Remembering Dad

There are a lot of ways in which I am nothing like my father. For example he possessed a brilliant mind when it came to math and science. He loved to work with numbers and data, with dates and graphs, etc. That’s not me. I work with words and abstract thoughts, with philosophy and theology. I was and still am terrible with even basic math. But my sister and my brother are a lot like him in that regard. They both followed him into the general field of engineering, both excel at math and science…they are like dad in that way.

Dad also loved sports (especially Penn State and Pittsburgh Steelers Football), and I don’t know if you can tell just by looking at me…but I am not that athletic. I played soccer, a sport dad never quite understood. “Somebody at one end of the field boots the ball up the field and everybody chases after it, until somebody on the other end boots it back the other way.” He didn’t think the sport could get much more absurd until we took it indoors, but he always came to my indoor soccer games as a little kid. He and the other parents would crowd in the doorway and watch us boot the ball and chase it. He never knew if I played a good game but he would always pat me on the back as we walked to the truck and I knew what he meant. Nonetheless I was not his athletic child: that was Melissa. My sister was a stellar basketball player, and dad loved that. He loved that his little girl could whoop all the boys. He was especially proud when she set the records in ROTC, once again showing up every boy in her class. Whenever we would go to my Grandma Dunham’s she and dad would play games in the driveway, until dad’s knees and back couldn’t handle it anymore and then he’d settle for a game of horse. Of course Melissa always won in those days. I think dad liked it that way.

Dad was also an outdoors man. He loved to garden, to sit in his hammock. He loved to fish, and many of you will know I simply don’t have the patience to fish. No matter how many Dad and Dave campouts my father took me on I never once fished. He would fish and I would make enough noise to guarantee that he didn’t catch anything, but he never said anything about it. He was just happy to be out with me. My dad loved to lay in his hammock out back and to walk through the woods and the mountains. He loved the outdoors, and that’s just not me. I still think the only time you should go outside is if you’re crossing from one inside to another inside. But that describes Patrick well. Dad loved to do Boy Scouts with him, and primarily I think because it was something they could share together. Dad was so proud that his son knew how to tie exotic knots and cook outdoors without the use of gas grills. He loved that his son was, like him, an outdoorsman. Patrick is so very much like dad.

There are, however, some ways in which I am like my father and those are ways that I treasure even more now. For example I am like my father in that I love to read. It was his love for books, which he shared with me, that I am sure caused me to develop a passion for reading. I can still recall those evenings where I would race into his room and jump on the bed and wait for dad to come and read me the stirring tales of Bilbo Baggins and later of Frodo and the Ring. He instilled in me this love for books. Whenever we moved to a new town dad would always take us to get a library card first thing so we could check out books. He loved to read.

I am also like my dad in that I am silly. And silly is a fitting word for my father. In a lot of ways he never really grew up. I recall going to a water park with him when I was in elementary school and how he raced around that park like a little ten year old. He was going to ride everything at least once and some things multiple times. He was also the king of lame jokes…and I do mean lame. These were jokes that no body really thought were funny. Jokes about passing gas and rife with his usual dry humor and sarcasm. I find myself now telling those same lame jokes and laughing. I tell those jokes to my daughter and she will think them funny for about nine more years.

There are some serious ways in which I believe I reflect who my father was too. Like, for example, I know my father loved his family. He loved his sons and his daughter. He was proud of each of us. And he loved my mom. He served her well throughout the years, sacrificing much to provide for his families needs and her wants. He loved my mom’s cooking, and if you’ve ever had anything made by her you know why (she’s an amazing cook). But whenever mom would slave over a delicious meal dad would see to it that she didn’t have to clean up…he put the food away, cleaned the dishes, and straightened up the kitchen. Then he would bring her coffee while she relaxed. He loved to serve my mom. He loved to talk about her too, he use to tell me stories about their early years of marriage, he would tell me that he believed my mom could do anything she put her mind to (and I know that’s true). I recall one time when I was in eighth grade that I caught my dad kissing on my mom and I thought to myself, “that’s weird…get a room.” But I look back now and I realize that much of what I learned about being a loving husband and father came from my dad. We never had formalized discussions about marriage and fatherhood, though I wish we had, but instead I watched him model for us what it meant to love your wife and play with your children. I saw that best exemplified recently in the relationship he developed with his granddaughter. He loved my little girl and she loved her pap pap. He adored her and would have done anything for her. When none of us would get into bathing suits and play in the sprinkler my dad would; his pasty white frame running with her through the cold water. Mia still says, “Pap pap is fun!” And he was fun for all of us.

Finally, I am like my dad in this way: He believed in the power of prayer and the goodness of God. When my dad lost his job I had the privilege to go with him a few times to prayer here at FBC in the mornings. At those times he would come and mention his request to find a new job, but he never made a big fuss about it and he always was willing to pray for others, for some of you out here he prayed. When we cleaned his apartment in Knoxville I found his Bible and a small devotional book next to his bed, and that meant a lot to me. My dad was never very public with his faith. He didn’t hide it; he just didn’t talk about it much. But he loved Jesus and he believed in the goodness of God…I know because of the few conversations we had last year where he highlighted those points for me. Mom reminded me that he use to say often, “God’s timing: seldom early, but never late.” It’s a hard quote for me to appreciate right now…and I have had to say through gritted teeth this week that God is good, but I believe it nonetheless. I believe it because God’s word testifies to it and because my dad knew it to be true. Psalm 84:11 says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” I don’t yet know, and maybe never will, how dad’s death is good…but if the Lord doesn’t withhold ANYTHING good, then it must be good for me that dad died. I do know that it was good for dad, because he went to be with his Savior.

You know, there were certain contexts where dad always had to be first. When I got a BB gun for Christmas dad got to shoot it first, then me. When we got the first Nintendo and we wanted to play this game called Excite bike, it was usually dad’s turn first and we could play after him. It seems that this is another one of those contexts where dad gets to go first: he gets to meet Jesus before us. Were he here he would probably say, “You’ll have to wait your turn.”