January 2, 1912, Beekmantown, New York
December 26, 1994, Plattsburgh, New York
The Voice of My Father
The poet Robert Bly one said that as adults we speak from the mouth of both our mother and our father. I know when I speak from the mouth of my father. When I speak of my work, I know that it is the voice of my father who taught me the important value of work and the honor that comes with it. When I speak of my affection for animals, I know it is the voice of my father who taught me that all creatures are important in the eyes of the Creator. And when I speak softly of someone, I know it is the voice of my father who taught me quietude and kindness.
The Voice of My Father
The poet Robert Bly one said that as adults we speak from the mouth of both our mother and our father. I know when I speak from the mouth of my father. When I speak of my work, I know that it is the voice of my father who taught me the important value of work and the honor that comes with it. When I speak of my affection for animals, I know it is the voice of my father who taught me that all creatures are important in the eyes of the Creator. And when I speak softly of someone, I know it is the voice of my father who taught me quietude and kindness.
I never once heard my father speak of ill of someone. I never once heard my father demean another human being. The voice of my father will continue to speak to me reminding me that gentleness is truly the greatest strength.
My father will always live within me. Just last summer, while playing golf 10,000 miles away from here in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia, I commented that the spirit of my father, who was still very much alive, was so strongly felt. I could feel him telling how to grip the club; I could hear him telling me, “Keep your head down.” We played terribly, but the presence of my dad while we were separated by such a distance, gave me a warm and wonderful feeling that stayed with me long after the game was finished and long after the trip was completed. I learned then what my friends who’ve walked this path before me meant when they said, “The spirit of my father always lives within me.”
When it came time for him to go home, my father taught me one of the greatest lessons he would ever teach. He taught me that in sickness and then in the act of dying that is dignity, nobility and even majesty.
This was not an easy Christmas, nor one that will ever be forgotten. The greatest gifts given and received were never purchased, never wrapped and never put under a Christmas tree.
Hospice nurses, Karen and Priscilla, gave up long parts of their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to minister to our needs. Thank you, Karen, for teaching me that I could do what I shared I thought I could not do. And, Priscilla, thank you for all the encouragement and thank you for the “bottom line,” and thank you for allowing me to share in the intimacies of your work when he finally moved on.
Friends Coy and Richard, from California, who had come East for a vacation and a white North country Christmas instead unselfishly stayed with us twelve hours on Christmas Eve and eighteen hours on Christmas Day, prepared meals, and kept events on an even keel. They gave us Christmas and provided us with the humor and wit that sustained us through those two difficult days. Thanks! And, Mom, when you remember this special holiday…please… “Remember Christmas dinner.”
Gifts were abundant on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—sharing moment with my father, holding his hand, tending to his few, simple last needs. But the finest gift came on Christmas afternoon when I said, “I love you, Dad,” and for him to say, “I love you.” We gave him permission to die on Christmas, and he returned the gift by telling us, “No, tomorrow.”
I will never play a game of golf, or walk a beach, or eat a michigan (one of his favorite foods), or attend an Expos game or ride a train without recognizing the spirit of my father in those acts. He loved the act of living as he loved activities just mentioned, and often said, “I’ve had a good life.”
We should not grieve his loss, which has become ours, but rather we should rejoice that he’s with God. In the two remaining hours of his life he began talking to persons who were clearly in the room. We knew the room was full of loved ones come to cross the bridge between life and death. My mother asked him, after he lifted his arms upwards, reaching to someone, “Who’s in the room with you?” He replied, “Mom and Dad.”
I know that my father is in paradise this dark and that knowledge will sustain me through the dark months ahead. Let that sustain you, too. He fought hard, yet, in the end, resisted Dylan Thomas’ admonition to “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” and went, instead, “gentle into that good night.”
Dan Ladue December 29, 1994
No comments:
Post a Comment