Andrew Cooper's Character Analysis

Andrew Cooper retired when he was 65. He’s 86 now. He spent over 40 years building a business and supporting his family. He gave Cooper Construction over to me when he retired. His hair is losing color and now he has wrinkles on his face. I’m his son Rodney and I go to work at Cooper Construction every week and run the business the way dad always did. My wife spends her days taking care of dad. It’s hard for him to do much with Parkinson’s disease. This is his story. Dad was still a pretty active man after he retired. He worked in his garden in the summer, weeding, watering, and tilling. Mom would can whatever dad managed to grow. He was as strong in his 60’s as he was when I was a kid and he would pick me up and toss me into the creek.
Sometimes he had a pretty good answer. Some days he just looked confused. We can see the effects of Parkinson’s disease. He shuffles a lot now at 86. He eats a lot of sticky food because of how much his hands shake. For years now we have watched his posture change. My dad is a strong man though. He would never let this disease get the best of him. “Being sick won’t change me, son,” he said to me the day he was diagnosed. “I know who I am. I worked every day for years to keep my family happy. I made a lot of mistakes in life but I did a lot of things right too. If I could go back, the only thing I would change would be becoming more diligent about mine and your mothers health. You see, son, you have to own your mistakes not let them own you.” There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about that conversation. We used to go hunting every weekend during deer season. At 65 he could see and hear every time a bird moved, every time a squirrel scurried up a tree. He shot was always straight and true. His senses started to wane in his early 70’s. Cataracts started to cloud his eyes and hands started to shake too much to aim straight. He makes too much noise when he walks and spends more time looking at the ground than looking up. He took it pretty hard the first time he missed a buck. That was when he finally decided to go see a