I had gone to Buffalo on a regular trip to see my Dad and Ginny in early October, I had travelled to see him in Buffalo the previous May. While he was more tired than usual, he had down periods before and always came out of them. He still drove his new Ford Edge himself and wanted no extra help. We went to see Leanne's kids Alicia and Mason and he took a trip himself to see Ruth at her place.
A few weeks later, after I had already gone back to California, Ginny took him to the hospital after he complained of shortness of breath. The doctors at the VA advised a bypass and valve operation and Dad agreed to it. At his age of 87, it was high risk but Dad did not want to continue to live with such limited mobility. The doctors said he had probably had a heart attack a couple weeks previously, but Dad either did not tell us or did not know himself.
I flew to Buffalo and arrived the day before the operation. Dad could talk and respond to questions but could not be moved from the bed. He had 32 bypasses and a valve replacement the next day. Over the next few days, Dad made a reasonable recovery and most of the many tubes he had in his body were removed. But in the week I was there, he never talked and rarely opened his eyes. In early November, while I was back in California, I talked to him over the phone. He was not very responsive. The doctors thought his main problem was an infection in his new valve so they tried an intensive antibiotic therapy which destroyed his kidneys. The next therapy would have been dialysis, but he died before that could have happened. I flew back to Buffalo for the funeral.
The following is the eulogy I gave at my Dad's funeral service at St. Barnabas Church in Buffalo.
Three Surmas went to heaven this year: my Aunt Marie, my cousin Hank and now my Dad Charley. At the orientation at the heavenly gates they were all asked the same question: "When you are in your casket and all your friends are mourning you, what would you like them to say?"
My Dad was born in 1921 in Mayen Germany to my US born grandfather. At about the age of 4 he was brought to the United States where for a time he lived on a farm in Missouri. When World War II broke out he immediately enlisted in the Army Air Force and was sent to the Phillipines where he guarded prisoners and fixed motorcycles. After he fixed a motorcycle he had to move it a short distance to where they were stored. He told me that he never rode them there, he walked the motorcycles there. Now I don't know for sure that this is a true story, he might have just been telling me this so I would quit my fascination with motorcycles.
I remember my Dad trying to teach me how to swim. He would take me and Ginny when I was about 6 to the quarries at Lemont Illinois. The only problem was that the lake was also a favorite swimming spot for a water moccasin or two. So my Dad would take a huge rock and throw it in the water. Then he would say "the poisonous snakes are gone now so we can swim". Even at 6 years old, that story just didn't work for me. Bottom line was my little sister who is 3 years younger than me learned to swim before I did.
When my Dad was about 38 he got really into that old TV series "Sea Hunt". He loved watching Lloyd Bridges donning his scuba outfit then saving people week after week. It didn't take long before he took up scuba diving himself then got the complete gear for both me and Ginny. He signed me up for some formal lessons at a local pool when I was about 12. To get a scuba certification, on the final lesson you had to go to the bottom of the pool and another diver would bump into you then knock your mask off. If you could handle this treatment for a minute, you were certified. Didn't work out.
My Dad would take us to those same quarries in the middle of winter and knock a hole in the ice, then don his scuba gear and dive into the hole. He would have let me dive into that hole but he would have had to drag me in kicking and screaming.
My Dad set some examples for me when I was growing up that I am not sure he always knew how big a part he played. He always had a subscription to the Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines. AFTER and ONLY AFTER he was done with them, I pored over every sentence in these magazines. For a while, he went to Coyne Electrical School, he thought he might try to be an electrician rather than a welder. I loved reading his textbooks. I think that is why my first college degree was in Electrical Engineering.
So now my Dad is gone. He will be truly missed by me and my family.