The Last of the Firsts

One year ago today my father died. That makes today the last of the firsts. We got through the first wedding, new baby, Thanksgiving, Christmas, wedding anniversary, birthday, Father’s Day, 4th of July bash, etc. And now the first anniversary of his death is here.

This is not a sad occasion.

My dad was a good man who lived a rough life. When the babies were up in heaven choosing parents, my father drew the short straw. Still, with all of the disadvantages that he started out with, he achieved something spectacular. He fell in love when he was in junior high and stayed in love with the same woman until the day he died. He was completely convinced that he had married the most wonderful woman ever born and that he was the luckiest man in the world. How cool is that to spend your life feeling so blessed?

Before his life ended he had five children, 13 grandchildren, and one great grandchild. He has had three more great grandchildren in the last year, so that is a testament to his immortality. So far that makes 22 people who would not exist if it weren’t for him. Within the next 50 years, there could easily be 150 descendants of my father. Some of them may not live up to their full potential, but there will be a gene of pure goodness running through all of them. My dad never met a stranger and never deliberately caused harm to anyone, so I can’t imagine that there will be any bad seeds. The odds increase as you count the numbers in each successive generation that one of my father’s descendants will be president. One will most likely be a scientist that finds a cure to something. One will most likely enter the clergy and save souls. Most will be good, hard working people who keep the world moving forward and bear gorgeous, gifted children. So my point is that he isn’t gone. He has left a mark on human history that may not yet be apparent, but I have absolute faith that he has changed the world.

Of course, that isn’t even taking into account the number of people he impacted that were not his descendants. He spent a lot of time parenting children that weren’t his own. His lectures were infamous, but all from the heart. His legacy is that his heart and his home were open to anyone. I can’t count on both hands the number of people we took in ‘just until they get on their feet’ when I was a kid. There was no room in our house for extra people, but that was not a barrier to moving them in. I think that his example of goodness changed the destiny of people who might have ended up somewhere far worse than our crowded little house.

When they made my dad, they broke the mold. (If he heard me say that, he would have to tack on “Yeah, and then after they broke the mold, they beat the hell out of the mold maker.”)

Love ya’ Daddy.