Dad: 1929 – 1999
My father had always had a goal to live to the year 2000, and sadly he missed it by only a few weeks as a result of having cancer. At the end of his life he performed an outstanding and human effort in living his last months in the most difficult of circumstances, which left everyone deeply moved and impressed.
Dad had married for the third time in 2001, to Joan whom he met in Bowling Green through his work. She is a wonderful person, who I have adopted as one of my surrogate mothers (one needs several in this life). We would think of this marriage as “third time is the charm” for him – his other marriages were significantly less successful. He had six children in all, and he tried in his last months to resolve all the many open issues with each of us, with his very best efforts.
He loved his work as a psychiatrist, but because of the nature of it we didn’t have a lot of insight into what he did or how he worked with people. During the viewing days at the funeral many people came to see him off, and wanted to speak to us his children about how much he had helped them and made a difference in their lives. It was a revelation to me; I wish I had known while he was alive about the love his patients had for him.
So here is his eulogy which I wrote and presented for him. I am pleased to say that I got one laugh from the very large crowd (when I talked about his sins). But there were few dry eyes afterwards.
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The last decade of our father’s life was a remarkable series of completions of great circles in his life. He was born in West Virginia, not very far from here, and after 45 years of being in different places, he finally “came home” to Kentucky and the South, and he felt that Bowling Green was home. He had finally come back to his family roots with us, and was rediscovering the value of his children to his life. He was raised as a Catholic, and had been an alter boy, but he fell away after he got to college, and had lived as a humanist during the years since. His relationship with Joan began his spiritual journey to complete his circle with God.
There are few gifts in death, but in Dad’s case the last nine months of contemplation that he had, and the good that he did, was a great gift not only to him, but also to all of us.
From what he said it most possible that his initial return to the Church was taken only to assure that Joan’s soul would be clear in the eyes of the Church. Fortunately, God sent him an intelligent priest to discuss these issues. I have met Father Richard now, and I understand the engagement of these two men, and applaud Father Richard’s perception.
Dad had to do confession. By his own estimation, he’d committed a lot of sins over time (it is fair to say, some with great gusto.) Nevertheless, when the reckoning time arrived, he was willing to unburden himself. By Dad’s account, it took about three hours to get to the bottom of things.
What in the world should a priest give a man of such accomplishment, intelligence, and wit, as a penance for a lifetime of sins? How many Hail Marys would it take to atone?
But according to Dad, Father Richard told him, “Your penance is to accept God’s forgiveness.”
Dad needed meat – all the time. Well, he got it. That penance – to accept the goodness and mercy of God – became a key element in the development of his thinking over the remaining months of his life. To accept that a higher power was in control represented a major shift in his worldview, which required contemplation, discussion, and digestion.
What more perfect penance could be given? Dad was not a candidate for repetitious prayers – though had that been the prescription, he would have taken it. Had he not been intellectually and spiritually challenged in this way, he would not have continued in his reconciliation to spiritual matters so successfully. And as part of that, his dedication to doing good, and doing God’s will, attained tremendous power in his relations and reconciliations with us, as well as acting as a cornerstone of his remarkable and dignified journey toward Death.
He had visions in his last few months, many about spiritual things. He shared these visions with everyone. Dad was not a person given to spiritual ideas. He was a man of facts. But as the ineffable fact of death came toward him, he turned his mind to the evaluation of the spirit. His visions were wonderful and instructive.
His refrain in the last few months when I saw him was, “Be a family.” At Thanksgiving, when we thought he couldn’t possibly live another day, when he woke up and saw us he would say, “I love you.” Like each time might be the last time. And none of us knew if it would be or not.
There was a moment when he told Joan, “I will die like a man”. I don’t know where one goes to learn how to do that. But his process of death was a model of dignity, patience, repose, acceptance, love, and intellectual and spiritual activity. His life had many fragments, and in his last nine months he did everything in his power to bring those pieces together, to create a legacy among his family who would live on after him.
A couple of months ago, in one of the many conversations that he had with us all, I had a chance to tell him how impressed I was with his approach to his circumstances, and using the same words as I have just now with you here. He was touched, and surprised (as if no one was noticing his process!) and said to me, “Wow. Why don’t you write that down?”
So now I have.
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I miss my dad still, all the time.
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