Brexton at the Charlotte race two days later, “I’ll see to it that you get to hunt all you want.”
Childress once had a famous pit crew in the 1980s and 1990s. His gas man, Chocolate Myers, is a tall, powerfully built man who is impossible to dislike. When Chocolate was eight years old, his father, Bobby Myers, was killed in a horrific accident at Darlington while driving for Lee Petty. Chocolate only had eight Father’s Days with his dad, but his father left him a lasting gift: he became one of the most recognizable figures in the sport and now hosts his own national radio show.
As I thought about it over the days that followed, I realized the man who made the No. 8 famous was also orphaned at a young age by a father who, at the time, was employed by RCR. He and Richard Childress became the closest of friends — racing, fishing, and hunting together. They were, in every sense, brothers.
Just as I know he will do for Kyle’s son, Brexton, Childress has long been a fatherlike figure to his best friend’s son.
Dale Earnhardt would have expected nothing less. And Kyle Busch will receive the same.