And when our time comes, I imagine each of us will want just a little more time. If your life has been rich and full, wouldn’t you? And if you can say “the best I could,” what a triumph!
My father had 79 full and wonderful years on this earth:
He fathered three sons—in the hospital, when pressed on what was his happiest moment he told us it was hearing the doctor say, "it’s a boy"...and I got to hear it three times!
He gave 60-plus years of public and private service—in the Army, the government, this church, and to his family and friends.
He was strong, and dutiful, and determined……but he was also full of laughter and play. Every single young lady I ever brought to visit this church walked up past the choir to the rail for communion and came back with an almost scandalized, “He winked at me! Your father winked at me!”
He told me he knew I had found the right one because Carter was the first to wink back.
He loved his wife with a protective passion, with a fierce flame that was wonderful to behold. I remember one family dinner when Dave and I had been baiting our mother, pushing buttons in the way that only one’s children can, and she had left for a meeting practically in tears. As we stood in the kitchen beginning to clean up my father stalked in.
“How you treat your mother is your own business, but I will be damned if you will treat my wife that way.”
Family dinners. Perhaps nowhere did my father’s devotion to his family shine brighter. Even if he had to go back to work, my father always, always came home for dinner. I remember sitting at my play table by the front window, anxiously peeking through the blinds, wanting to be the first to shout, “Papa’s home!” I was almost twelve before I was allowed to miss a family dinner—in order to play Little League, and it took a year of lobbying to achieve that which was to me a small concession. Family dinner was where I learned state and world capitals, where I learned that “you don’t have to like it, you just have to eat it.” Where I learned that you wait for the hostess to lift her fork and you said, “may I be excused, please?” Where I learned about the world outside—where our character was built. Where I learned poetry—recited from memory—the poetry of Robert W. Service and other greater (but less fun) poets, and marvelous songs played on the piano that sat behind his chair.
My own favorite memory of my father is of his 70th birthday dinner at the Old Angler’s Inn. I remember sitting at one end of the table with my father—perhaps slightly over celebratory—and just laughing about the marvelous wonderful world we lived in and the people we knew. To sit there as a “grownup” and share the beautiful struggle that is life and to see the joy and sorrow and absurdity and depth that we all go through—just to have shared that—is one of the most cherished moments of my life.
But that chair at the end of the table is empty now.
And it was a family dinner when I knew that something was terribly wrong. Christmas dinner this past year, family dinner, my father got up—had to leave the table before the conversations were ended, before all the stories had been told…….we, he, did not do this.
When people asked, “when did all this start?” at first, this was where I began, but after answering a few times I realized I had the wrong Christmas in mind. Ten years ago Christmas Eve we went to visit my father in the hospital. He had spent the better part of the previous 3 weeks in a coma, fighting the ravages of lung cancer and a post-operative infection. Christmas Eve we visited before coming here to celebrate the birth of Christ. And Christmas Eve ten years ago, to our shock, amazement, and delight, he came up from those depths and I will never forget the questions that night—“how is your father?”—and being able to say for the first time that he was going to recover.
Ten more Christmases. Ten more years—ten years in which he was granted more music, more learning, more light, more life.
Ten years in which he saw me attain my Master’s, finally completing something I had begun. Ten years in which he got to know and love his daughter-in-law and meet his wonderful grandson.
Ten years in which he saw his eldest struggle and grow and bring forth more of the beautiful music that he said was the most enjoyable thing in his life.
Ten years in which he saw his Dave stop, discover a new body of knowledge and launch and succeed in his own business. Ten years in which he saw Dave step forward again and again and to the last days. . . . .and be the one to depend on.
But mostly ten years to share with his beloved wife, traveling, learning, loving—ten more years to have and to hold, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, ‘til in death they did part.
One final memory.
Before we left the hospital one sunny day, with the promise of spring in the air, Carter asked if he would be Sandy’s guardian angel. Surprise lit my father’s face, “do you think he will need one?” A moment’s thought, a glance at me, and then, “yes, I suppose he will. Of course I will watch over him.”
And I know that is where my father is, sitting in heaven, watching over Sandy, and my family, and every one here today. And me. Someone to watch over me.