CLARKE WALKER HANSON
Clarke Walker Hanson died Thursday of injuries suffered in an automobile accident in Tulsa. He was 62. Beloved husband of Diana Lawyer Hanson and beloved father of Clarke Isaac, Jordan Taylor, Zachary Walker, Joshua Mackenzie, and Zoe Genevieve Hanson, Jessica Hanson Domangue and Avery Hanson Bowen. Grandfather of Elijah, Elyse, Donovan, Brooke, Anya, Endia, and Lyric Hanson, Lucas Domangue, and Christopher and Casey Bowen. Brother of Brian Joseph Hanson, Anthony Michael Hanson and Janet Hanson Lawrence. A native of Tulsa, OK and a lifelong resident.
Relatives and friends of the family are invited to attend a Memorial Mass at St. Dominick Church on Tuesday, January 15 at 11:00 AM. There will be a visitation in the church from 9:00 AM until Memorial Mass time. Private inurnment will follow at Tulsa Mausoleum.

The day following my father’s funeral, I sat in my bedroom with that newspaper clipping clutched in my hands, reading the words over and over again and wondering when they would begin to feel real. As much pain as the past few days had brought me, I still had trouble grasping the fact that my father would forever be absent from holiday meals or his grandchildren’s birthday parties, or his two youngest children’s weddings. I held that newspaper clipping so long that the sweat of my palms soiled it and made it nearly unreadable. But the words were already carved into my memory; I didn’t need the paper to remind me of what they said or of what I had lost.

It was weeks before I was able to bring myself to return to work. But that had its advantages as well, because it left the days to just myself, Adeline and Lyric in the house until Anya and Endia got home from school. Even the simplest things like going to the grocery with them or preparing dinner made me wake up to all of the things I had missed out on by pushing my family away. I found after years of distancing myself from the everyday goings-on in our household, I actually found myself happiest when I could be home to greet the girls from school or help Lyric with an art project or help my wife pick up the house. It was a feeling of happiness I had been trying to find by throwing myself into my work, but it was right under my nose the entire time and I was simply too stupid or stubborn to notice it.

As happy as I was about the change in my mood, I couldn’t help but find myself sobered by them at the end of the day when I wondered if I ever would have had the courage to make those changes without the death of my father. I wish every morning that I could go back in time to before he died and make these changes on my own so that I didn’t have to lose someone so important in my life to realize how much I missed being with my family.

I knew a huge conversation between myself and Adeline was inevitable. I had a lot of explaining to do for my behavior in the past several years, and she deserved an explanation. The time for that conversation came on a Friday night when the house was empty save the two of us. Anya was out with her friends, Endia at a sleepover, and Lyric spending the night at my mother’s house. It was a rare occurrence for all three of our girls to be gone at once, and it was as if the world was trying to push me to initiate that conversation that I had been dreading and anticipating all at the same time.

Adeline is scurrying around the living room and picking up shoes and toys and other things the girls have left laying around, and I’m watching her with a lump the size of a basketball in my throat, wondering what to say, what could I say, to explain why I had been such a crappy husband? “Add,” I said finally, catching her attention. “Come sit with me a minute…I want to talk to you.”

“Let me just go put this stuff up and-”

“Adeline,” I interrupted laughing softly. “It’ll still be there later. Please?”

Smiling, she set the items in her hands down on the coffee table and sat beside me, allowing me to put my arm around her shoulders and pull her close. Her hair smells just the way I’ve always known it to since the first day I sat close enough beside her in church to catch the fragrance as she flipped it over her shoulders. I remember vividly seeing her that day as if through new eyes, and I knew that if she would give me a chance, I’d fall in love with her. How I had let that slip away from me, I’m still not entirely sure.

“How are you doing?” she asked quietly, settling against me and turning her face up to look into my eyes.

“Better,” I sighed. “It gets a little easier every day.”

“I didn’t want to say anything to jinx it but…it’s been really nice having you around the house, Taylor…We missed you,” she admitted softly. Her eyes look so sad looking up at me, and it only makes the guilt in my heart intensify.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about…I know I was a shitty husband and father, Adeline. And I know it shouldn’t take having to lose my father to realize that, but that’s how it ended up happening. And I know sorry isn’t enough to take back how I’ve acted all these years, but…I’m really trying, Add. I don’t want to go back to how I was before he died…”

“How did it get like that, Taylor?” Her voice sounded almost pained, as if she would break into tears any moment.

“I honestly don’t know,” I whispered kissing the top of her head. “I guess…I started getting busier with work and I was so stressed when I got home that I…threw myself more into the work at the studio. And then the more I drowned myself at work, the more I drifted away from all of you, and the harder it felt to get back…”

“We were always waiting for you,” Adeline said. “Always. We wanted you to come back.”

“I know that now, I just…at the time, I thought it was impossible. I thought I had already screwed things up too much. And then when Lyric was born…it was like I had a chance to start over, you know? And I became blind to all of the things I was missing out on with you and Anya and Endia…But these past few weeks…God, after all that’s happened, I’ve never been happier than I have been these past few weeks, just being home with you girls and…being a family again. I swear to you, I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it up to you…to all of you.”

“Just being here makes up for it. The girls just want you to be home, to take an interest in them…that’s enough for them, and for me, Taylor. You don’t have to do anything extraordinary, just…stay this way. Don’t go back to how it was before.”

“Adeline, I don’t ever want to be that person again,” I said honestly, touching her cheek. “You’ve always been the same girl I fell in love with, and I want to be the boy you fell in love with. Not the person I let myself become.”

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said, tears beginning to run down her cheeks as she leaned up to kiss me. I can taste the saline on her trembling lips, and my aching for her only intensifying after nearly a month of not being intimate with her. “There’s something I need to tell you, though,” she said, breaking away from me.

“Anything,” I said, resting my forehead against hers.

“I’m…pregnant.”

“You’re…what?” I asked, my eyes widening in shock.

“I just found out…earlier this week. Two months along…Taylor, say something.”

A smile spread over my lips. I was going to be a father again, and while a few weeks ago, this news might have upset me, I couldn’t be happier. “I love you,” I whispered in reply. “So much.”

And so seven months later, we brought Delia Layne home, and holding her in my arms, I finally felt complete after so many years of feeling empty. After getting all of the baby gear inside from the hospital, I extracted her from her infant seat and cradled her in my arms, looking over all of her delicate features. She looks so much like her mother, just as all of our girls do, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. “Are you disappointed?” Adeline asked, settling on the opposite end of the couch and laying down, her feet resting in my lap.

“Disappointed?” I asked incredulously. “Why would I be disappointed?”

“Well…I don’t mean disappointed, necessarily, but I know you were hoping for a boy so we could name him after your dad,” Adeline answered, stifling a yawn.

“I’m definitely more a girl daddy,” I said with a smile and a wink in her direction before kissing Delia’s warm forehead. “This house was in need of another princess anyway.”

“Lyric might get jealous,” Adeline laughed.

“She doesn’t need to. All my girls are special.”

“Even me?” she asked, another yawn pulling her lips apart.

I glance up at the picture of my parents hanging over the mantle, taken just months prior to his passing. He looks so happy as he looks at my mother, as though no one exists in the world but her. For so long, I forgot that feeling. But looking at his smile, I know he’d be proud of his newest granddaughter, even if she isn’t a grandson to bear his name. Adeline has given me so much to be happy about, but I let myself become blind to that. And yet still, she stuck by me, and let me back in when I had realized the error of my ways, when I didn’t even really deserve to be let back in. I glanced back at her to answer, but she was already lost in the folds of sleep. Still, though there was no one there to hear my answer, I whispered the words. “Especially you.”

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