Friday, June 08, 2007
What People Are Saying About My Dad...
We are in the middle of the memorial process, having completed the visitation yesterday with the memorial service today. The business of the process is a welcome distraction, but the intrusiveness occassionally borders on barbaric. But I have to remind myself that my mother, sister, neices, nephews and I are not the only ones to have experienced loss. I probably have the easiest time of it because I was with Dad - there is a certainty to the circumstance for me that they do not share.
My father was a man of amazing professional accomplishment, and a true American success story. Yet few people I have spoken to these days are aware of those accomplishments - oh sure, the people he did them with know, but even they are not talking about them.
One of my dad's best friends, a guy he has had breakfast with every Thursday for 22 years, summed up best what EVERYBODY has said. Dad more than anyone they knew demostrated the ACTS of the Christian life. So many people have come to me to tell me their story of how my father helped them, from finding a job to probating their parents will for free to just sitting with them when they were lonely, the theme is dad's willingness to give. So many people have come to me telling me how Dad was their strength and their help and how will they get through situation X without him?
That is the epitath I know he would want - helper, friend, servant.
Pray for my mother, her broken clavicle is going to require a bit of surgery next week. Pray for my sister - she is carrying the weight of her family, her grief and my mother.
Pray for all those that find themselves without the assistance and comfort my father so freely gave. I certainly am not up to the task
My father was a man of amazing professional accomplishment, and a true American success story. Yet few people I have spoken to these days are aware of those accomplishments - oh sure, the people he did them with know, but even they are not talking about them.
One of my dad's best friends, a guy he has had breakfast with every Thursday for 22 years, summed up best what EVERYBODY has said. Dad more than anyone they knew demostrated the ACTS of the Christian life. So many people have come to me to tell me their story of how my father helped them, from finding a job to probating their parents will for free to just sitting with them when they were lonely, the theme is dad's willingness to give. So many people have come to me telling me how Dad was their strength and their help and how will they get through situation X without him?
That is the epitath I know he would want - helper, friend, servant.
Pray for my mother, her broken clavicle is going to require a bit of surgery next week. Pray for my sister - she is carrying the weight of her family, her grief and my mother.
Pray for all those that find themselves without the assistance and comfort my father so freely gave. I certainly am not up to the task
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Job Had Nothing On Me
I was 24 hours in transit from Jackson Mississippi to Indidnapolis Indiana. Weather in Dallas closed the airport several hours the day I travelled resulting in my having to spend the night in the DFW terminal (every hotel was sold out). The good news was that my wife making her way to Indy from LA was stranded with me. Her presence was a great blessing in an otherwise horrific situation.
I arrived to news that my mother's broken clavical had moved out of place. We are looking at surgery for her next week to get things put back.
Long time readers will remember my friend Ken. Yesterday while talking to Ken's mother we figured out that the accident that resulted in Ken's death and the one that resulted in my father's were the exact same date two years apart.
I had hoped that with my father's death we could settle into rebuilding a life for my mother and slowly trying to deal with the facts, but God apparently has a different idea. I am grateful I have friends that are more helpful than Job's. God has not abandoned us, nor is all this the result of my numerous sins, it is simply a trial.
We are, after all, Presbyterians - order matters to us as a family and right now there is no order. God's lesson is that no matter how hard we work we cannot reorder, we can only trust. His grace is sufficient.
Perhaps God is providing distractions so that the overwhelming grief of our loss can be handled in small bits sneaking in through the cracks. Before Sunday, the first place I would turned for advice in situation like this would have been my father. I guess at 50 (oh yeah, today is my 50th birthday) I am finally becoming a man.
My deepest desire right now is to help my mother and sister find peace. My wife is my strength for which I will be eternally grateful. I think because I was with dad, much of my grief is spent, but theirs is only beginning. Please pray for them.
I arrived to news that my mother's broken clavical had moved out of place. We are looking at surgery for her next week to get things put back.
Long time readers will remember my friend Ken. Yesterday while talking to Ken's mother we figured out that the accident that resulted in Ken's death and the one that resulted in my father's were the exact same date two years apart.
I had hoped that with my father's death we could settle into rebuilding a life for my mother and slowly trying to deal with the facts, but God apparently has a different idea. I am grateful I have friends that are more helpful than Job's. God has not abandoned us, nor is all this the result of my numerous sins, it is simply a trial.
We are, after all, Presbyterians - order matters to us as a family and right now there is no order. God's lesson is that no matter how hard we work we cannot reorder, we can only trust. His grace is sufficient.
Perhaps God is providing distractions so that the overwhelming grief of our loss can be handled in small bits sneaking in through the cracks. Before Sunday, the first place I would turned for advice in situation like this would have been my father. I guess at 50 (oh yeah, today is my 50th birthday) I am finally becoming a man.
My deepest desire right now is to help my mother and sister find peace. My wife is my strength for which I will be eternally grateful. I think because I was with dad, much of my grief is spent, but theirs is only beginning. Please pray for them.
Monday, June 04, 2007
The Deed Is Done
Less than two hours after I posted yesterday, the doctors came. My dad had had an awful night. As I said, the decisions made themselves, but the execution...
I held his hand as he expired and asked God to take care of him. I am so grateful, as I know dad is, that my mother and sister were spared the agony of being there.
My father was much more than just "dad" to me - friend, business partner, confidant. I now feel like that cartoon character that has run off the cliff several strides and just realized it, yet gravity has not taken hold.
My wife and I will connect later today, pray that I can hold gravity at bay until then. I am surrounded here by very loving extended family and I will forever be grateful for and to them - they are God's instruments at this time - but it is now time for home and hearth. To Indianapolis I go to bury my father and set my mother up in a new and single life for the first time in 52 years. She will be close to my sister and that will be great - they need each other.
I currently lack the words to describe how wonderful my father was.
I love you Dad.
I held his hand as he expired and asked God to take care of him. I am so grateful, as I know dad is, that my mother and sister were spared the agony of being there.
My father was much more than just "dad" to me - friend, business partner, confidant. I now feel like that cartoon character that has run off the cliff several strides and just realized it, yet gravity has not taken hold.
My wife and I will connect later today, pray that I can hold gravity at bay until then. I am surrounded here by very loving extended family and I will forever be grateful for and to them - they are God's instruments at this time - but it is now time for home and hearth. To Indianapolis I go to bury my father and set my mother up in a new and single life for the first time in 52 years. She will be close to my sister and that will be great - they need each other.
I currently lack the words to describe how wonderful my father was.
I love you Dad.
FATHERS DAY
Mrs. Blogotional prepared this for a couple of weeks from now, but I think it is appropriate for today.
Related Tags: Father's Day
Related Tags: Father's Day
Sunday, June 03, 2007
My Dad Is Not Doing Well...
We have been told that a "pull the plug" decision may, if things continue as they are, be a couple of days away.
I hate sin right now, I mean really hate. Clearly sin is what puts us in a place where what actually constitutes mercy and grace can be so hard to determine. My father has always made his wishes very clear, so the decisions make themselves here, yet the burden rests so heavy.
Father in heaven:
My father is Your man and any of Your man that I may be is because of the piece of You that he gave me. My, and his, sole desire is that Your will be most evident to those around us.
He is in Your merciful and mighty hands. Give me the strength to leave him there.
AMEN
I hate sin right now, I mean really hate. Clearly sin is what puts us in a place where what actually constitutes mercy and grace can be so hard to determine. My father has always made his wishes very clear, so the decisions make themselves here, yet the burden rests so heavy.
Father in heaven:
My father is Your man and any of Your man that I may be is because of the piece of You that he gave me. My, and his, sole desire is that Your will be most evident to those around us.
He is in Your merciful and mighty hands. Give me the strength to leave him there.
AMEN
