Dad

Many of you will already know that my Dad passed away almost two weeks ago.

During his final days, thoughts flooded my mind of things I would like to write about him.

The days of solid and intense busy-ness and distraction that followed, seemed to drain those thoughts right out of me.

Dad had open heart surgery in 2008 and never returned to his former state; dementia, that had already set in prior to that, worsened. 
I told my sister that when they rolled him off to surgery that day -smiling to keep from crying- it was the last time we really had seen Dad.

The nearly three years that followed, allowed my siblings and I to try and say those things that we needed to say.

Dad was very tenderhearted but he seldom let it show.  He avoided drama at all cost and used humor to divert attempts at tender conversation.  So we didn't have those tearful good-byes.  Instead we laughed.

Laughing is how my family deals with things. 

The day before Dad died, he appeared to be sleeping soundly most of the day.  Family and friends gathered around his bed most of that day and laughed.
They joked (he was the brunt of much of the humor but it was wielded in a loving way), they told stories, they laughed.

I talked with my sister about her husband's parents.  When his father was dying and they were both in different hospital rooms at the same time.  They wheeled his bed into her room where this lifelong couple shared a tender good-bye.
I told my sister that such a scene just wouldn't happen with our Dad.

But I do remember some tender moments:

When I was very small, maybe five or six, Dad and I had traveled to Social Circle, Georgia one evening.  His brother from California was in town and many of Dad's nine siblings were all there.  During the course of the night I was cutting up with a much older cousin and ran into the jagged edge of a chain link fence.  It cut a little gash over my eye and I was distraught.  I can remember the safety I felt in Dad's protective arms.  I also remember the comfort of sleeping in the back seat on the ride home.

On another occasion, Dad must have been rotating the tires one Saturday.  I asked, and he let me help him.  When it was time, he would let me know and I was to "jack-down" the car.
Soon it was time and when I began my duty, the handle on that old bumper-jack got away from me. I found myself being repeatedly smacked in the mouth by that jack handle. 
Again, I remember Dad - quickly and tenderly taking me up in his arms as blood poured from my lips.   It wasn't a very bad injury - a busted lip. After I was cleaned up and lay recuperating on the couch, I can still remember feeling something like pity for Dad - because of his own sense of regret.

There was a Saturday that Dad took me on something like a hike.  I'm sure that some of my Cub Scout friends must have been talking about hiking and I must have begged Dad to take me somewhere.
We ended up walking up through some woods behind the construction site for a new school in our town.  I remember we found some kind of skeletal remains - a cow or a deer - what an adventure.

Not too many years before he died.  I remember Dad -in a rare moment - commending me on not raising my voice to my children. He talked about how well they behaved and then spoke with some regret about getting angry sometimes when he and Mom were rearing us. For me - that has been a very affirming memory.

I can't begin to know the lessons that will come from this man's life and our last few years with him.  I don't want to be too quick to wrap it all up and summarize it.

I can say that he loved his family.  He couldn't say it much - it wasn't his way - and besides he would cry if he did. But he loved all of us.

He loved God.  From his childhood, he wanted to serve God. He led us children into an appreciation for God's Word.

He loved to laugh and to make others laugh.  Sometimes his humor was - as my uncle said - "rough around the edges" - but he liked laughter.
You see, laughter is how my family deals with things.