My Dad

I miss my Dad. This seems to grow on me as I get older and realize what a wise man he really was.

Whenever I think about him, the thing that always strikes me first is how much he loved my Mom. Their relationship was not perfect. Whose is? Mom could get pretty angry when things didn't go her way and had the capability to say the most awfully mean and hurtful things to him. This, somehow, never made him get angry. He had a temper, a scary one (after all, he was one of those passionate Mediterraneans). Things would flare up from time to time but whenever she got angry, he would respond in humility. It took me years to understand how beautiful that was.

I would go shopping with him for Christmas and, when he shopped for her, there was always a giddy excitement and a special twinkle in his eye when he would find something he thought she would like, "Do you think your Mom would like this?'

Whenever he and I would have a 'serious' talk, it always....always....got around to Mom. He would say, "Don't you ever do anything to hurt your mother. Or", "She's the important one, never forget that."

That cold Ohio night in February, just before he passed away, the last words he said, face to face, to me were, "Take care of your Mom. Tell her I love her."

He did...he loved her.

My Dad didn't get saved until early that next morning. His very last words were to his doctor, "Tell my boy I took care of that business we were talking about." Then he slipped away. Dad didn't meet Jesus until the end but he had a love for my mother that went beyond understanding. It was a self-sacrificing, humble, serving commitment and devotion to the vows he made to her when they got married. I can't think of a better reflection of Christ than what I saw in the way my father loved my mother.

As I've discovered more and more with each year, Dad was teaching me. He was always teaching me; when I didn't know it, sometimes when I didn't want it. And now...there's comfort in realizing that he still is.

Thanks, Dad.