My family descended on my parents' house in Small Town, Montana (pop. 2500). I drove up alone from Southern California in two days, while my sister, her husband, and their 16-yr-old daughter drove up from Texas. We got there Monday night (Memorial Day), and their oldest son had already arrived from his Navy base in the Northeast. The next few days saw my brother and his wife come from Massachusetts, my dad's sister from North Carolina, my sister's other Navy son come from the East Coast, and finally my kids flew in from California.
My parents' church was wonderful! They had meals for us scheduled to come every day through the night before the memorial service, and one couple became the taxi service that drove into the Big Town airport an hour away at least once a day to pick up whoever was flying in.
It was good to see everybody all together at the same time, and I even got into a disagreement with my aunt over our country's response to 9-11. She believes that Iraq was beyond a mistake and should never have happened, because it left Afghanistan unfinished and in a mess. I argued (gently, I hope) with her, and when we finished, I told her I appreciated having a discussion with someone I disagreed with, because it's been years. It helped me realize which things I knew and which things I only assumed. I knew what I was saying about the current state of Iraq, but I didn't know what's happening in Afghanistan. The milblogs I read are primarily out of Iraq, so I've got some reading to do about Afghanistan before I talk to my aunt again.
The memorial service for my dad was more than I could have hoped for. I knew, as I drove through Utah, that I would be the one of the three of us kids who would have to speak at the service. My brother and sister are the shy ones in the family. Or rather, I'm the non-shy one. Naturally, for me, I waited until the day of the memorial to figure out what I would say.
I talked about my Daddy and who he was to me, and even as I said some of it, I could see people nodding, because that's the man they knew as well. I said he was a man who did what was right. And he was a man who didn't push his views on people, but asked them questions that drew out the best of who they were and helped them to find their own answers. As a teenager, his questions drove me nuts, but since I grew up and especially since my divorce, I counted on his questions to help me sort out my life. Most of all, he was a man of faith. He prayed and he studied the Word of God, and he lived out his life in service to his Lord.
It was one thing for the family to know who he was, but it was a real joy to hear what people outside the family said about what Daddy meant to them. One woman, who had stayed with my parents for a couple years when they lived in Washington, flew all the way from Australia to be at the memorial service. She said that her childhood hadn't been good, that she had grown up not knowing what a good marriage looked like. But her two years with my parents had shown her what marriage can be, the way a husband should treat his wife. And my dad's questions had helped her to open up and talk about her childhood and her life in a way that helped her to heal.
His questions were a theme running from one friend who spoke to another. Those questions helped a recovering alcoholic to stay sober and to find healthy ways to deal with the challenges of life. Those questions helped a young woman break free from the discouragement that held her back and gave her the confidence to believe in herself.
Several others spoke of Daddy's servant heart. He was a quiet man, not very tall, but he was a big man. And the impact he had on the people who knew him was profound.
I'm going to miss him, and I know I can't begin to imagine how much. But it's my mom I'm most concerned about. My prayer for her is that she would learn all the way to the depths of her heart that she is loved for who she is and not just because she was Daddy's wife.
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