Thank You, Dad

This has been a difficult week. After a number of years of failing health, my father died on Monday night. Knowing this day would likely come, I had tried to prepare myself  for it. To some extent I had done that, but, then one can never fully prepare.

He may have been only 5’8” but my dad had been a large figure in my life for my entire life. That is true of no one else except my mother, his wife and companion for 64 years. When one of the greatest influences in your life is no longer there, you know you are being affected in ways you are not fully in touch with.  When you cannot call someone you have talked to almost every day for the last five years, you feel a sense of loss.

Right now I am sitting in the room where he spent most of his last years and where I spent a lot of time with him. A few minutes ago something was reported on television. It was the kind of thing I would have called his attention to, and we would have talked about it for a while. In fact, when I heard it, I looked across the room, almost expecting him to be there. But not this time and not any more.  

So many of you have been there. You have felt what I am feeling. If we live long enough, we will all feel it. Tonight I know a mother and daughter who are feeling it.

Sometime ago, sitting in this same room I asked my dad and my mom, “What is your favorite passage of Scripture?” Without a moment’s hesitation, my dad, began to quote, from the King James Version, John 14:27 :

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

 Thanks, Dad. I will hold on to those good words.