![]() That love–that love with an answer–has made all the difference. That autobiography I mentioned earlier, doesn’t start with “I was born.” It starts with “I began to live when I married my wife.” While I am incredibly grateful for my father’s joy, I know the love for our mom is the greatest gift he could have given his children. The gifts are found in the love with an answer, the way he loved and did life with our mother, a love not superficially crafted for social media, but one with deep roots and the abiding presence of the Divine. The gifts are in his many unanswered questions about God and eternity, questions for which he left us to find the answers. The gifts are in the joy in spite of circumstances. They’re found in the celebration of the good that life offers in all its forms, in the beauty of a deep, abiding appreciation for life and grace and a recognition that everything we have is gift and grace. The gifts are in the sometimes uninvited–a little too straightforward–but sound counsel that pushed us to do right and be better. The gifts are in the lessons about grit and hard work and striving for excellence, about making no excuses and owning our mistakes and allowing them to prod us toward growth. They’re found in the music he gave us, the Sunday morning listening to everything from jazz to blues to ballads and everything in between that makes much of the stuff churned out nowadays intolerable. He parlayed all of that weight into beautiful gifts for his wife, his children, his grandchildren, and for generations to come. I believe he carried them with him his whole life, but “it’s not the weight carried, but how carried it, how embraced it, balanced it, carried it when could not, would not put it down.” He never forgot those painful moments from his childhood. And his very soul was steeped in an infectious joy. Despite the pain and disappointment he endured, my father found his way to joy. He wrote in the autobiography he started about being told the word “no” so much that he did not want his wife or children to hear that word. ![]() He’d tell us about a painful memory from his childhood, a hurt that stung all his life. Every now and then, it would eke out in small ways. To look at him–to even know him–you wouldn’t see it. This poem speaks to me not only because of my own grief, but because as I read it, I thought about the fact that my father had a lot of hurt in his life. I adapted the poem for my purposes, but you can read the original poem here. Having endured so much grief, the poem that speaks to my heart in this moment is Mary Oliver’s “Heavy.” My dad passed away Februat 86.5 years of age, and I have been struggling to put my thoughts and feelings into words. ![]() Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. “Daddy Second Lining.” Photo by Darius T/Tapman Media ![]()
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