accepting the trophy for the win that got the Forest Bearcats to the playoffs
to be with the Risher family who hosted her 30 years ago
Herdis Harzheim-Sambeth and Jan Risher at the Jackson
my father has been my family’s top priority
To see him weak and unable to do the things he’s taken for granted for nearly 81 years has been a shock to the system
called to say that she was headed to Mississippi to help take care of my dad and be there for my mom
My parents hosted Harzheim-Sambeth as an exchange student for the 1992-1993 school year
She has been a part of our lives in all the years since
She and I look like we could be real sisters — and
I suppose she’s the closest thing I have ever had to a younger sister
My husband and I picked her up from the Jackson
She was exhausted from the flight but eager to be with my parents
Her parents have both passed away within the past few years
She explained to me that it was important for her to be here with my parents during this time
she can tell my dad what to do and how to do it better than any of the rest of us — and he just looks at her and smiles and does what she says
(For that feat alone she earns the immediate respect of anyone who knows my father well.)
“He inspired me in so many different ways,” she said
she said that my dad taught her that she could be spontaneous in doing things
let’s have a barbecue tonight,’ — and we would and people would join us and we would have a party
Or ‘Let’s go play tennis right now,’ and we would,” she said
she is not the only non-biological child he has been a father figure to
Billy Mayes played football for my dad in the mid-1970s
When he found out that my dad starts radiation next week
he was the first to raise his hand to see if he could come take him from my parents’ home in Forest
“Coach has been a mentor to me since junior high and high school days,” he said
The good Lord made him a part of my life for a reason.”
who was quarterback for one of my dad’s football teams
often told me that my dad was the first man who ever hugged him
He remembered seeing my dad in the hall at the high school and my dad yelling (my dad only has one volume) at him to “Come over here and give me a hug.” In his last message to me
Kaskie let me know he had checked on my dad who was already ill and that my dad was making plans on when they could get together
“I take it as a good sign when a patient looks to the future,” Kaskie texted me
“Thanks for sharing your family with me all these years
I told Coach he put his stamp on every one of us.”
and he and my dad never got that last visit in
Other former players and students have continued to check in on my dad
He had a bunch of us who considered him a father figure — the whole team
who was the manager of the first team my dad coached as head coach
Coach was always so energetic and so involved with everything
He wanted us to be the best we could be — that’s what a father does.”
happiest of days to all the men out there who have been father figures to children beyond their own
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