Happy All Saints Day! Happy Transition Day Dad!

Today eighteen years ago, at 5:30am EST / 2:30am PST, my father transitioned from his earthly body to the Heavens. Elza “Buddy” Cannaday became a saint and joined the other saints. 

I believe Dad knew what was going to happen to his family, after he died, and he made the choice to come back to try and help us.  Some of us needed him in a special way, a way that only Dad could fill.  I believe he decided to visit me because he felt he owed me more time, and he knew I was about to make one of the most important decisions in my life. Perhaps, Dad’s arrival into Heaven went something like this:

DAD’S INTERVIEW AT THE PEARLY GATES – MAYBE?

Normally I could pull out a few pictures from my wallet and show you, my family.  “Ha, ha.”  I’ve never left home without any money in my pockets let alone no pockets, or pants. Now that’s funny.  My Grandkids would be asking, “Papa, where’s your pants?  How come you ain’t got on no pants? You told us never to leave home without some money in our pockets.”  Well, I guess I don’t need any money here.  Everything’s all paid for.

I didn’t expect there to be a line.  There was a shorter line on the other side of the room, but that one was going down.  Ha ha.  Did you hear the one about the golfer who was talking to God.  He asked him, “God what are the golf courses like in Heaven?”  God replied, “Oh they’re nice, rolling meadows, well-manicured lawns, mostly par fours.”  “God, how many holes are there?”  “We have four 18 hole courses and one 36 hole course for those who don’t like to replay holes.”  The man then replied, “Oh God, that sounds nice, I sure hope to play there one day.”  God replied, “You’re tee time is tomorrow at 8am.”  Ha, ha.  I should have brought my clubs. 

I had to go back.  Once I saw what was going to happen to my family, I had to do what I could to help.  I knew the risk I was taking.  The council explained to me that most people who’ve died and try to go back and communicate with their families don’t make it back to Heaven.  They get stuck somewhere in between, becoming a restless soul, a haunt.  If I go back, even for a little while, the only way I could return to Heaven and fully enter, was if my family released me.  If one person still held on and didn’t let go, then I couldn’t return.  I’d become a haunt to that person. I had to take the chance; otherwise, my family would crumble. I had to visit George first.  Once I saw what was coming, what George would go through, I had to try and reach her.  Why her first?  Because I owed her more.

You know how it is with your youngest child.  You’re real excited about your first baby, you watch her sleep, spoil her as best you can, you can’t’ wait to get home to play with her and see what she did that day.  And then when the next one comes, you’re still excited and want to spoil him too, especially if it’s a son, but you have less time.  And then the next one comes, and... you love each one, because they’re all different, but as the family grows you become busier, and you have less energy too.  By the time George came along, heck, I was forty-three years old.  I already had four children and taking care of two grandkids. I couldn’t do all the things with George that I did with the other children.  But George was our bonus baby.

We weren’t supposed to have anymore.  But after Jan, my oldest, died at 19 of kidney failure in 1962, I couldn’t see the sun no more.  That’s when Eleanor, my wife, decided to have another baby.  Hmm, she is some kind of woman.  Her doctor told her she was too old.  At forty, the doctor said she would die. Eleanor told that doctor, “I’m having this baby.”  And she did.  What a woman.  That’s one of the reasons I love her so much.  If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have gone to the Tuskegee Air-force base in 1942, then called the US Army Air Corp.  I wasn’t going down there alone.  So, we got married in May, and I rented a place, a shared house with Mr. and Mrs. Pagett.

Now George, ahh, Tina.  Well, I call her George.  Why?  Because she always acted like a George.  When she was little, about 4, we got her a ahh, big wheel thing.  You sat down in it, and it had two big wheels on either side that you cranked with your hands.  That George, she would ride that thing down the driveway, just a cranking, “shoop, shoop, shoop” going real fast.  Her mother and I thought she was going to fly into the street, and just before she would hit the street she would lean, and cut that thing, and make a turn down the sidewalk.  Ha ha… ahh, that girl, she was something else.

Krazy Kar, 1960's

At 12 she started working for me at the roller skating rink. 

I opened up a roller skating rink for inner city kids in the heart of Cleveland, 8106 Central Avenue.  The building had been an old garment cleaning building, and my sons and I renovated it.  We opened March 26, 1973.  It was a family business.  My oldest son Lee was the VP, and my daughter Zell’s husband Hershel was the other VP.  Zell did the payroll and Eleanor kept the books, just like she had done for my contracting business in the 60’s.  I was the first licensed and bonded Black contractor in the city of Cleveland.

By the time she was 12, Tina wanted to work, so we let her help out behind the concession stand.  She wouldn’t let anyone get away without paying, and she made sure I paid her too.  She would count out the money at the end of the day, total her hours, and pay herself.  She took her money off the top.

I started calling her George when she began working at the hardware store while in high school.  True Valley Hardware in Maple Heights, Ohio, that’s where we were living.  The house I had built there hadn’t sold.  It sat empty for two years, so we moved in.   Now Sam, the owner Sam Goldenberg, told me flat out, “Girls don’t want to work here.  It’s a dirty job,” but he agreed to talk with Tina.  Well, she got the job and became the first female salesclerk, stock person at the store.  So, whenever I came into the store and asked for her, I couldn’t have them announce, “will Tina come to the front of the store please.”  So, I told them to call her George.  You should have saw her face when they announced over the pa, “George.  Will George Cannaday come to the front.”  Ha ha... Ahh,…I’ve been calling her George ever since.

But George was about to face some tough times.  She was 42, raising three kids on her own and living in Rochester, NY.  She’s got a good job as a professor, teaches computer science or something, at a college there, but I know she’s struggling to keep up with the house and all.  I knew my death would upset her terribly, and the family was not going to be there for her.  It was going to get pretty ugly.  She would have a good life with Jose.  Jose was a patient man who’s been waiting for two years for Tina to agree to marry him.  I knew his heart, and I knew before I died that Jose was the husband for my daughter.  Heck, I said I would marry the man if she didn’t, ha ha.

George needed me to tell her it would be alright, that it was okay to choose love in her life; she didn’t have to be afraid he would hurt her, it wouldn’t be like before.  That’s why I came back.

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When Dad returned, I was on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mexican riviera with Jose.

THE VISION

It was late, around 2:30AM, November 1, 2006. Jose and I were sitting on the veranda of our suite on board The Jazz Cruise. The sky was black. The moon painted parts of the ocean with light, and the fresh breeze cooled our skin as our ship parted the waters of the Mexican riviera like shears cutting a bolt of fabric. Jose was massaging my feet and legs as we sat. We had been dancing at the ship’s Halloween party and big band performances. I wore my hot-red pumps, and my legs and feet were sore. Jose is a licensed massage therapist, which comes in handy during times like these.

I was very tired and began to doze as I sat on the veranda with my feet in Jose’s hands. My dad’s voice came to me, and I could see his face in front of me, high and to the right. He said: 

Now y’all go ahead and do this, take care of this little piece and get it out of the way.

I know you two want to do a lot of other things, but take care of this, first.

Dad was talking to both of us telling us to get married now and get it out of the way. 

I woke up and told Jose about my dream, but it wasn’t really a dream, because I didn’t feel like I was asleep, only relaxed and dozing a bit. But I “awoke” from whatever state I was in with a clear memory of what I just experienced. I didn’t know why I had the vision. I knew Jose wanted to marry me. He had asked me about a year earlier. I said, yes, but then got cold feet and said we should wait until my youngest child, Ana, graduated from high school, which she did, and we took her to Kent State University in August, but I was still not ready. 

This 2:30am vision from Dad was surprising – but his message wasn’t – I was surprised to experience his message in a vision in the middle of the ocean in the Mexican Riviera.

Jose and I went to bed in our shared cabin with his sister. Around 8:30am the next morning, my cell phone rang, unusual to have cell service at sea at that time. It was my nephew, Eric. Eric said, 

Hey George. This is Eric.

Papa is gone.

Passed around 5:30am.

We disembarked in Fort Lauderdale from The Jazz Cruise, and Jose and I made it back to Cleveland for Dad’s funeral.

THE FUNERAL

Most of it is a blur. I remember riding in the limousine to the service at my hometown church, Antioch Baptist Church, lining up with my family to enter. Seeing my friend Gisele dressed in white who greeted me warmly. 

I didn’t view his body. I didn’t want to see him like that. I didn’t want his remains to be my last image of him. I remember my childhood friend Vonda and her sisters there, stepping out of the aisle and hugging me. I remember adults and children crying. I remember Rev. Dr. Marvin McMickle doing the eulogy. I remember being at the grave site, standing on the lumpy grass surrounded by people, but only seeing my cousin George. He was standing near me; his presence was comforting. And I remember Jose by my side the entire time, from lining up to enter the church, sitting next to me and somehow getting me to and fro. 

I don’t remember anything else, which is unusual for me, I take in details, and then write about my experiences and what I felt, smelled, and saw. But on the ride back in the limo, it came to me that Dad’s time of death, 5:30am on the East coast, and my vision of him, 2:30am on the West coast, were the same time, and as Daddy was transitioning from his earthly body to Heaven, he stopped to see me, to tell me don’t be afraid to marry Jose. 

Wow! At that very moment, I turned to Jose and told him I was ready to get married. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I asked Mom if we could get married on their wedding day, May 26, to honor their love and their love and support for Jose and my relationship. My mother said, “Yes.”

Jose and I married the next year, May 26, 2007, and our ceremony and union were blessed beyond measure; guided and surrounded by love! 

Thank you, Dad!