The End of the Alphabet and the Beginning of Life

Conclusion to my series through the alphabet in memory and honor of my Dad.

 

My parents always celebrated their anniversary and Mom’s birthday on the Labor Day weekend. This year would have marked their 60th wedding anniversary. Their marriage was truly a labor of work and love in raising six children and staying true to their marriage vows for nearly sixty years. It’s fitting that my small labor of love in posting about my Dad is completed on this holiday that held so much meaning for our family. 

This final post in my alphabet tribute to my Dad, who passed away in May, has been simmering for quite a while. If you’ve followed the earlier posts, you may have thought I dropped the project here at the end. Each time I’ve sat down to work on this, the finality of Dad’s death weighed so heavily on my heart. I had spun out stories of his life over two months of writing and now those stories (in this context anyway) were coming to an end. It was just too symbolic for me to put pen to paper and conclude. 

Finality. It’s a mystery how it can be both our enemy and our friend. I suppose it is a sign that my journey through grief has taken the normal and good course in that it’s taken me a while to finish this, but also that I have reached the pinnacle of putting the final paragraphs and last period on the completed project. Thanks to all who have honored my Dad (and Mom) by reading these little essays. Your kind friendship and love via reading eyes, nodding hearts, gentle smiles, and a tear or two means so much to me. 

[This final post covers W, X, Y, and Z. You can follow the entire series beginning here.]

W - Wise. Over my lifetime, I’ve met many people in all the places God has privileged me to travel and live. And I’ve always thought to myself, “My Dad is one of the wisest people I know.” This is not only a wonderful thing for a daughter to think about her Dad, even as she herself journeys through grand-parenting years toward the golden age; it is also true. My Dad was indeed a very wise man. 

With only an 8^th grade education, his years growing up in the beautiful Ohio farming communities of Mennonites and Amish established foundational roots for living a wise life. The deliberate choices Dad made to always be in church on Sunday with his wife and all his children, the friends he and Mom chose (a lot of couple friendships), the books he read, the places and people he chose to visit and spend time with, his sense of responsibility in caring for his property, his worn-out Bible--all seeds for being wise through the stages of life. 

To me, a secret ingredient that many others do not have access to during busy family years was all the solitude he enjoyed as a truck driver over his career. He listened to many good radio programs as he drove, talked to people all over the country in restaurants, truck stops, observed human nature in the work-a-day world, and reflected on things while the miles were gobbled up under his eighteen-wheeler. The art of reflection is something being lost in our world of constant information and electronic plug-ins. Dad’s example reminds me to unplug every day and look for time to reflect on things of importance. 

A former pastor of mine, Rev. Mike Schuelke, wrote this recently in a Facebook post, a comment regarding an article in Christianity Today about “brains and belief”:

Some of the most intelligent people I know are Christians, a physicist at Pitt, a pathologist at our regional med center, and several pastors who demonstrate expansive knowledge in a wide range of fields, one, who before becoming a pastor was a lawyer and chemical engineer working for Dupont. . . . But above all this we have the words of the highly gifted and intelligent Apostle Paul who declares: 1 Corinthians 1:26-29--Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.

My Dad was not wise by human standards, influential, or of noble birth. But God chose him and gave him the gifts that matter in the end, including not just grace for wisely living; but the gift of wisely dying held in the firm and loving grip of God’s grace. 

Thank you, Lord, that my Dad searched for wisdom as one might search for truest gold and found it in You. He died a rich man indeed!

X - Example.  How many children have looked to their parents for a good example in this or that area and been greeted by less-than-hoped-for true-life snapshots? As I woke this morning, I was thinking about my Dad and this article. Dozens of mind-snap-shots passed by the screen in my heart of him in this or that memory. I watched the sun coming up through the trees with these pleasant thoughts in mind and pondered how my memories of Dad are such a gift, one that is still forming me and helping me to find the good path, the higher calling even as the grass grows green now over his fresh grave.

Someone might read this entire series and charge that I only write about the good and noble things. “Surely your Dad had some foibles too? Surely he wrestled with some demons?” Certainly in some small ways I saw that, as Dad figured things out in a complicated world, as he confessed his sin to his family and most importantly to his God. But the overall tenor and arch of his life was one of godly living. Those seeds, planted over the decades grew into a life that was like a mighty oak, standing strong against the storms of life, bearing fruit in season, reaching up in faith toward the Son and Life.

A friend of my Dad’s, the apostle Paul puts it this way:

Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.   Philippians 4:8 ESV

Thank you, Lord, that my Dad lived his life in such a way that my reflections through the alphabet on his life and example include things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. Thank you that Dad helped me to choose this kind of a mindset, even in the things we talked about over the past several years, in his example of embracing things that truly mattered.

Y - Young.  As Mom’s health declined over her last several years, I heard her say numerous times, “I’m like an old lady, but your Dad is so young, strong as an ox.” Certainly in her view, he was. As her health deteriorated, God gave Dad the gift of strength to be her rock, her strength, her caregiver. What an incredible gift this was, as he never seemed to grow tired or unfaithful, even when the demands of his new role in his senior years were certainly not light or easy.

Dad at Christmas in 1953 in his new home with Mom

 

I’m thinking the secret to him staying so young at heart came from the prophet Isaiah. Dad loved to read that book of prophecy. When I was in elementary school, I remember him reading a huge tome by H.A. Ironside, a commentary on Isaiah in preparation for a Sunday School class he was teaching. One paragraph that stands out in that prophet’s book is one that has kept countless Christians young in heart, soul, and even body:

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

                                                                          Isaiah 40:29-31, KJV

During Dad’s visit to us in December of 2012, my husband Larry read Isaiah 40, the entire chapter, before lunch on the day we were heading to Duke Chapel to hear the MESSIAH (several of the verses in that chapter are set to the score of this magnificent oratorio). That chapter begins with this declaration:

               Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

A few verses later, I am reminded of my own tears following my parent’s deaths:

A voice says, “Cry!”

    And I said, “What shall I cry?”

All flesh is grass,

    and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades

    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;

    surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades . . .

Yes, even young at heart people die and we who love them cry. That ellipsis above is followed by this phrase:

               . . . but the word of our God will stand forever.

That was Dad’s secret to staying young . . . he stayed in God’s word all through his adult life. It is that word that gave all our family great comfort and hope as we laid Dad to rest beside my Mom, with these words engraved on their tombstone:

               In thy presence is fullness of joy.  Psalm 16:11

Thank you, Lord, that Dad knew that Life was to be found in You, and that ever-present Spring of Joy kept his perspective on life true, lively, and young-at-heart.

Z - Zoo.  “It’s a zoo around here!” Dad’s oft heard commentary on life at home with a quiver full of children, chickens, dogs, cattle, cats, mice, birds, sheep, fish, turtles and a lovely Zoo-keeper at his side to manage it all. He wouldn’t have had it any other way. God gave Dad a rich full life, an alphabet teeming with opportunities and gifts from his God to enjoy life in this beautiful world, one day at a time, one letter at a time, one family and wife at a time, one sunrise and sunset at a time, one prayer at a time, one breath at a time. 

Thank you, Lord, for giving my Dad the breath of life for 82 years. Thank you for mysteriously transforming him into a new creature in heaven. Thank you that I’m confident I’ll have no problem recognizing his face and voice when I stepped across that Deep River myself into that place where all is life and peace. 

~ ~ ~ 

MUSIC LINKS

Deep River – sung Norman Luboff Choir/Stokowski

Seven verses from Isaiah 40 are used for the libretto in the Messiah:

  Comfort Ye (verses 1-3) and Every Valley Shall Be Exalted (verse 4)

  And the Glory (verse 5)

  O Thou that TellestGood Tidings (verse 9)

  He Shall Feed HisFlock* (verse 11)

*My brother Jim sang this aria at my Aunt Doris’s memorial service in Kidron, Ohio, exactly one year ago today. Doris was Dad’s younger sister and the first of his siblings to pass away. 

Thank you friends for reading these posts about my Dad. May the Lord bless you and keep you in his love and care all the days of your life, and may He take you too one day, safely into his everlasting kingdom where all is life and peace. 

Dad tending to Mom's grave in June of 2012